Chuck E. Cheese Please!

The boys had a blast at their Chuck E. Cheese Birthday party this weekend!  Elijah and Joaquin had been to several friends birthday parties this year at Chuck E. Cheese, so when it came time to choose what to do for their birthday, the first place they said was Chuck E. Cheese.

I have to admit, as a mom, it is pretty much the easiest party I have ever hosted!  We just ordered a certain kids birthday package, reserved the space, sent out the invites and showed up.  They have that birthday party program down to a science!  Kids get 45 min to play with all their tokens, then their assigned party planner calls them to dinner, they put on their Chuck E. Cheese birthday boy show, do the cake, open the presents and we are done!

I pretty much just sat in a neighboring booth, took pictures and watched the whole thing go down as a smashing success!  3 cheers for Chuck E Cheese!

The boys had an absolute blast!  

On Friday morning we told the boys we were celebrating both their birthdays today so we made the whole day special, topping it off with Chuck E. Cheese for their dinner party!  They woke up to special pirate coins that led them down the stairs to presents on the kitchen table and special pirate pancakes.  Joaquin opened one of his morning presents to find Diego undies and he suddenly decided he never wanted to wear a diaper again!  That was that!  The guy has been potty-trained since!  (I should have realized the power of cool underwear earlier, man!)  Although, I have to admit when he refused to put on a pull-up to go to Chuck E. Cheese I got really nervous we would have some horrible birthday accident at the party.  But, he did a great job and has been surprising me ever since!

Then, after their nap, they woke up to find a treasure map that led them around the house and finally X-marked the spot of their "hidden treasure" in the garage...where they found their new bikes!  Then we MiMi and Uncle John showed up and we all headed over to Chuck E. Cheese to meet up with our friends from school for our big birthday bash.

Here are some pics from the day.

Elijah and Joaquin on their new bikes!

 blowing out candles

 Joaquin gave Chuck E. a big hug

 Elijah gettin' down for dance party with Chuck E

 my birthday boys

 they thought it was so funny to pull on his tongue

 they both got in the ticket blaster together!

it was all that we could do to stick to the party planners order and open presents at the last

 guns guns guns

 daddy and uncle john helped with some of the older games

 Elijah's favorite pirate wheel game

 We had about 10 kids from the boys school and some of their siblings.  The boys felt really special that all their friends from school showed up.

Clapping out "Happy Birthday"

 Getting crowned a birthday boy by Chuck E!

 high five!

 blowing out our cake!

Easter 2012

We had a wonderful Easter holiday this year! We packed up the car and headed to MiMi and PaPaw's house Saturday afternoon and the boys had already written letters to the Easter bunny letting him know we were going to be over there for the evening.

Saturday morning we woke up and had special bunny pancakes for breakfast! Gamma and Gampa sent a special bunny cupcake kit in the mail but we put the goodies on top of our pancakes and they were so much fun!

It was a great way to start the Easter weekend!

The weather couldn't have been more perfect, either, for the weekend! The boys played outside practically the entire time and we had a hamberger/veggie berger cookout Saturday night. My parents house has lots of huge trees for shade and an amazing hammock for drifting off. It was the perfect lazy afternoon while the boys played in the boys concocted a "pirate boat with a plank into the swimming pool" (which was basically the baby pool at the end of a slide. I should preface by saying Elijah is COMPLETELY into pirates right now. It's been his past month or so phase.)

Here is Joaquin checking out a snail with his magnifying glass

Here is Elijah setting up his pirate boat/playground to be able to walk the plank into the pool.

The next morning the boys woke up early and ran to the front porch to see if the Easter bunny had gotten the heads up and known to hop by MiMi and Papaw's house and drop off goodies.

Joaquin got a baseball jersey from the Easter bunny

His bunny ears and sticker egg

Elijah has a serious sweet tooth and he jumped into his basket head first!

Elijah's favorite thing was the Easter bunny pirate garb he got! He has been religiously wearing the one skull shirt he has pretty much every day and every night for the past month; resulting in fits and tears when he can't wear it because mommy has to wash it, so the Easter bunny gave him a new skull shirt and a doggie pirate hat. Can you tell he is excited?

Joaquin in his new bunny ears mask

Elijah in his

The boys goofing around in their masks

We had a sugar filled morning and then of course tried to settle ourselves down enough to get dressed for church. We spent the morning in the First Baptist Church of Moody with my parents. It is a precious little old church down the road from my parents house. All the kids had an Easter egg hunt during the big people service, so the boys loaded up on even more candy and were high flying by the time we headed back to MiMi and Papaws for lunch.

Our family Easter picture before heading to church

Mom and I's "Easter bonnets"

Mom had just gotten back from a few days in Round Top (the worlds largest flea market type gathering). And she had a treat for me when I arrived; an Easter Bonnet. :) We had fun wearing our hats to church and feeling all dressed up!

End of the day; end of the candy. This is where we ended.

Gamma and Gampa Egg Fun!

The boys received a wonderful Easter box in the mail from Gamma and Gampa today and we had sooooooo much fun doing the egg dyes! The box of goodies contained a special egg kit to make aliens and spaceship eggs.

They were so much fun!

If you haven't done it in a while, dying eggs is serious business! We had to change out of our good clothes and get on "painting shirts" because that dye is lethal! After we made our hard boiled eggs and prepared our vinegar and water dye mixtures, the boys had fun coloring their eggs with a wax pencil that kept the waxed area white while dying.

After putting some color on our eggs, we used all the fun stickers in the egg kit to put on googly eyes and arms and all sorts of nonsense!

I was very proud of their work! :)

Although it took significant set up and prep time, this was such a fun Easter activity! Thanks Gamma and Gampa for the awesome memories!

Joaquin putting stickers on his eggs. (He got a bit of dye on his face, of course)

Elijah posing with his first alien egg!

Trying to get the boys to pose with the eggs

Our finished products!

School Easter Hunt

He boys had a blast at their Mother's Day Out Easter Party today. Joaquin is still kinda learning about not opening the eggs until the hunt is over. He has a tendency to want to open them right away and eat the candy out, but then he is misses the chance to get more eggs, and before long, they are all gone!

So, mommy had a little practice session with him and reminded him to get as many eggs as he can until the teacher says the hunt is over; THEN we eat the candy. :)

Elijah knows the name of the game by now and he shot out of the starting gates with focus! He grabbed so many eggs he shared a lot of the loot with his bubba.

It is always a trick when going to school events with little guys in two different classes. They both hunted on two different playgrounds at the same time so I tried to ping pong back and forth and grab some photos while I could.

Enjoy:

Elijah on the playground after his hunt

Happy boy about to begin!

Grabbing the loot

More finds

Showing me the biggest egg he found

showing off on the slide afterwards

Joaquin on his playground before the hunt begins

posing for pics

his first find

showing me his basket

going for more eggs

my sweet Joaquin, posing with his class

Joaquin's Mother's Day Out class with their Easter baskets