Birthday Party Prep

For Adley's 3rd birthday party this year, I decided to plan it around an ice cream theme. Our little girl is a somewhat picky eater and is surprisingly even choosy about her desserts. The only cookie Adley will eat is an Oreo, she only eats the frosting off cakes and cupcakes, and she doesn't even like brownies. Whose daughter is this anyway?!? The one dessert that Adley will never turn down, however, is ice cream! This girl adores any flavor of ice cream and often happily giggles as she's eating it. An ice cream birthday party definitely seemed fitting for our ice-cream-loving girl!

As soon as I got this idea, my sister suggested that I email Blue Bell (our favorite Texas-based ice cream company) to ask for some donations for Adley's party. Most especially, I hoped to receive paper ice cream hats that the kids could decorate at the party and some ice cream cups we could eat from. Well, after emailing the company, I was contacted by the sweetest employee, a gal named Shelby. Shelby not only agreed to give our family the items I requested, she also happily said she'd throw in a few other Blue Bell items. And get this-- Shelby even said she would personally deliver the items to our home!!

We were so honored that this Blue Bell employee took time out of her day to stop by our house, meet Adley, and gift us with some wonderful party items. What a wonderful company!

In addition to the ice cream cups and hats, Shelby also gave Adley this gift, "wrapped" in a pink gallon ice cream container. We had Adley wait until her party to open the gift (as that's what Shelby requested). The gift was a stuffed cow with a Blue Bell shirt, a Blue Bell magnet, another smaller ice cream container (that Adley loves playing pretend with in her kitchen), a plastic ice cream bowl and spoon, and two coupons for free gallons of ice cream. Woo-hoo! What a kind gesture!

A couple weeks before the party, Adley and I spent an afternoon over at Grammy and Papa's house since Grammy had graciously offered to help with party preparations. I had ordered a set of plastic ice cream bowls and spoons from Amazon that we could use as party favors. Adley and Grammy readied the favors by packing them with candy.

Then, Grammy helped me prep a few more items (an ice cream cone banner and some tissue paper ice cream cones). Papa was happy to entertain Adley while Grammy and I worked!

A couple nights before the party, Grammy and Aunt Kim came over to help with the cake and some other final details. Grammy and Adley worked on assembling and gluing clip art pictures for a scavenger hunt.

Kim put up lots of decorations--balloon bunches and streamers.

Mom took over with spreading the icing on the cake--a job that I always get nervous about!

Mom and Kim then guided me through the decorating process for this cute ice cream themed cake. I love how it turned out!

Yay!! What a blessing to have this generous gift of time from family. It always makes party prep so much more fun to have company! Thanks a million, Mom and Kim!

Here are some other photos of party decor on the morning of the party--

Here's the ice cream cone banner that Mom made. So lovely!

I made my own tassels for this garland. It took some time, but I loved being able to choose exactly the colors I wanted. The pastels were perfect for our ice cream theme.

I made these tissue paper pom poms, Mom cut construction paper cones, and... Voila! A perfect ice cream cone!

Here are the final party favors that Adley and Grammy assembled. The tag says, "You're So Sweet!"

Mo Willem's book, "Should I Share My Ice Cream?" was an easy pick for Adley's birthday book this year. She absolutely loves the Elephant and Piggie series. When our family arrived at the party, we had everyone sign this book so it would be a special memory book for years to come, always reminding Adley of this party day! :)

On the day of the party, Grammy and Papa came over an hour early to help with dinner preparations. These two always jump right in and know just what to do to make parties go smoothly! Love you, Mom and Dad! Jason, also, is a faithful husband whose first question is often, "How can I help?" His assistance gearing up for these days is also a constant! Thanks to you too, love!

And just like that-- the party was ready to go. We were set to celebrate our special 3 year old!

February Misc.

100th Day of School

At the beginning of February, Jaden and Cody's 2nd grade classes celebrated their 100th day of school. Their homework task for this day was to make a T-shirt with 100 items on it. Both boys picked out their own design from Pinterest and made their shirts fairly independently! They were both very proud to wear their creations to school.

At school, the boys' teachers had a variety of 100-Day creation stations for the students to explore. Cody and some friends built a tower out of 100 cups.

Jaden and his friend Cameron built with linking cubes. Both Cody and Jaden said they enjoyed their special day!

