A Toothless Birthday

Gwen's Toothless birthday party was a huge success!

Since we celebrate birthdays with a 'friends' party only every 4 years, this 8th birthday party was a big deal! We kept it frugal by DIY'ing everything. It was a lot of time and effort, but she had such a great time and I was completely happy with the way everything went down. Thanks to careful planning and an incredibly supportive husband/father, I managed to not be all that stressed through it all! So here are the fun details:

 Dragon riders were invited to the dragon training party! The invites I made in Word. Super fun!

 Goodie bags were simple black bags onto which I glued green cardstock eyes. I wrote out names in runes, looking at a font online for lettering. 

This t-shirt bleaching activity was my favorite part, but also the most expensive. We purchased a t-shirt for each party-comer from goodwill/once-upon-a-child. We ironed on freezer paper stencils and then lightly misted with bleach. Cutting out each stencil took Eric and me an evening movie to complete. :)

 Since the ironing portion was a 1 on 1 craft, we also had this viking shield craft for all the kids to do while waiting their turn to make a shirt. Eric attached duct tape handles on the back prior to the party. Caroline was happy to practice her writing on her shield!

 Here you can see the variety of shields we had! That's Gwen's Toothless shield in the front, there. 

 Eric led the games while I cleared the crafts from the table and set up the food. We had a fun "sheep toss" relay that really brought out some enthusiasm and competitive spirit in these kids! Eric kept challenging them to new heights and they loved it! We also had a hula-hoop of dragon fire that the kids had to "fly" through musical chairs fashion. I didn't get a picture, but there was much haggling about whether or not a foot or head was actually in the fire at the time the music stopped... those kids were serious about their games! Plenty of cheering too!

Emmett loves the yarn "sheepies" that I made for the sheep toss!

 For lunch we served Viking ships 

 snacks included dragon poop (marshmallows coated in green melt candy)

 dragon's favorite food: fish! (of the Swedish variety) and a combo of cheesy snacks: fire balls, dragon claws and scales. 

 since it was lunch, I made sure there were healthy options too. Green and black. Emmett was all over the black option. :)

 Crystalized fire and Toothless tears

 and 7-up lime sherbet dragon drool. 

 The awesome display of edibles! the backdrop viking hall banner is a green table cloth and a black table cloth that I cut out in the shape of Toothless. 

When the eating was winding down, Gwen opened her presents. Then we gathered back in the kitchen for cake and ice cream.

 Gwen's Toothless cake breathed fire! Chocolate pumpkin cake, chocolate buttercream icing, and gross store bought fondant that no one ate but was just for looks. (No way was I going to attempt to get black on my own, so I got it from Joanns with a Q). I carved the shape, which I thought was great. I had moderate success putting on the fondant. But Gwen thought he was adorable, and that was all that matters!

 Gwen didn't want Toothless's face to melt (she's thoughtful that way), so she blew out the candles really quickly! Everyone enjoyed cake with mint chip ice cream. Well okay, everyone except one child who only wanted to eat hot dog buns and water, lol! :) Then parents arrived and kiddos gathered up various crafts and headed home!

 My kids shirts turned out like this!

Caroline modeling hers. 

It was an AWESOME party! Thank you, Eric, for helping me with all the prep work and for being such a fun game host on the day of! The kids loved you! and so do I. :)

and happy birthday, miss Gwen! Glad we could make your special party day a roaring success!

Asian Love

Eric and I got to celebrate Asia 2 weekends in a row! We had our monthly in-home date to Japan and then the next week was Lunar New Year so we had our annual Korean feast!

Japanese in-home date night. We are poor with no extra vacation flexibility but we both LOVE the idea of international travel! So we decided this year to have a monthly "trip" to a place of interest! We get take out, plan small activities for our date, and then enjoy our evening as though we took a quick vacation! For our kickoff date, Eric chose Japan! We had delicious sushi (not pictured) before we put the kids to bed. 

We made some fancy but sweet origami flowers together.

I put up some gorgeous light posters given to me by my mom's Japanese friend, Yoko, back when I was in 4th grade. I love them! 

We had a great evening of delicious food, music, movies, and entertainment and I am loving our travel dates! Some day we'll go there for real, but in the mean time, this was a ton of fun and nicely romantic. 

