Birthday Extravaganza

We had two birthday parties this weekend.

Happy 4th Birthday, Jude S!

Where: CDC Upstairs Gym

Highlights: The perfect party place, familiar to the kids, minimal decorations, and inexpensive. Max, Maddy stayed with Cousin Ann for the first time to take a nap, had a blast!

Happy 4th Birthday Hannah!

Where: The Little Gym

Highlights: The very huge, very delicious, princess cake, complete with castle from Mickey's. The children had a blast! Nothing like almost controlled free play.

2009 Holiday House

My weekend started off with planned visit to the annual Holiday House. I got surprise free tickets and had an unplanned girls night out. Rodney took the kids with him to pick Kisha up from school, so I was free as a bird.

I was supposed to be shopping for Christmas presents and decorations, but it didn't turn out that way. I bought earrings for me, a wallet for me, a new hat, scarf, & gloves set for me, and I got some headbands and hats for Maddy and Be'yah, but I have been wearing the headbands for the last few days. I think the only unselfish gift I picked up was Be'yah's Christmas present. I also got some mesh and a new tree topper that matches the new Christmas balls KWK picked up at Sam's. So maybe I accomplished a little bit. I also got some cool new sauce that's for marinade of meats or can be served with cream cheese and crackers.

Ended my night with okay food, terrible service, and plenty of laughs with my good friends that I call my City Hall Crew. Surprisingly no drinks, but I still woke up the next day with a hangover. If you ever get an opportunity to try the Wine-A-Rita frozen drinks just try one. They had a booth at the Holiday House, it's this mix, 1/2 bottle of wine and ice. Best frozen drink I ever had. Unfortunately, I had two teaspoon size samples and I was buzzing. I went back the next day to buy some for entertaining but my head was hurting so bad I forgot to make that stop again. I did buy more stuff for my self and picked up a hat for Grayce.

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Olivia had her 6th birthday party at The Jump Zone.Maddy had a blast; got her footing right off and went to business. Maddy and I conquered the Incredibles slide with great triumph. I was worn out after we got to the bottom. It was hard carrying 30 extra pounds up that steep slick plastic thing they call a ladder.
The cupcakes were homemade and had a really cool chocolate hand made kitty cat head on the top that was really good. Maddy really enjoyed the cupcake.

This was Max's 2nd trip to The Jump Zone. The first visit he sat on the bench and whined most of the time. He doesn't like unsure footing. he was inspired by his little sister's bravery this time.

He did find time during his first visit to go to the baby area and bully a few of them. he visited it again this time. He is such a wuss some times.

I was glad he was in the kitchen though because there was a television there and it was playing the Razorback game. They actually won that one. I have a little cousin that plays for them team that I really don't know, but I used to have a pretty good relationship with his mother. Go Joe!

This was my first self portrait since the creation of digital cameras. It was taken from inside the big carousel bounce house that the kids lured me into. I really got a workout that day.

I forgot to mention that I am testing some new hair products that my stylists recommended. Or really I should say old school hair products - spray curl activator! Can you believe it! I promised to commit for a week, but I can't shake the smell and I don't like the stickiness. I only have two more days to go.

The Party - Part 4 - Randoms

As the party winded down Kobi Janai took a few moments to get her model on! There are about a dozen different poses of this one. This is the best of about 10 shots that Rodney tried to get of the kids.
Preston who had been in Max's class since day one got a chance to come to the party. He has graduated to the big kids school with his older brother and sister. Max was glad to see him and I was happy to visit with his mother.

Poor little Kennedy was worn out after they took him out of that hot costume.

High Profile: State Representative Darrin Williams dropped by to wish Max a happy birthday.

Rodney was actually at the party. This was the only picture we have of him out of the 200+ that were taken. His costume was "Angry Yard Man."

I was supposed to be a glamour witch but I never had time to put my make-up on. So I was just the hostess in the black dress with a witch hat.

Rodney says the party was really for me, but it was all about Maxwell and he loved it!
Happy Birthday Baby!

The Party - Part 3

Double, double, toil, and trouble,
Fires burn and cauldrons bubble . . .
Calling all witches, goblins, and ghosts,
The Blocker family will be your host . . .

That was the wording on the invitation and so they came all dolled up in their costumes . . .

Uncle James and our newest member of the family, our nephew Kennedy. We still haven't figured out his costume. He was some type of blue sparkly monster.
Kason was the white ninja from G.I. Joe - Storm Shadow, I think.
Elena was a really cute Minnie Mouse. Hannah was one of our many princesses.
My niece, Kobi Janai was a super cute flower.
Jude was Optimus Prime from the Transformers - Max's ally.