Zoo Visit

Back in October when we last visited the zoo, we had a somewhat rotten experience with the zoo's employees regarding their Zoo Boo event. After we returned home (upon my sister's wonderful suggestion!), I wrote an email to the zoo management, explaining our circumstances from that day. I received a kind letter back, an apology, AND four free tickets to feed the zoo's giraffes. What a nice deal! And what a wise sister I have! ;)

So, one weekend in February, I took the kids to the zoo so we could use our giraffe-feeding tickets before they expired. God blessed us with a beautiful morning at the zoo! The kids didn't spend a lot of time at each exhibit, so we got to see a lot of different animals.

The monkeys were very active when we walked by their exhibit. We loved watching them swing and listening to them chatter.

Adley enjoyed helping to guide us through the zoo. :)

The giraffe-feeding event was so fun! Each ticket bought us three pieces of lettuce, so our large handfuls of lettuce made us quite popular with the giraffes. It was exciting to see the giraffes come so close to us.

Adley was a little intimidated by the whole process though, so she wasn't too pleased when I put her down to try to capture a photo. She did okay watching the giraffes from my arms, as long as I was holding the lettuce! ;)

The whole feeding process was done so quickly, though, so while we enjoyed the experience, we were thankful that we didn't have to spend money on such a short adventure.

Next, we explored the children's zoo area...

...and then paused for a lunch break.

We hit up a few more exhibits on our way out. What a beautiful day to be at the zoo!

Cody's Class Chapel

In mid-February, Cody's 2nd grade class led the school chapel service. The class acted out a version of the Good Samaritan story. Cody was one of the main narrators, so he spent most of the time hidden by the altar while his classmates acted out the story. Even though we couldn't see Cody most of the time, we could hear his voice so clearly. We were so proud of Cody's awesome narrating!

At the end of the skit, all of the kids doing narrating parts came out of hiding and had a brief speaking part into the main microphone to wrap up the service. Here's Cody in line, dutifully reviewing his part one last time!

Cody's class was missing a couple students this day, so some students had to improvise and jump into totally new roles. They all pulled it off well though. The skit was very cute and shared the theme of "loving your neighbor" very well.

Women's Conference

Our church hosted a one-night women's event this month called Aspire. The evening was filled with a Christian comedian, a musician who shared beautiful worship songs, and a main speaker. I sat with these lovely ladies for the event-- Sarah, my mom, my mom's friend Sharon who was visiting from Albuquerque, and my friend Brita. Although I am holding Adley in this photo, she didn't really attend the event. Jason began the event with a brief welcome and prayer, so Adley just hung out with me until he was free. I thought the event was really uplifting (although I got a little tired since it was a lot of listening late at night!!). It's always such a treat to get a brief respite from mommy duties and to hang out with other women. All in all-- a great, relaxing evening!

Auction Item Winners

In the fall, our school hosted a large fundraising auction. Jason, as one of the staff members, is always encouraged to auction off some sort of activity. Each year, he has offered to take one student plus three friends on a special outing during the school day. They always eat out at a restaurant and then go bowling. This year, a 2nd grade family won the bid for Jason's event, and the son in this family invited both Jaden and Cody to join him on this outing. Our boys, of course, were ecstatic about leaving school for such a fun adventure, and Jason was so honored that this family allowed him to spend time with his own boys!

The restaurant that this boy chose served All-American food and boasted a large outdoor play area. The day was a little chilly, so these four boys (plus Jason!) had the whole play area to themselves.

Jason interspersed some silly bowling challenges (granny bowling, eyes closed, etc.) into the boys' game, just to mix it up a bit. He said they had a great time together!

After bowling, they still had some extra time before the boys were due back to school, so Jason threw in one more treat-- DQ blizzards. Yum! What a memorable day!

Trailriders Reception

Each spring, our little community hosts an event that couldn't be any more Texan-- a Trailriders reception! I looked up some history about this event and found it quite interesting. Apparently, in 1952, four men from Brenham, Texas, rode their horses all the way to Houston to raise awareness for the upcoming Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Ever since then, large groups of trail riders have joined in on this tradition. There are now over 3,000 trail riders across 12 different trails-- all of which end in downtown Houston and culminate in a large rodeo parade. The trails that these riders travel are anywhere from 70 to 240 miles long!

One of these trails passes right through our downtown suburb, so our community hosts a reception to welcome these riders. They give out a free lunch of hot dogs, apples, and water while we await the arrival of the trailriders.

We met a couple friends as well as some family (Kim, Nathan, and Grammy) at the event. Adley is always especially thrilled to see and spend time with Nathan!

Everyone is so excited when the trailriders finally arrive. The crowd greets them with cheers, waves, and lots of smiles.

Eventually, the riders stop and allow the crowd to greet all the horses. Some riders even let the kids sit atop the horse for a bit. So fun! What a unique Texan memory!