Colton Paw Patrol Party

Colton was SO excited for his Paw Patrol friends party!  We started talking about/planning it months ago, and he loved being involved in choosing activities and foods, as well as helping with prep and setup.  We chose to have his party on Thursday April 6th, 4:30-6pm, on the evening after Summer's afternoon first grade concert, so that we could draft ;) all our grandparents who came to Summer's concert into helping out with Colton's party!

All three kids put on their Paw Patrol shirts for Colton's Paw Patrol Party!

As guests arrived, they joined in coloring Paw Patrol pictures we printed off this Nickelodeon site .  My favorite part was watching the kids get so excited about the pups they were coloring and matching their coloring to the pups actual colors as found on the table cloth.  (All the boys Colton invited to his party love Paw Patrol - which made it really fun!).

After all of the guests arrived, we headed outside for a fun Paw Patrol Hunt.  I printed off "bingo cards" for each kid that included a picture of each Paw Patrol character.

Then, I printed off the same sheet on sticker paper, cut them apart, and made matching stickers.  Summer and Colton helped to prep the game, putting each sticker into a plastic Easter egg, and scattering/hiding the eggs all over the yard.  At the party, the kids each had to find and open eggs, looking to "fill their card" with one matching sticker for each character.  They were instructed to close back up and leave any eggs they opened that contained stickers they had already found.  The kids seemed to love it, and even little Larkyn was able to understand the game and play!  Besides enjoying the fact that the game was active and included stickers ;), my favorite part was hearing the little Paw Patrol fans exclaim excitedly when they found a particular pup!  All of Colton's buddies get excited about Paw Patrol!  (I got the original idea here and then tweaked it using free printables from this site. )

After the Paw Patrol Hunt, we raced Zuma, Skye, and Chase (three of the Paw Patrol characters) using squirt guns. I made the vehicles of these three pups and covered them in packing tape to make them waterproof.  I then attached them on/around plastic cups, poked a hole through the cup to string fishing line, and attached the fishing line between our neighbors fence and our tomato grates.  We borrowed a bucket of power squirt guns from our neighbor, and kids propelled the Paw Patrol vehicles with streams of water by squirting inside the cups with squirt guns.  The cups easily slid along the slippery fishing line when given a good squirt.   I saw the original idea here and then tweaked it to make it Paw Patrol using these free Paw Patrol Vehicle 3D printables.

Skye's helicopter hung from one of the cups using a paperclip.

I put Chase and Zuma's vehicles right over the front/top of the cup.

The Paw Patrol Vehicles were propelled forward along the fishing line via streams of water from the squirt guns.

While kids waited for their turn to use the squirt guns, they were invited to "BE" a Paw Patrol character and put on Marshall or Chase masks and drive our play fire engine and police car.

The final activity of the party was acting as "Rubble" (the construction pup" and playing in the dirt (sand) with construction vehicles....searching for pennies.  Five-Hundred pennies (yep, $5 worth) of pennies were hidden in our two sandboxes, and kids dug and searched for the pennies, putting them in their Paw Patrol bags to take home with them.  Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa T for giving me the activity idea as they used it for their kid's birthday party many years ago!  It was a hit!

After an hour of play, we had a "dog"-gone ;) good dinner of "pup"-eroni pizza, Paw Patrol fruit snacks, bone shaped graham cracker snacks, and watermelon.

While the kids ate, Grandpa K read the kids Paw Patrol stories (picked out by Colton) from his Paw Patrol Storybook.

Grandpa did a great job reading to the kids, including a story about how the pups pulled off a surprise birthday party for Chase (the police pup).

I LOVED watching the kids faces GLUED to the book as Grandpa K read about all their heroes.  Many forgot to eat ;) and asked for more stories!

Listening intently to the Paw Patrol stories while they ate dinner.

We finished of the party with Colton's request, "pup"-sicles!

 It was a really fun party!  While we missed 3 of Colton's friends (one had strep, one had the flu, and one was in Florida) we are thankful for the truly great buddies that came to celebrate Colton, as well as the amazing family that made the party a lot of fun!

