McKade's Spectacular Sixth-2nd Best Birthday EVER!

Even year birthdays call for a friends' party and Kade was super excited to have one. He decided that Clone Wars was the way to go! This was so easy because Nick had a Star Wars party last time and so I already had half the planning done!

I read somewhere that it's all about the invitation. If that's no good, the party is a bust. Ha ha. So, thanks to Pinterest and the awesome skills of Mr. Ben, our invites ended up being pretty darn cool! Outside they looked like lightsabers.

Inside was Ben's work.We decided to have the party at our church. Honestly, it's the best place to have a party. No clean up before and there's lots of room for shenanigans. We've learned time and time again that we can't count on Mother Nature to deliver the good weather and this day it just happened to be blustery and cold! So glad we planned it for the church! We had the craziest day with 3 soccer games and a birthday party so we were barely set up when the kids started arriving for the party. They started out watching LEGO Star Wars Padawan Menace. That show rocks! My favorite line is when Han Solo says to Yoda, " At least know how to talk normal, I do." Classic.

After that Ben explained to all of our little padawans that they were at McKade's party to learn to become Jedi. They would train in a few different areas and learn the skills they needed. The first training was passing the thermal detonator (think hot potato) to test their Jedi reflexes. They all did really well!

The next skill was to learn to sense the dark side. They had to play Jedi, Jedi, Sith (Duck, Duck, Goose) to filter out the Sith in the group. Luckily, in the end, we realized we were safe from the Sith.

They were then ready for a trial mission and since Ahsoka Tano had been kidnapped Ben enlisted their help to find her. They went on a scavenger hunt throughout the church and finally were able to save her.

We decided it was a good time for some cake and ice cream and the kids were all on board so we sang 'Happy Birthday' to Kade and dug in! Yeah, I know....there were a lot of kids!!

I had the brilliant idea to make these Yoda ice cream scoops I saw on Pinterest. I loved the convenience of having all the scoops ready to go, but the Yodas looked like pigs and it took a lot of time! Kade loved it though!

Thanks to my sidekicks, Adrianne & Sara, for helping out so much! Don't we look awesome all color coordinated? I purposely planned the party on St. Patrick's Day for that reason alone.

Of course the party would not have even been slightly cool without Ben's mad Jedi training skills.

After cupcakes and ice cream we opened presents and then had a special visitor, Yoda!! Yoda tested the Padawan's listening skills by playing Yoda Says. It was pretty hilarious! The only thing was that Nick missed it all. He was bummed about that.

Then it was time to move onto lightsaber training. The kids all received a special lightsaber and listened to Ben very well as he trained them in lightsaber skills with lunging, ducking, and attacking with their sabers.

They were then declared fully trained Jedis and given one more mission...

....attacking the Sith in a lightsaber duel (breaking the pinata). Kade and I made this homemade pinata together. It was so fun...and it ended up being huge...meaning a ton of candy went inside!!

I really mean a ton!! After the party we hurried and cleaned up and then rushed down to Kade's first soccer game of Spring. Kade absolutely loves soccer and was so excited to start up again! It was a really cold day and it was even snowing when we were at the game.

Kade made the goal to make 6 goals since he was turning 6! He celebrated each of his goals with a dance!

How determined is this kid? He made his sixth goal right as the game ended! Woohoo Kade!!

On Sunday I told McKade I'd make his favorite meal for dinner. He decided that he wanted all Star Wars food made from the recipes in our Star Wars cookbook. Kade also requested that our friends, the Coxs, come over to celebrate with his Star Wars dinner! Thanks for putting up with our interesting food!!

The dinner consisted of Boba Fettucine and Bantha Bread,

Jabba's Jiggle with Han Solo frozen inside,Yoda Soda,

and for dessert, Wookie Cookies! It was pretty awesome!!

On Kade's actual birthday, which was Monday, he requested German pancake muffins for breakfast....and of course he wanted us to sing and to blow out candles.

Kade was supposed to take treats to his class and he chose to take Krispy Kremes!
While we were there he got a call from Geoffery the Giraffe from Toys 'R Us!
Then our whole family got to go to Kade's kindergarten class and spotlight him! All the kids in McKade's class made him a card for his birthday. He was especially thrilled about this one from his special lady friend that said "I like you!" on it. For an extra special treat I took McKade out to lunch at McDonald's!
The highlight of the day was that we woke up to a lot of snow! In fact, for the first time in the entire winter there was enough to go sledding! McKade knew it was especially for him since he was born during a blizzard and LOVES snow!
After sledding forever McKade wanted to invite his bestie, Gordon, over to play. They had a lot of fun!

We went out for Kade's birthday dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Kade said it was so that we could remember that last year we were in California and had pizza (the best birthday ever...at Disneyland!). Silly kid. I think he really just wanted the giant sundae they give you!

Then we headed home for present time! Kade got spoiled with books from Alexis, a techdeck set from Skylar, and a Paper Jamz guitar from Nick!

Mom & Dad got him a Razor scooter, which he's been wanting forever! The wait payed off with a really cool one that has light up wheels!

Kade's cake was another Pinterest inspiration. I think it turned out awesome....just like him! He was excited to finally get to eat it.

