A Super Bowl Supper

Now I know why they call Super Bowl Sunday the Thanksgiving of Junk Food!

1st Quarter....

2nd Quarter....

3rd Quarter...

4th Quarter!

Let it Rip! Beyblade Birthday Party

My middle son turned 10 this year and in our house, we try to only have birthday parties on the even years.  I haven't been very good at that since moving to Indiana, but I was determined to give it a go this year since I've had such fun throwing parties lately. 

We had originally planned to have a Rock Star theme party, but when HouseParties.com picked us to host their Beyblade party, we were thrilled and immediately changed our theme to Beyblade.  (If you haven't heard of HouseParties.com you are certainly need to check them out!)

I didn't know much about Beyblade in the beginning, other than they were tops.  My son has always had a facination for tops since he was little.  He used to use Legos to build these elaborate, amazing tops to challenge his brothers in the kitchen.  Some of them were pretty big and spun fast!  But I digress...

We decided to use our Beyblade party as his theme.  We started out with a red, white, and blue color palet.  That was pretty easy since we had a whole bunch of decorations from our 4th of July family reunion party.  With the competition aspect of the party, we even got to use our red, white, and blue flag pennet banner!  LOVE IT! 

We started off the party with a craft to keep the boys busy while everyone arrived.  We used a big bucket of Legos and my son showed the boys how to build tops with them.  It didn't go quite as well as I planned since everyone was distracted by the Beyblades sitting on the shelf.  But the idea was there and my boys loved it.  My oldest and youngest sons even got into the action.

After everyone arrived, we watched an Intro to the cartoons and game DVD that came with our party pack.  It explained the characters from the TV show and the rules of the game.  It helped since everyone wasn't familiar with how it all worked.

Then, we LET IT RIP!  The boys challenged each other in a single elimination tournament where each boy played best 2 out of 3.  The winning boy got to take home his choice of Beyblade (House Party sent us 5.)  We took a break after the first tournament and had cake and ice cream.  Although the boys wanted to keep playing instead.

After eating and opening gifts, we played the tournament again.  When it was time for the boys to go home, they each got to play "tops" on our trampoline.  It got a little out of control but wore them out alot!

As the boys left they each got a goodie bag filled with suprises from us and House Party.  The goodie bags had a poster, a coupon for Beyblades, a glow stick, some candy treats, and a Beyblade notebook that I made for each.

It was a fun party and I'm so glad to have won it!  Thanks House Party and Beyblade!

Zach's Birthday and Holiday World

Zach turned 4 on the 22nd. It was a highly anticipated event for him--not becuase it was his birthday (although he liked that), not because it means he'll start "school" this year (we're trying to get him into a preschool), but because it meant he got to go to Holiday World. That's all he could talk about for days.

He turned 4 on a Tuesday and it was a pretty laid back day for him. We had a small birthday party in the evening where we had dinner and cake with our friends the Kittells. Zach chose to have his favorite dinner--enchiladas to eat. I was pretty glad at that, since it's my favorite meal too! While we were eating, and he was reminding us all not to forget his presents, he, Josh, Rachel and Shelby went outside in the backyard to play. Well, I forgot that was where I stashed his "big" present and he found it.

Zach loves to play in the sand and none of the parks in Terre Haute have sand, so Hank and I bought Zach a sandbox for his birthday. Although I didn't get to see him "open" it, the four of them spent most of the evening out there digging in the sand and making castles. So I'm pretty sure he loved it.

After cake and the rest of his presents, Grammy and Papa called and we gave him their present to him. I think the sandbox was forgotten at that point! He loves his new "big" bike! It still has training wheels--we don't think he's quite ready to get rid of them yet, but he's excited that it's bigger and that means he can ride around the block with Henry or Josh--or while mom goes on her walks! I think he had a wonderful birthday!

And two days later, he got to go to Holiday World.

Holiday World is an amusement park about 2 hours south of us in Santa Claus, Indiana. Each section of the park is based on a different holiday, ie..Christmas, Halloweeen, Thanksgiving, 4th of July. It was voted the cleanest park in the us, given a bunch of awards, but the best part of the whole park (or at least some people say--no names here) is that they have free, unlimited soft drinks. They have little Pepsi Oasis throughout the park where you can stop and get a drink anytime you are thirsty. So its a really good park.

The park also has a water park inside of it. We started at the water park in the morning on the first day. The 4 older kids were let loose on the park and the little kids were in heaven with the little waterslides, wave pools, water jets and lazy river. We met up for lunchables at the pavillion outside the park and then went back to the amusement park in the afternoon. The second day, we started with the rides and did the water park when we got hot later. But by then, Zach was out cold! Too much excitement for him and he slept entirely through the water rides.

I think Zach's favorite rides were the Scarecrow Scrambler (which is one of those rides that kind of throws you to the oustide of your car as it goes in circles) and a small kiddy roller coaster. He loves that roller coaster! At first he would go, but ask me to put my arm around him throughout the ride, but by the end of the second day, he didn't need me at all and would ride with his hands up throughout the ride. That's a four year old for you!

I'm not sure exactly what ride Josh's favorite was, although he really liked being able to drive finally, because by the second day, he was off riding the big rides with the older kids. But I am pretty sure that it was the Voyage roller coaster, which I'm told by those who seem to know, is the #1 roller coaster in the world. It has some pretty high (much to my chigrin) climbs and some pretty steep (much to Josh's) drops, but it was a blast. The first time that Josh went on it, he was kept sinking lower and lower in his seat until I thought he was going to fall out the bottom of it. But when he got off, he was screaming it was "wicked" and he loved it. I know he went on it several more times in the two days we were there, which was nice because the lines were so short you could almost walk on in the afternoons.

We had a great time at Holiday World and I think it was everything the kids were hoping it would be and more. In fact, they are all trying to find a time we can squeeze in one more trip before school starts. A definite success!