 

Summer:1st Grade Concert; Field Trip, Gymnastics

First Grade Concert

Summer did a great job in her first grade concert!  She loves music with Mr. Barnes, and the first-graders all loved the music he chose from Alice in Topsy-Turvey Land - you could tell by the smiles on their faces as they sang!  I will include pictures and video below, but first I want to share a moment for which I am very proud of our little first grader.

Out of 5 classes of first graders (125+ first graders?), there was one solo.  One little girl would be chosen to be "Alice" and sing a 2 page song all by herself.  Summer REALLY wanted this solo.  She practiced a lot.  She sang before bed, during breakfast, in the car...she even requested the music from Mr. Barnes and Mommy played it on the piano and Daddy helped her with the pitch.  It was quite a challenging song, musically. but she got it down, and even included actions and facial expressions.  The day came for the tryouts, and she was encouraged by how her classmates said she did.

The day came for the solo to be announced, and the evening before as well as the morning of, we discussed together how she would respond if she did/didn't get the solo.

I thought about her all that day!  When she walked into the house that afternoon, the first words out of her mouth were, "Laney got the solo and I got the backup".  (Laney is one of her best friends.  Backup means she would sing the solo if Laney should be sick the day of the concert).

I was SO SO SO proud of how Summer handled her disappointment.  She talked it through.  She was a little teary.  But she immediately agreed to calling her friend Laney and congratulating her.  After the call, I went into the kitchen, and she was in the other room.  She started quietly talking and singing to herself, as she often does.  Her song was so sweet, that as I eavesdropped, I copied down her words...

"I am happy for Laney.  Even Jesus cried."  (singing...) " The Lord can choose.  There's a good reason for it.  He is teaching us a lesson.  Or maybe he just wants us to grow stronger in feeling happy for our friends."

I was so so so proud of her attitude, that I told her I was so much prouder of how she was handling the situation than if she got the solo.  Furthermore, we made a big deal out of how she was handling it, not only as an encouragement to her (a strong love language for her is verbal affirmation) but also as an example for her siblings.  That night she ate on the "You are Special Plate" at dinner.  I always want her to know that her heart attitude is so much more important than her achievements.  Summer Tenleigh, I am so proud of you!

Without further ado, here are some pictures and video from her first grade concert...

Summer is wearing a light pink dress in the front row right

Each of the five classes had their own silly song.  Summer's song was about absent minded mice.  (See video below)

The whole first grade (all five classes) also sang two songs all together to begin and end the concert.

Watching Summer!

Summer had amazing supporters!  Auntie Kristin, Teddy, Grandma and Grandpa K, Grandma and Grandpa T, and Gee Gee Sandy all came too!

Grandma and Grandpa T got to see Summer's desk.

Gee Gee Sandy got to see Summer's school for the first time!

Summer was Leader of the Week this week, so it was fun that she got to show the family the bulletin board about her.

Field Trip

Summer is part of a group at Southview that gets to do some fun extra things.  She and another first grader were included on a Robotics Field trip last Friday, to watch and scout the High School Robotics competition at the University of Minnesota.  While Grandma and Grandpa T and Gee Gee Sandy babysat Colton and Larkyn, I got to go with Summer on the field trip!  I learned so much right along with them and it was really fun!

Our view of the competition.

The group from Southview that went (Summer is bottom row, 4th from the left)

Gymnastics 

While Grandma and Grandpa T were here they got to see the kids in a lot of their activities.  They took some fun video/pictures of Summer in gymnastics so I will post those here.

Video:







Thank you to all her family that loves and supports her so much!  We are so grateful for you!

Spring Break +

Ready to ride the lightrail to see Daddy at work!

I was in heaven this past week having ALL of my kids home!  I LOVE spring break, and without wishing time to go faster than it already is, I cannot wait for summer break, simply to have Summer home every day!  Spring break just flew by - it felt like only a few days!  We kept busy with:

• Dental appointments and chores (Monday)
• Colton's 5 year pictures (Tuesday)
• Baking and selling bars all over the neighborhood to help those with less (see below) (Tuesday)
• Seeing Grandma K for Culvers and Chuckee Cheese (Wednesday)
• Visiting daddy at work and riding the lightrail (Thursday)
• Gymnastics for S and L (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)
• Playdate with good friends (Friday)
• going to several parks
• rearranging Summer and Colton's rooms at their request ;)
• playing outside
• planning for Colton's birthday
• and tons of reading their Bibles and devotional books, leading to awesome conversations daily (I love having TIME for these extended conversations!)! 

