How to Party, Dino Style

I started planning Ethan's 4th birthday party a few months ahead of time.  In previous years, we kept things simple.  A couple of family members or friends, no other kids, and a minimal amount of sugar.  This year was a bit different.  Ethan is finally at the age where he plays with, and not just next to, his friends.  I allow at least five extra minutes for preschool pickup, knowing that Ethan will run around to each of his classmates and give hugs and/or blow kisses.  He's also old enough to really understand what birthdays are all about.  And when he asked me for a dinosaur birthday party, well, that settled it.  We were going to go big(ish) this year.

Step one:  Design the invitations.

(I gotta give Pinterest credit where credit's due... I totally stole the whole "ROAR means Happy Birthday" thing!)

Step two:  Goody bags.

Those dinosaur eggs are actually jelly beans.  Yum!

Dino egg close-up.

Step three:  Food.

I did a carnivore, herbivore, sweetivore, snackivore theme.  Turned out a little heavy on the sweetivore/snackivore side, but hey... it's a party.

I had Bugles as dinosaur claws, pretzels as dinosaur bones, grapes as (healthy, non-jelly bean) dinosaur eggs, and PB&J cut into Brontosauruses (Brontosauri?).  I also had dinosaur chicken nuggets, fossil cookies, and Jurassic cupcakes.

Made the fossil cookies, but bought the cupcakes.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.

Step four:  Activities.

Knowing that four-year-olds have a very short attention span, I tapped into my teaching roots and set up stations around the backyard.  We had a table to make "D is for Dinosaur" crafts.

Here's an example of how a stuffy adult makes a D dinosaur...

The kids took this very seriously.

Like, need-a-mid-crafting-juice-break seriously.
Must've been tiring adding that fifth leg to his dinosaur.

There was also a dino dig where the kiddos could channel their inner archeologist and unearth dinosaur skeletons.

I underestimated how popular this station would be.
I may have even seen a few adults get in on the dino dig action. 

Hands down, the most stylish archeologist I've ever seen. 

The final station was a dinosaur relay race, using a claw grabber to transport a plastic T-Rex back and forth across the yard.  I don't have a picture of this, so I'll paint one for you.  Close your eyes.  

Go ahead, I'll wait.  

Okay, imagine a gaggle of preschoolers who 1) don't have a lot of experience with relay races, 2) are still developing hand-eye coordination, and 3) are all hopped up on sugar.  Pepper in a few encouraging shouts such as "No, no, run over *that* way!" and "Okay, sweetie, your turn is over now."  

Yeah, it went a little something like that.  Moving on. 

Step five:  Goofiness with good people.

Start with some of these:

Pack of 12 for under ten bucks?  Thanks, Oriental Trading!

Add the world's best godfather and a few new Hot Wheels:

Totally incognito.

And you've got yourself a recipe for awesomeness, my friend.

When the time came for cupcakes, Ethan was stoked.

Woo hoo!

Those "washable" dinosaur stampers?  Yeah.
Took three days and two baths to get rid of.  ;) 

All in all, I'd call it a success.  Ethan keeps asking if it's almost time for his next birthday, and has started putting in requests for themes.  Every so often, he'll bring up his dinosaur party from a "long, long time ago" and thank us for making it so much fun.
Melts my heart every time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had such a lovely holiday! It started with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which, as it turns out, no one in my house is interested in besides me (I know, it's absolutely un-American, but those boys of mine are total party poopers). Ethan was mildly interested when the Buzz Lightyear balloon floated by, but outside of that he was much more into playing with his wooden train tracks. And, while we're on the subject of the Macy's Parade, can we digress for a moment and talk about the fact that Newsies is now on Broadway?!?! What?!?! I was ridiculously obsessed with that movie back in the day. The performance of "King of New York" alone was enough to make watching the parade worth it. My boys don't know what they're missing.

Given that we're exactly two weeks away from meeting baby brother, I kind of cheated my way out of cooking this year. I cooked a turkey, but most of the side dishes were purchased from our local boutique supermarket already prepared. Call me crazy, but spending hours in the kitchen peeling/boiling/mashing potatoes and making complicated recipes from scratch does not jive with the big baby belly and end-of-pregnancy pains and fatigue.

We did most of the cooking preparing while Ethan was napping, but once he woke we pulled a stool up to the counter and let him "bake the bread" (roll up all of the crescent rolls and put them on the baking sheet). We set the table with "fancy" plates and real silverware, dimmed the lights, and lit candles. Music played in the background as we talked about holidays and family, and I almost burst into happy tears several times. I was too busy enjoying the moment to take any photos, which is a testament to how absolutely wonderful the evening was.

However, a Notch blog post would not be a Notch blog post without *some* pictures. As per usual, I'm horribly behind in posting (It's been over a month! Yikes!), so I have a few catching up photos cued up and ready to go.

Here's Ethan as a scary green dinosaur (don't let that goofy grin fool you - he's a vicious beast).

He began asking for a dinosaur costume back in August, I broke down and bought it for him in September, and he intermittently wore it around the house all through October. We got some serious mileage out of that zip up dinosaur suit.

While this was taken with an iPhone camera in my office, and not with one of Ryan's fancy cameras in just-the-right setting, I figured I should post it anyway. This year for Halloween I dressed up as Mother Nature (ba dum ching!). My amazing friend Stacie spent hours with me coming up with the concept and making the skirt and headpiece. I also wore it to Ryan's office Halloween party and when we took Ethan trick-or-treating, so I suppose I got some good mileage out of this costume as well!
I will do my best to post once more before baby brother arrives - I have some recent(ish) belly shots to show you, and should do so while they're still relevant!