Happy Birthday my awesome 6 year old!! I hope all of your wishes and dreams come true!! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I said it six times, just for you, because you're 6!!

The Luck of the Irish

I may have a lack of enthusiasm for Valentine's Day, but I just love St. Patrick's Day!! It's just fun. My hubby and kiddies are all Irish so it's kind of a day we can celebrate some kind of heritage thing and claim it as our holiday! Kinda silly, but I'll take it! I've wanted to make St. Patrick's Day extra fun for a few years....last year we went to Disneyland and all....so that did it. But this year we really needed some fun around here to cheer up some heavy hearts, so I decided to bring in some leprechauns to spread around some fun for the week leading up to St. Paddy's itself!

The first day the leprechauns were pretty awesome and left us Lucky Charms, which we never have, already in the kids' bowls, and spread all over. They kind of made a mess! They also dyed the milk green! The kids thought the leprechauns were pretty cool though, even if some of them did not want to drink the green milk!

The next morning was Sunday and everything around the house seemed just fine. We got ready for church and jumped in the car to find that the pesky leprechauns had been messing around in there. They had even stepped it up a bit and gone a bit crazy. They had turned over the booster seats, buckled all the seat belts, left the radio turned up really, really loud, and even left little footprints all across the windshield.

When Ben used the windshield wipers to clean off the footprints, they made a rainbow across the windshield! It was pretty cool!
Day 3 was an attack on the bathrooms! The loony leprechauns tp'd the bathroom, filled the bathtub with ballons, wrote on the mirror with toothpaste, and even used the toilet....leaving footprints on the seat and the water green! Alexis came running in our room in the morning and yelled, "The leprechauns got green toothpaste on our brush teeths (toothbrushes)!" I guess she thought that was the craziest thing!

The next day those naughty leprechauns really went wild! They opened all of the cabinets in the kitchen (Ben's total pet peeve), left balloons and footprints in the kitchen sink, dyed the milk(again!) and the cream cheese green, and we even had tears when we found out the Lucky Charms they left had no marshmallows! Someone was soooooo upset!!

The tears didn't last long because we soon found all of the marshmallows in the ice dispenser! Silly leprechauns!!
The leprechauns were downright mean on Wednesday morning! They had attacked the kids' rooms while they slept and strung green string all over the rooms, left all the dresser drawers wide open, left balloons all over the rooms, tied green string in the girls' hair, painted orange beards on the boys' faces, and painted everyone's fingernails green!! One of my kids was super mad at those stinkin' leprechauns. Can you tell who?
It was definitely not Kade! He loved it!! He insisted on wearing both the beard and the fingernail polish to school. Silly boy!
Those preposterous leprechauns wreaked havoc on our living room on Thursday! They spread green confetti and streamers all over the room, pulled all the pillows and couch cushions onto the floor, turned over furniture, and put all of our pictures face down except for one.....
....our family picture....which they scribbled silly faces all over!!
By this time the kids were pretty darn peeved with the leprechauns so they decided to set a trap so we could stop them! They made a trap and filled it with chocolate gold coins and left a trail of coins leading to it. We all know leprechauns love gold coins!!
Just in case the leprechauns weren't sure it was for them, Nick wrote them a note that said, "This is for you lepre chan. From, the Jordans." Isn't that too cute?!
The next morning the trap had a leprechaun in it, but not the kind we were expecting! It was just a little plastic leprechaun. The gold coins were all gone out of the trap and led all the way downstairs to where the kids found a giant pile of their shoes! Those annoying leprechauns had stolen all of their shoes! But instead of taking them with them out the window (where the gold trail led), they had actually left them with some St. Patrick's Day goodies...lip balm, hair glitter, and even some of the chocolate gold coins in their shoes. Maybe those leprechauns are nicer than we thought!
Apparently the leprechauns weren't done yet! On St. Patrick's Day Ben and I woke up super early to elephants (I swear) running around our house, up and down the stairs, and into every room looking for gold on the treasure hunt the leprechauns had left for them! They eventually found the pot of gold, not at the end of the rainbow, but in the fridge!! Since maybe I was in on a few of the leprechaun tricks (someone had to let them in, right?) I left the kiddos a box of Lucky Charms and a note that said, "I am 'cereal-sy' LUCKY to be your mom!" Which, of course, is totally true!!
The rest of the day was crazy busy with Kade's birthday party (still to come), and 3 soccer games! For dinner we always, always have corned beef and cabbage which has to be my least favorite meal ever! But, I make it once a year to appease the Irishmen in my family (mainly Ben & Skylar) that love it! This year I ran out of time to make Irish soda bread, the only redeeming part of the meal, so instead we made a rainbow of fruit. Then I had a brilliant idea that we order green curry take-out from our favorite Thai restaurant because heck, it stayed with the theme of green, and I knew I'd eat it and enjoy (LOVE) it. So we added some green curry, white rice (Kade's favorite) and noodles (Nick's favorite) to the menu and everyone was happy to eat our St. Patrick's Day dinner! It was so good that we've decided it is a new tradition for us to have "Thairish" food every St. Paddy's Day!!

I'm so darn lucky to have my wee Irish lads and lassies to have so much fun with.....in fact, I'm not really lucky at all, just incredibly blessed!! I love you kiddles!!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!