Space Themed Birthday Party

My boys birthdays are 2 days apart, this year we threw their party at the same time. Mainly because we have a rule that they are allowed to invite one friend for every year they are and the family. This is a huge bonus to us because it so happens that the kids my younger son would invite all have older siblings that are my older son's best friends. It is also our excuse to have other adults over. Sorry for the background but its why we combined their parties, easy on mommy's life. That and there are only a few days around Christmas that people can get together. Maybe I left that part out... Yes, not only are my boys birthdays 2 days apart they are joined with Christmas smack dab in the middle. For 3 days it is non stop excitement in our house.

6 months before I asked my sons what they wanted to do for their birthdays, science birthday party. It took a few months, lots of time on pinterest and then narrowed it down to space science party in other words...Astronomy. My boys love the moon, stars, and planets so it was perfect but very hard to find supplies/ideas without aliens or being all about astronauts and rockets. All they wanted was the solar system. Luckily while not finding exact ideas I was able to gather a few of my own and being on a tight budget was able to throw a party for under $50.

We had plenty of white Christmas lights on hand so I circled them around the chandelier to make the MilkyWay. There would have been more but time and getting dizzy we knew it was enough. Just used scotch tape to hold them up so I didn't damage the ceiling.

By the way I did check all the lights before I put them up and once they were up the center ones shorted out...amazingly they began working again the night of the party.

I bought some tulle in red and yellow, didn't want to block out the light from the chandelier, and gathered it at the top to create the sun. If I knew that the Christmas lights were going to be so bright I could have went with a thicker fabric but it worked out well.

My younger son LOVES the moon, his cake was a grayish moon. Part of the fun for their parties is that I let them help through out, so the cakes may not be perfectly smooth or may have finger prints its okay because it is the time spent with them. I used a half ball cake pan to make the cake.

My older son is into it all but since we have been traveling a little more this year he has been big into maps. His cake was the earth so he could put continents and even a volcano on the cake. I used a full cake mix and ball cake pan.

Its always after the fact that you realize that you should have taken more pictures at different angles. Hopefully on another card or phone I may find the back side of the earth.

I was very tempted to add Pluto back in as a planet but I know I would have confused the kids. The other 7 planets were cake-balls covered in candy melts. Mars, Saturn and Jupiter were covered in butter-cream and the rings were pull-n-peel Twizzlers.

We had candy rocks for asteroids  foil wrapped candy for moon rocks, and best of all after Christmas sales had Lego packs marked down to $1 so we picked up a bunch of star war themed packs for take home gifts. And plenty left for stocking stuffers for next year as well. Right before the party we added some Galactic Gas for punch (lime sherbet and Lemon-Lime soda) it turned out really good.

 For dinner we served homemade individual space pizzas. The kids had a lot of fun and clean up was easy, and everything we used can be reused later. That makes for one happy mommy.

Starting New

Most hit the refresh button on the first of the year and while I/we did it is just starting to really take place. See the first week of January went nothing like I expected, Mark and I had started exercising together, planned to eat healthier, wanted to run together, get the house remodeled, and organize our lives both physically and spiritually.

Then the first phone call came and it was a reminder that I was starting this year babysitting. Don't get me wrong I am very helpful and it truly has been a blessing for our family it just caught me off guard that the precious baby boy was going to be joining our family fun starting the next day. Then during the first official day of watching him, I fell down the stairs and most likely broke a few toes which meant no exercising. Now you are starting to see how the year quickly started to change.

I pushed the envelope a bit and tried to get back to running the next week but taking it easy and it seemed to be working. Seemed is always a clue word for something else and of course that something else was that I overcompensated keeping the weight off my left foot and injured my right knee. Ugh all I wanted to do was get back to a routine that was before the holidays.

The bonus to being injured is that you can't move much so instead I started organizing and cleaning our office. Inevitably it also included organizing our kitchen. I have really enjoyed following Home-Storage-Solutions-101 for tips on how to declutter without feeling overwhelmed.  She helped last year so this year so far has been a breeze, minus the office which was still a mess from the remodel.

January quickly turned into a month of surprises! Even though some may have seemed a burden at first they really have turned into life changing events that have actually already started marking off my mental list of "resolutions". The baby has helped my boys become more caring and loving, we could not imagine not having him around, along with a few unexpected expenses that came up when my computer decided to do the dreaded "blue screen". Falling made me slow down and focus on a few on prioritizing our life, real estate getting busy is showing the upside of the market is in reach. Unexpected conference came up but it means we get to plan a family vacation to go with it and finally changes in our school district made us finally make a decision as to what we plan to do as my oldest starts school next year.

I started this blog, sorry so long, thinking I hadn't started anything yet this year but ending it figuring out that it has made a huge change already and I am looking forward to what February has in store. It has already brought me around to getting back to writing a blog. While at the moment it will be things that just strikes me I am interested in knowing if there is anything in particular you are interested in.

Until next time remember to smile.