Cookin' up some birthday fun

If you haven't noticed from other posts, I LOVE to do birthday parties.  But as they get older, it seems to get tougher.  They're not into cute-sie stuff anymore and while they do have longer attention spans, they're not quite as easily entertained.  So after perusing the internet (no, not pinterest), I came up with the coolest 9 yr old party ever, suitable for both boys and girls and with plenty of things to pass the time without mutiny.

 

Since I can't seem to figure out how to upload the invitation, it was a black/white/red recipe card that said...

Recipe for:  Cooking Birthday Party

From the Kitchen of:  Chef Corbin

Ingredients: 1 cup friendship, 2 cups happiness, 3 cups fun, a pinch of laughter and 9 birthday candles.

Directions:  Mix ingredients together at Corbin’s Café, located at 1087 West 400 South, on Saturday, April 21.  Put in oven at 11am.  Should be cooked by 1pm. 

Call manager Mindy Jensen for reservations (801-380-9973)

When they arrived, they decorated their aprons and got their chef hats.

 

 

Then we played a game called "Oh, Waiter!".  It's a relay.  Boys vs girls, of course.

 

Step 1: Pour water from pitcher into glass (which is plastic).

Step 2: Carry it carefully on your tray all the way around the chair and back.

  

Step 3: With whatever water is left, fill the hurricane glass (which IS glass).  First team with theirs full, wins.

 

 Now it's time to cook!  Each chef got to prepare their own mini lasagna however they wanted...

 

Choice of Ingredients:  Rigatoni or lasagna noodles, italian sausage or gr. beef, mozzarella, parmesan and sauce, of course.  Most of the kids just piled a little bit of everything and most of them actually ate it!

 

While that was cooking . . .  it was time for our Super Chef Cookie Bake-Off. 

Two teams, recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and all the ingredients you need.  Ready, Set, Go!

 

 

I'm not sure if we were going for the fastest or the best tasting, but it turned out to be a good little baking experiment since one team followed the recipe exactly and one team decided just to throw all the ingredients in and mix.  Either way, it was fun and they all loved sampling the cookie dough and taking some home.

 

Then, while we waited for the lasagnas to cool, we made fruit kabobs to round out our meal...

 

And finally . . . Bon Appetite!

 

 

 

But it's not over yet!  Time for presents, to the tune of . . .

 Yep, that's right.  It may sound silly, but it is the tactic I use at every kids b-day party - no matter the age.  They pass the potato (or ball or whatever) and when the music stops and it lands on them, they get to sit by Corbin and give him their present.  It keeps it from becoming mass chaos where no one can see what he got, he doesn't know who its from and Mom can't see a thing.  Works like a charm.

 

But wait!  Before everyone leaves - don't forget cake and ice cream! As chefs, they had to decorate their own, of course, and what's better than leftover Easter candy?!

 

 

Best Little Chefs Ever!

Thanks to everyone who came and participated! It was so much fun!

Eat your heart out

I decided I love Valentine's Day - well, and most holidays. Holidays are just so much more fun with kids. I think its because kids are so easy to please. For Valentine's, anything pink, red, or heart shaped makes the ordinary cool and fun. I'm glad we have these holidays to force me to get over my procrastination of all the supermom things I wish I did all the time. So of course, I had to document our fun with lots of pics, so my kids can't say that I never did anything for them. :) We had a great weekend with lots of pink, red and hearts . . .

Friday night started with homemade heart-shaped pizzas (and can I just say I am really not good at working with pizza dough. It drives me crazy! But the boys didn't care, they thought it was great fun. And it was actually pretty yummy!)

Pink cookies for desert (ie. really easy cake mix cookies with white chocolate chips mixed in)

Valentine's Day morning: heart cutout pancakes and pink donuts that Daddy surprised us with when he got home!

Valentine's dinner: Heart-shaped meatloaf (doesn't look that great, but it was good enough), heart breadsticks, and of course, you can't do Valentine's Day without heart-shaped jello jigglers

The jello was definitely Colton's favorite - and since it kept him happy all through dinner, I gave him all he could eat, which I later regretted when he was spitting up smelly red gunk in the middle of the night.

The best part of the holiday: sharing our love with each other! I love my boys - all four of them!

I know you've been wondering

20 YEARS AGO . . . I was
1. Partying at the Houston Marriott (where Dad worked) for Mom's surprise 30th birthday and probably new year's eve.
2. Losing my younger brother at the Houston Galleria
3. taking picnics to the park with my friend and pretending I was homeless

10 YEARS AGO...I was
1. Dating my soon to be hubby - who took me shopping for my birthday
2. Failing out of almost all classes at my first semester of college
3. Working at Club Omni as a bartender (where I met my husband!)

5 YEARS AGO...I
1. graduated from BYU with a degree in International Studies, Latin American Studies Minor
2. had a baby during finals and walked at graduation while he was still at the hospital
3. isn't that enough?

3 YEARS AGO...I was
1. living in a two-bedroom duplex that we owned in Provo.
2. working at HELP International
3. Taking my brother to El Salvador and my husband to Guatemala and Belize

1 YEAR AGO...I was
1. hiding the fact that I was pregnant (because I was still in the denial phase)
2. driving Corbin 25min each way to preschool everyday so he could go to BYU
3. finally getting used to having two boys

THIS YEAR... I
1. had my third baby boy
2. have been doing an experiment on the effects of long-term sleep deprivation
3. became a blogger!

YESTERDAY...
1. Went fishing and picnicing at Spring Lake (I'll post pics soon)
2. Enjoyed having my husband home for an entire day and didn't get dressed until 11 o'clock
3. made to-die-for caramel brownies and hosted book club at my house

TODAY...
1. finally put up Halloween decorations with Corbin
2. returned the breast pump I had rented (pointless since Colton refuses to take a bottle)
3. ran errands (5 different places), including grocery shopping, with 3 boys - yes, I am crazy

TOMORROW...
1. Pick up my brother, Mason, at the airport at 8am
2. think of something fun to do with a 16 year old, a five year old, two year old and a baby
3. take a nap (ha, ha)

NEXT YEAR...
1. celebrate 10 year wedding anniversary by going to Africa
2. start a Masters program in either Non-profit Management or International Development
3. be done breastfeeding!

I think this was a fun tag, so if you want to do it, I TAG YOU!