4 in 2012

My baby turned FOUR! How crazy is that? 

During a really crazy week I remembered that I was hoping to throw Rusty a friend birthday party this year.  So with all my spare time (yeah right) I whipped up some invitations.

 (I even made a digital copy for those who didn't live close by but  wanted to make sure they knew they were "invited" but here is how awesome and busy I am....I FORGOT TO EMAIL THEM!!!  I just remembered my mistake as I sat down to write this post...I'm so busted...sorry!  YOU were invited!) 

Anyway here are the invitations...cute enough!  would have totally done a better job had I had enough time, oh well...done!

Funny side note, I got a call a few hours after Rusty handed these out to his friends from one of the moms a few doors down asking if I really was planning a THREE HOUR party for a bunch of 3-4-5 year olds?  Um,  yeah, didn't really watch that one...it was suppose to say 2:00pm.  Hahaha, well we are totally having a 3 hour party for a bunch of little kids,  go us!  It turned out fine I had a bunch of games/activities planned and it all worked out great.  Here is the run down of what we did:

1. Gathering activity: Toy Story alien papers/coloring pencils/ toy story stamps and stickers.

(phone call from Rusty's Idaho Grandma---my kids always miss this phone call and always have to listen to the voice mail and call grandma back, so I was NOT going to miss this call...party on hold while Rusty talks to his grandma!!)

2.  Intro Blast off Room: (pictures and description later, I'm too tired to battle with blogger tonight and move the pictures!)

3. Fuel-up Station:  Pizza and pop.  They watched the first part of Toy Story while they ate their food...for the most part they did a great job eating I was super impressed. (the movie was an important key element..I would be referring back to it for several of the games so it was very essential!)

4. Capture the Evil Emperor Zurgs ships:  Drawings of  Zurgs space ship and 12 can's of silly string (same game we played for Wesley's birthday party last year, except his was Darth Vader!) Once all the kids had a turn there was just enough for the big kids to try it out!

I forgot to mention Joshie was our photographer...awesome that he would do that! 

5.  Sargent Search:  The toy soldiers were deployed as Rusty's Birthday guest started to arrive, unfortunately they ended up outside and we needed to help gather them up so they'd be safe.  We turned the coned party hats upside down and told the kids to go gather up the soldiers.  There were HUNDREDS of soldiers and I am not kidding! It was pretty challenging in the grass, but I think we got them all, either that or the lawn mower will find them next spring!  Wesley was great to run around with the kids who weren't as good at finding them! He was a great help.

6.  Help Mr. Potato Head:  We blind folded the kids and had them put a Mr. Potato head together.  I thought this would be hard to keep the kids attention but they all thought it was hilarious and waited semi-patiently for their turn!

After the party I let my kids have a turn at the game.

Emily's was perfect...Wesley's...not so much!

But that's okay because Rusty would help him put it together the right way!

 Isn't that the cutest picture you've ever seen?

Here is one of the attempts of a kid at the party, laughter would erupt  from them all each time someone was done!  It was so cute how they would blindly seach around for the parts and feel around for the holes, they all did a great job, I was afraid it would be too hard for them but it was perfect!

7.  Toy Mystery:  We put some very common toys in plastic bags (would have done paper bags if we had any!) and then the kids had to feel the bag and guess what toy was inside!  There was enough sacks for everyone to guess and open a bag.  I don't think the "Bop-It" really is a common toy but whatever...Josh and dad put that game together last minute for me, so I won't complain! ☺ Totally forgot to do it ahead of time...my bad.

8.  Woody's Round up:  We had small pictures of Woody and his friends all over the walls and the kids had to go around and find a picture of each of the friends and then they could redeem their pictures for little candies.

9.  Buzz Lightyears bubble blaster:  We had three automatic bubble guns, Josh, Shawn and I each took one and "blew" bubbles for the kids to pop!  I usually have good success with these bubble machines well two out of the three, but I think the bubble mix was really crappy...lesson learned, buy GOOD bubble mix or make your own!  Let me know if you want the recipe for some good bubble mix, I learned how to make it while I was a cub scout leader ...Karo syrup--really!!!

10. Planet presents:  I laughed when two of the kids opened their own presents and gave the opened toy to Rusty!  It was too cute and Rusty didn't seem to mind at all!

11. Fuel-up Station:  Cake and Ice Cream.  Then we ended the party by watching the rest of Toy Story as parents came one by one to pick up kids---really!  They only came one or maybe two at a time...nice and spread out, it was so nice!

Now coming back to the Blast off station I talked about earlier.  Every time we switched an activity we would have to blast off to that planet so we ended up blasting off  11 or 12 times!  It was great, Shawn hung black and blue table clothes on the ceiling and walls of the hallway and made a black-out room.  Then we put about 8 LED balloons and some star decorations on the ceiling!

We gave the kids each a glow stick and shuttled them into the hallway then we talked about where we were going next and then crouching down, counted backwards from 10 to 0, jumped in the air screaming BLAST OFF and we were off to our next adventure!

Here is the hallway with the light on.

It was really fun...my favorite part!  Those balloons looked so cool!  They were suppose to be 15 hour LED balloons but the lights lasted for more than 24 hours!  Got them at walmart.

We sent the kids home with a goody bucket and I kick myself that I didn't get a picture of them...I thought they were cute and they were stuffed full of fun toys and goodies.

The house was decorated with Toy Story nick-knacks...

and random Toy Story things I found from the dollar store!

The cake was bought, but it had melted like an hour after we got it home...I tried to take a picture so that the damaged side wasn't as noticeable, now I wish I had taken a picture of what it really looked like.  Maybe the Evil Emperor Zurg had gotten a few shots off before we captured his ships!?

After the party was over and cleaned up a little we let Rusty open the family gifts! One of them being a picture frame with a Disneyland picture in it.  I think Wesley is starting to catch on to what he is getting for his birthday next month!

Wesley with his Star Wars gun he got last year for his birthday and Rusty with his Toy Story Blaster gun he got that day!

After a quick dinner at Burger King (really THAT'S where you want to go for your birthday dinner?) we came home and played a few more minutes before more family and more presents showed up!

They sat at opposite ends of the room so you can only see Heather's shoe...but she was there!  Grandma brought some really fun toys as usual and also had us get them out so she could play with them before she left.  I love that about grandma, she really does love to get down and play with her grand kids. 

We lit the birthday cake on fire again and sang happy birthday to Rusty and he blew out all  5 candles (one to grow on---no really we wanted four regular candles Buzz was just a glorified extra!) at once...birthday wished coming true!  None of my kids have done that (I don't think!)

The kids finished their slices of cake and scoops of ice cream and they were shuffled off to get ready for bed.  Church at 9am the next morning!

All in all, it was a very good day.  Rusty agrees!