Birthday Bash at Airborne

We've had a birthday whirlwind of a week.

 

We came back in town from Moab (here) on Monday.

Tuesday was Toad Man's birthday (here) and since he'd be spending the evening with his mom, The Man and I stole him from school to take him out to lunch.

 

A new tradition I plan on doing with all the kids.

 

Sean picked Sizzler's for his lunch just so he could order the salad bar and get a giant plate piled high of little ham cubes covered in ranch.

 

That's all.

 

What do you do?

 

 

 That evening was crazy was busy.

 

Tayler and Brynn told me about a Mommy/Daughter book club meeting an hour before it was supposed to happen.

 

I knew they had an Activity Days meeting.

 

I didn't know that it included Moms.

 

So I was rushing about trying to get Casidee's music book for her orchestra class, I had to go pick Cali up from a friend's house because The Man forgot to and now suddenly I had to join Tay and Brynn for Activity Days.

 

Imagine my surprise when we show up 15 minutes late because of all  my other running around, only to discover it was a book club meeting.

 

Needless to say, I didn't read the book...

 

But they had fun activities and fruit and dip.  I loved hanging out with the other moms who were there.  We have super cute families in our neighborhood.

 

Wednesday was Happy Birthday Brynn. (here).

 

The Man wasn't able to make Brynn's birthday lunch because of work, but I picked her up and she chose Chuck-a-rama.

 

Seriously.

 

What is up with my children wanting to eat lunch with the fine senior citizens of our community?

 

But Chuck-a-rama it was.

 

She ate more than just ham and ranch.

 

 

 Since Sean was back with us for Wednesday we had a few of the grandparents over for dinner.  Grandpa Dick and Grandma KC were making a trip up to our neck of the woods anyway, but they extended their visit to come a couple of days earlier so they could be a part of the birthday fun.

Papa Mike and Granny Suzann dropped by and with a couple of extra friends, plus Cas needing to leave for Young Women's, we had complete and utter chaos.

 

And Swedish Pancakes.

 

I currently hold our family record for the number of Swedish Pancakes eaten.

I hold the record at 12 in one sitting.

 

Sean has challenged me and my record, and though we didn't have enough batter to take that battle on Wednesday night, I feel that this should happen next weekend when we have all the kids again.

 

He's so going down.

 

Thursday night was the friend party.

 

I've made a list that uses a general budget.  We've allotted a certain amount of money to be allowed for birthday parties and keeping that in mind, I put a lot of effort into some research for various types of birthday parties.

 

Simpler or cheaper parties like home parties or the dollar movie allow for more friends.

 

More expensive activities might only be for family only, no friends.  Like Boondocks.

 

This way, they can choose, big activity, limited friends, or smaller activity, more friends, all being allowed the same price range.

 

Brynn and Sean both wanted to go to Airborne, which is a two friend party (this is above and beyond our six kids) so we booked the party for them together, which they were cool about.

 



I like doing parties with Airborne.  We went there for Cali's birthday (here) too and we've always had such a good experience with them.

Active jumping and flipping on trampolines + my old point and shoot camera = not such great pictures.  They're really blurry, but it's proof that kids were having crazy fun.
Jayme and Cas on the new zip line:


Brynn:

Tayler:

Jayme:

Brynn:

Cali:

 

Sean:

 



The Dodgeball Pit was a popular attraction for The Circus, The Man included:

At one point a group of older boys gathered to have a turn with the Dodgeball Pit and somehow or other The Man told our kids they should take these boys on, which, of course, The Circus thought was a great idea.  The older boys laughed and jumped in.

You'd think it would be an all out slaughter, but it wasn't.  Our kids hung in there and even beat those boys once. 

I was so impressed with how cool those boys were with playing with our kids.


Jayme, Skyler, Tayler, Tanner, Sean, Cali, Casidee, Hannah, Brynn, Marlie

The kids took it easy on me with cakes this go 'round.
Brynn just wanted purple cupcakes with sprinkles, and Sean wanted an ice cream cake but with nothing on it since they messed it up last time (at the end of this post).

These two birthdays open up our "birthday season."  From here until the end of April, we have one or more birthdays and/or holidays every single month.

It's time to gear up for all the festivities that are coming.

Cali Turns 7

Cali.

Favorite color: Blue
Favorite food: Spaghetti
Best Friend: Anistyn
Favorite thing to do in school: Learn
Favorite thing to do: Play with my sisters.
Favorite movie: Mr. Popper's Penguins
What's something you want to learn how to do this year? Read better.
I made a master list of birthday activities for the circus to choose from for their parties.  All ranging with in the same budget, but bigger, or more expensive activities involved less friends, or family only, while cheaper or smaller activities where able to involve more friends.
Cali chose to go to Airborne, a trampoline arena.  She was able to invite 2 friends.
And in true Circus style, we took a lot of pictures, a few videos, and created quite the chaos which ended up being the time of our lives.  We jumped off the floor, the walls, played dodge ball, jumped off cliffs, tried our best to make it across the rope ladder (West failed, I conquered!), and did a lot of flipping in the air.  Even me :).