I really didn't take many pictures, but here are a few...

Sisters on the lightrail

Mommy and Colton on the lightrail

As soon as Daddy was spotted, he was enveloped in hugs!

lunch in Daddy's cafeteria

Skyways!

After lunch, Daddy hopped on the lightrail a few stops and we took a family field trip to see the Twins stadium

Peeking through to see the Twins Stadium

In the big glove!

A little background on the next few pictures...Summer has a page in her Awana Sparks packet with a verse about taking care of the poor.  In it, Sparkies are to do something to help the poor.  After discussing the need at Summer's school for kids who need food or shoes, we decided to earn money to give the school counselor so she could give gifts/gift cards to families who could most use it.  We brainstormed three ideas on how the kids could earn money:

1. Do extra chores around the house (like folding the laundry and picking up sticks in the yard)
2. Bake and sell bars around the neighborhood
3. Sell toys they no longer use on a local online garage sale site

The kids did all three over spring break, and raised almost $150!

The kids (with very little help but lots of supervision ;) ) baked three pans of bars.  They took turns doing each of the jobs.

The kids loved licking the chocolate spoon after frosting their bars!

We cut each 9x13 pan into 8 massive bars (24 total bars) and individually wrapped them and sold them for $5/piece.  Here Summer is holding one of the bins of bars and Colton is holding their money jar (into which they had already donated their chore money and some of their money from their piggy banks).

The kids ran all over the neighborhood for TWO HOURS (selling all but two bars) and told the neighbors that we were raising $ to help kids at Southview who didn't have much money for essentials, and asked if they would like to buy a bar and/or donate any loose change.  They had great success and never came away empty handed from even one house (given that they were home).

Summer and Colton took turns trading who held the $ and who held the bars, and often let Larkyn ring the doorbell (pictured Summer lifting Larkyn to ring the bell!)

 On Wednesday, Grandma K came!  While Larkyn napped, she took the big kids on a special outing to Chuck-e-cheese!

We enjoyed many park days and being outside, but this one was a highlight for sure!  We met up with Auntie Kristin and Teddy for a picnic and park play!

This swing was awesome!  Summer could pump Larkyn in the baby swing because they were attached!

Here are a few bonus pictures that were on my phone as I wrap up March and head into April...

Lighting McQueen watching the "lightning"

The kids cheer everytime they hear lighting (a tactic passed down to me from my weather loving dad to change fear of storms into excitement) and the get so excited!  Older kid excitement transfers to younger kid excitement and soon nobody is scared of the huge thunder crashes!  This night we ate dinner by candlelight to watch the storm/lightning outside.  Fun memory!

Heading to have lunch with Summer at Southview

Mommy has been doing lots of deep cleaning/sorting etc in the house...including under the basement stairs (ew!).  The kids got SO into it (too many Boxcar Children books?!?) and loved cleaning out and finding treasures...such as an old bed poster topper (who knows which owner that came from!) and an old silver engraved bracelet (pretty cool!).  Don't mind that Larkyn is in her underwear...she was in a dress-up dress but it got in her way ;)  Anyway, another fun memory.

Crazy clothes night at Awana.  Daddy won (in my book!)

This picture shows a characteristic of Colton I want to remember.  After being told to bring a small number of his toys/socks upstairs to his room, he spent like 20 minutes attaching them all to Blade, his helicopter, so he could bring them up in one trip!

Glad to catch these cuddles in a picture!

So sweet...Colton putting his arm around Larkyn at the zoo.  He is such a sweetheart!

Saturday morning cuddles with my Loo!  No matter what I am doing or how busy I am, it is REALLY hard for me to resist a request coming from this little one, "Mommy, can we cuddle?"  This baby of the family keeps my on my toes for sure, but she can also melt my heart!

 Well, that about wraps up March!  I honestly feel like we just started March!  We are now heading into CRAZY birthday week for Colton, with a kids party, a family party, and our own celebration all in a matter of less than a week. Lots of planning, lots of fun, and lots of crazy excitement from my almost 5 year old!  I'll return to blogging when the crazy is over...and let you know how it all went down!  Until then!