A Max and Ruby Birthday!

On May 22nd, we celebrated Brody's 4th birthday! Appropriately, he chose a Max and Ruby themed party. For those that may not be familiar with the Max and Ruby books or television show, Max is a 'little brother' bunny who never says much, yet causes endless mischief, much to the dismay of Ruby, his older sister....hmmm....think its a character Brody can relate to??

We invited a couple of families over to have dinner and celebrate, and our theme was continued, as both families in attendance had two children - an older daughter and a younger son. We played pin the tail on Max, made balloon animals (and hats), and decorated beach pails (one of Max's favorite activities is going to the beach).




We read "Bunny Cakes", the tale in which Max makes an earthworm dirt cake with red hot marshmallow squirters and caterpillar icing for his grandmother's birthday, and then we revealed the cake that Max had "dropped off" for Brody's party (Max couldn't attend since he was at the beach with his family).





I found the recipe and ideas for the party online - it was probably the easiest cake I've ever made for one of my kid's parties! It consisted of baking a cake, stacking it messily, icing it with pudding, and then throwing ground up chocolate graham crackers on it! (Maybe throwing the crumbs wasn't necessary to get them to stick to the pudding, but it was in the instructions and it was certainly fun, albeit messy!) Brody and Alexa gladly helped me add the earthworms - though they didn't all make it on the cake in the process! ;)

Brody loved all of his gifts, so much in fact, that he would open one and then tell me he was 'all done' because he wanted to immediately play with whatever he had opened! He received a special gift from his daddy - a camouflage blanket and pillow, both of which ended up on his bed that evening.



I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends here. One took charge of the FLIP camcorder while the other took digital photos with my camera so that I had documentation of the event to share with Billy. My mother in law was a tremendous help with decorating, cooking, and cleaning!


Here's one last photo 0f Brody and Alexa 'camping out' in Brody's new tent, a birthday gift from his Halmoni. I can't believe my baby is four!!

April Distractions...

My goal to survive the remaining days of April (after Billy left) was to plan as many 'distractions' as possible! Thankfully, the weather cooperated with my plan and we were able to spend the month exploring parks, playing outside, and visiting the zoo.

Brody and I went to the zoo on the 15th with some friends, and when Alexa learned of our excursion, we had to plan another trip for that weekend so she could join us!

The Columbus zoo is amazing (recently voted #1 in the country) and in addition to the animals, it also features a small amusement park (it has a water park too but we haven't visited it yet!). The ride bands for the amusement park were buy one get one free the day we returned with Alexa, so we spent most of our time in that section! Brody had chosen his snow boots for the outing, and it worked to his advantage, as with his boots on, he hit the 36" mark required to ride the kiddie rides all by himself! He was so proud of his 'big kid' status as evidenced by the smile on his face!

The only ride he didn't enjoy was the Frog Hopper, a mini version of the rides that plummet quickly to the ground...you can barely see my poor boy sitting next to Alexa in this next photo. I felt so bad for him when the ride started and he was obviously scared, but he hung in there! However, when it was over, he was quick to inform me that he did NOT like that one!

This photo cracks me up! Based on Brody's pose, it looks like Dumbo is rocketing through the air instead of the leisurely floating that was actually occurring!

And of course my children do not think a trip to the zoo is complete without a visit to the carousel, a train ride, and a pony ride!! (What happened to going to a zoo to see animals!?!)

On particularly beautiful evening, I decided to find a park I had learned about from another parent during preschool registration in March. I posted last year about my obsession with wooden castle playgrounds and our hour long trek to visit one in Iowa...thankfully, the wooden castle playground in Ohio is only about 20 minutes from our house! The kids loved it and I loved the photos I was able to capture from our visit. This will definitely be a park we frequent quite a bit this summer!