The Party - Part 2

Maddy was up early that day and ready to party -- until the action started and then she was just plain cranky. She floated from arm to arm, in and out of sleep for hours that afternoon, but didn't get her real sleep on until about 7 PM. Poor kid was also hungry, but didn't ever eat because she was just too excited or mad.The cake by Robin Abdullah was a smash hit. It was cute and it was good. It went fast and as usual there was nothing left. I ordered one the following week so that I could just have one to eat at my (our) leisure. The cake is always my favorite part.Max has finally got this birthday thing down - he knows the song very well and is familiar with the tradition of blowing out the candles. So much so that as soon as I got them lit he blew them out, but that was before another of his party guests could beat him to the punch. They were ready! That's him smiling during the birthday song - his favorite part! He cares nothing about the cake.

My friends S & S - the least likely to be holding babies. Neither one of them really like children, but somehow they always end up with one of mine or my nieces or nephews.
After the Balloonman, before and after the cake, the children ran and played in the yard. You know, the one I never go into. They discovered the cool rocks on the side of the driveway and climbed their hearts out. They collected sticks and leaves and played chase. Rodney huffed and puffed about doing the yard because he wanted to wait until the last leaf had fallen, but I insisted and even hired one of my brothers to help. Thank you Rodney and Kobi; it was well worth it.

Of course the yard looks like it has never been raked again!

My nephew Kam. He was Megatron! There were a lot of Transformers running around!

The Party - Part 1

The birthday party will continue to be a multi part blog because there were so many pictures. So finally I got it all organized and here we go. The guests and their parents arrived and were seated after taking a family photo on the porch with our Halloween/Fall backdrop. Aryshona and Be'yah were among the guests that sat in the kitchen while the magic happened. Mostly Max's uncle, sister, her boyfriend, other adults . . .

The children really enjoyed Mr. Don-The Magical Balloonman. Max was his special helper for all of the magic and balloon creations. We were also the test group for some of his new stuff. The older children and some of the adults were totally amazed by him.

Max passed out the balloon creations to his guests. Oh, and he was Bumblebee from the Transformers, but somehow we never got a good shot of him in action.Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales was one of the more non-traditional creations.Spider Man was also a very complicated creation; he drew the face and spider on him. The more traditional poodles and swords were also present.

Party Pics are coming

I have been so busy trying to get the gifts inventoried, the thank you's ordered, prepping for the dozen or so more birthday parties that we will attend through February, returning my house to it's normal state, and enjoying Blocker's day shift that I haven't had time to go through all 300+ pics to choose what I wanted to put on the blog for the actual day of Max's party.

But I guess you can enjoy all of the previous blogs until I get them posted!

Halloween House

It was a long time coming, a little planning, and a lot of hard work, but I pulled off another successful event for Mr. Max.

So let's start from the beginning. I ordered a "Happy Halloween from The Blockers" banner to hang out in the yard. I put some scarecrows and fake mums out on the porch and in the yard (the kids picked them). That handled outside, which was pretty easy. I had also ordered some ghosts that hug the trees but they didn't make it out in time. The leaves were just being finished up in the yard when the first guest arrived.

These are pictures of my living room before I started transforming the house for the party.

I started off simple by gutting the room of most of the furniture and fixing up the mantle complete with floating candy corn candles and spider web scarf. And then I rearranged the furniture that remained to clear out space for little tables and chairs.

Then came my favorite part of the room decor - the giant spider on the ceiling! And boy was it labor intensive, well more than I wanted it to be. I thought it was one piece that you blow up, instead it was several pieces and an hour later . . . .

I had originally ordered a giant piece of black carpet to cover the floor, but the delivery date was going to be too late. Gigi had a brilliant idea to use felt; it was 50% off at the fabric store and it was 1/4 of the price of the rug I had ordered. Yea, Gigi! It was perfect after I made the right cuts. And then I put the tables and chairs out. They were blue and red, but I just covered the tabletops and kept it pushing. Then I put the remaining furniture in places for parents to sit. Maddy thought the party was for her. She was very early and already seated when the magician arrived.

Each table was set with Halloween tableware, a Halloween bowl filled with individual chip bags, a Halloween tray filled with hot dog condiment packets, and a witch hat cooler filled with assorted juice boxes. I realized after the tables were set that I didn't need those cups!

The entry hallway had spider webs in the doorway, tombstones against the walls, a gift table with an old ghost pinata, and Max's Halloween book (Max and Ruby is a cartoon about rabbits). The star rail had sparkly pumpkin garland running down it, there were decorative gourds, with little figurines and a family photograph in the hallway also. The bathroom door was marked with a pumpkin bucket and there were Halloween hand towels in there and a Halloween soap pump.

The bar was shielded with spider webs too. So no children would be tempted to climb up there and grab at the bottles or turn the faucet on like my little ones do. I had intended to have bear and wine available for the adults but I got so busy that I didn't have time to go buy the wine and I think my husband is the only person in the South who drinks Coors Light.

Of course there were balloons everywhere. Thank you Javon for helping me go through those very quickly. We didn't even pass out and still had enough energy for a 1 am trip to Wal-Mart.

This was the dining room during the process and then after. It was set up with food and snacks for the adults. The menu was chips and salsa, tequila lime chicken wings, white bean chicken chili, sodas and water. In addition to the hot dogs and chips.






And then the guests started to arrive . . .