We had a great dinner celebration for Lunar New Year this past weekend!

Emmett loved the japchae noodles. He had a pile of them in his lap by the end of his efforts!

kimbap and ddeokbokki

Kasia was a natural at rolling the kimbaps!

Stacey's hubby was a missionary in Korea like I was (just different place and years), so she came along for the Korean market shopping and food prep. It was so much fun to have a friend in the kitchen with me! Thanks Stacey!

Caroline wasn't feeling so well. She fell asleep right there WHILE everyone was running around her!

an impromptu blanket peek-a-boo game was warmly received by all the kidlets!

Our lively game of Yutnori went down in favor of guys... TWICE... but we're saying that we just let them win. Twice. :)

I made Hoddeok for the first time and it was a smashing success! Adding it to the yearly menu for sure! Why have we never done it before? Oh yeah: because there is already so much food and we are always stuffed. Though it is traditionally essential for Lunar New Year, I think I'm going to remove ddeok guk from the menu. No one really enjoys that soup as much as the rest of the food. I'd rather have more room for other foods. Would that be heresy if I left it out? :)

We had a wonderful time! Thanks for celebrating Lunar New Year with us, folks!

Inniswood Metro Garden--- Splendid in Spring!

  Last year we visited Inniswood Metro Garden in mid-May, just after the bulbs were gone and the tree buds were changing to tender young leaves. It was lovely, but I saw the skeleton stems of tulips that had already spent their blooms and blossom carpets wilting on the ground, and I longed to see the gardens in all their spring splendor. Catching the tulips and trees in peak bloom has been on my bucket list since then!

 We met up with some med-school friends for lunch and frolicking through the gardens. Emmett slurped down his 2nd 'pouch' puree like a pro, then army crawled right over to 6-month-old J to swat at his head. :) Linz and I chatted while our children ran all over the place, just thrilled to be outside. I don't know that very much lunch was consumed, though Caroline did eat at least a bowl full of grape tomatoes that Linz brought!

  aren't those trees gorgeous? That tiny dot up there is Caroline, eager to get going. 

 some kind of Trillium, don't remember the exact variety. 

 We were watching a frog when this snake left the reeds and slithered out into the water!

 The girls were fascinated by the snake and quite concerned for the safety of the frog. The snake did not seem to be aware of his amphibious neighbor, however, so no graphic trauma ensued. 

 So many varieties of tulips. Aren't these pale yellow ones so cheerful?

  Emmett was in pretty good spirits, especially after we stopped for a couple of milk breaks. 

 He likes to peek back up and flirt with me while I push the stroller.

The kids loved this cute little gazebo house. It reminds me of a birdhouse. 

  

  The stone retaining walls were perfect balance beams. 

 Caroline was REALLY excited about the "rainbow flowers!!!" and wanted to get her photo taken with them. 

   Gwen practices ballet moves every time I try to take her picture now. If I don't want ballet poses, I have to take sneaky pics. 

  This was one of 2 highlights for the kids: a water activity with locks and wheels. Very cool! Everyone got wet, there were several bouts of tears and splashing, and more than one apology needed, but it was a blast and the kids played here for almost an hour. 

  Gorgeous tulips here too. 

  and a sweet little mini 'house'

 clearly, I am not a selfie proficienada (yeah, I just made up that word), but I adore Linzi and am so glad we got together to strengthen our beautiful friendship in such a beautiful place. And I love this picture because it is of US, even if it isn't super flattering. What matters to me is the relationship and the memories and I love this gal!

 Gwen hopping over a little stone bridge. 

 cool little stream-waterfall thing

and an imperfect pic of my three wonderful children (hey, even though I only got 1 of Caroline's lovely eyes, at least no one is blurry! I'll take that miracle!) Emmett is even smiling despite the fact that he was refusing to nap and was a grumpy pants by the time we took this photo on our way home. But more on Emmett and photography in another post. 

When I am outdoors among all of God's creations, I am calm. It helps to put things in perspective, reminds me to keep cultivating the sweet tender 'plants' in my family, and encourages me to take every opportunity to appreciate the moments blooming RIGHT NOW. Each season quickly fades into another, each blossom is so fragile. And I'm grateful for my blossoms. I am blessed. 

*contended sigh*

Isn't spring wonderful?