Megan's Birthday Party

Megan turned 8 this year.  

She wanted a baking party.  I don't really know what I was thinking or why I agreed to it - probably because I have seen other people do it and thought "if they can do it, I can do it".  Well... they probably didn't have 18 girls.  It also was a bad bad week/ weekend for me and Jason was out of town.  This may be, honestly, one of the hardest weeks of my life - but hey, in the end I pulled off a birthday party that my daughter LOVED.  

Here is how I did it.

I cooked 18 cakes from these tin foil tins from the dollar store.  

This is how they turned out:

As the girls came they decorated aprons that had their names written on them in sharpie

I had 3 stations and the girls rotated.  I had my friend, her son, and one of my visiting teacher come and each run a station.  One station was making your own pizza.

They were their own personal pan pizza's (from the same dollar store tins)

The three stations were: Pizza making, frosting the cake, and baking games down stairs.  (Guess what's missing with baking items, a relay race, and pass the pasta)

Girls decorating aprons.  On the actual day of we had 15 girls show up.

Zelda and Zoe

Pailey, Megan, and Delaney

Brooke, Brynn, and Taylor

Gage (the helper) and Madison

Afton, Sydney, and Leislel

Pailey and Megan

There are so many girls becasue she has church friends, school friends, and neighborhood friends.  We can't really not invite one of those groups - so we just went big!

We opened presents first because one girls was late (khloe) so we opened presents while we waited

Megan rotated with each group individually - so she was with all of her friends at different stations.

After making pizza's we made a salad on a stick

I didn't get a picture of the frosting, sprinkles, and frosting bags - but you get the idea.

Some girls did a great job.

Games:

We sent each kid home with a picture of them and their cake

We ate the pizzas and cakes and sang "happy birthday"

Megan is pretty great.  She is a wonderful oldest daughter.  She is responsible and helpful.  Every morning she wakes herself up and gets dressed and ready and room cleaned and starts unloading the dishwasher - all before I even wake up!  She is also very spiritual.  She reads her scriptures almost every day and marks them quite a bit.  Right now she is highlighting every time they mention Jesus in yellow.  She has lots of questions and wants to know about everything.  She is a reader!  She will spend hours sitting on the couch reading a book.

After the party Brock and Noah made their cakes and wanted pictures.  I was pretty impressed with Brock's - for a kid who hate's drawing - he did pretty great with frosting.  It is football players.

Noah's is pretty

Noah's Play

Noah had a rough fall/winter.  I am not sure what triggered it but by the end of December we were kinda in crisis mode. He was angry and unhappy all the time.  We talked to his doctor and got some good tips on some things we could do to try and help him through these phases.  We also decided to put him in some new things that he enjoyed - try to find some new talents or new joys.  He loves being "the class clown" and is really very funny, so we decided to put him in a play.  He was a little nervous at first (he gets embarrassed really easy) - but if he channels his energy right - I knew he would do a great job.

The play was a parody of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory called Wonka.  Noah got the parts of Augustus Gloop, The Rock (the celebrity), and squirrels.  He worked really hard and really really enjoyed it.  He did such a great job, not only at rehearsals but also at the performance.  He took it very seriously and was AWESOME!  I was so so proud of him.  I think we found his new thing.  We also put him in a social group and between those two things he has had a great first part of 2018. 

This is him playing Augustus.  He did not want to play Augustus becasue well... Augustus is fat and Noah is... not.  But he really took on the part and enjoyed it - we was especially thrilled to wipe chocolate all over his shirt and face.  His part also required him to burp on cue which he practiced quite a lot - then they said they were going to have a noise machine do it - but when it was time for the burp the special effect didn't happen - he handled it like a professional and didn't let it mess up his lines - I was so impressed.  

Then he was a squirrel  - the play had squirrels with golden nuts instead of geese with golden eggs.  They didn't have any lines - but they were pretty cute!

Then he was Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  This was part of a clebrity YouTube interview.   You can see he is trying to talk like a cocky muscle man.  He was very funny and totally in character.

Then at the end the bows.

The cast

I am so proud of him for working hard and overcoming his fears and doing something different.

His best friend David and his family came and watched him also - we love our Denver support!