Brady's 4th Birthday Wild Kratt Party

On May 12th, we celebrated Brady's birthday, Wild Kratt style!  Wild Kratts is a PBS cartoon where two brothers (the Kratt brothers) go around learning about animals, helping them, and saving them.  It is real animal footage mixed in with cartoon and in order to help the animals, the brothers become the animals.  Eli and Brady are all about this cartoon right now and are playing "Wild Kratts" daily.  So I decided to make Brady's first ever birthday party Wild Kratt themed.  It took about 3 weeks to get everything made and ready, but the kids had a great time and it was so worth it!

I made each child a Creature Power Suit with Creature Power Disks for the middle.  (See below)  Each time we played a different game, they put a new disk in the center of their suit to make them "become" that animal.  At the end of the post, I have a picture of all the power suits and creature disks.

Ok, so I know this first photo is of Aunt Kam and Major, but they were playing so cute together while I was running around like a maniac trying to get everything ready for the party.

We had the party at the church building, a great place for a party!  Here is my sweet birthday boy!  I can't believe he is 4!  (And he is so excited to be 4 because in our house, being 4 years old means you get a birthday party with friends and it means you get to start playing sports.  Brady is already signed up for swim lessons and will be playing his first soccer season in the fall!  He is ready to go!)

The Wild Kratts fly around in a giant turtle called, "The Tortuga".  So I made turtle cakes for Brady.

The kids at the party...Max Granville, Eli, Benjamin Davis, Brock and Reece Avera, Jackson Davis, Ashley Gage, and then sitting is Brady and Zach Pace.  Lily Pace was also there, but didn't get there in time for the photo.

Game 1: Polar Bear Creature Rescue

The kids had to jump from ice block to ice block to get to safe land.  Here is Brady jumping...

More Polar Bear creature rescue.  Ben, Jackson, Brady, Ashley, then Eli, Brock, and Max behind them all waiting for their turn to jump across the frozen river on blocks of ice.

Game 2: Cheetah Racer

Each child was given a cheetah tail to race around the gym and try to pull the tail of their fellow cheetahs.  Here is Brady racing by Gran Betty.

Game 3: Platypus Egg Rescue

The kids had 2 teams and had to take the platypus eggs safely to the nest on a spoon.  Eli with his egg, then Brady with his.  (Notice the dish in the middle of the animal paw is a platypus, they changed out the disk for each game.)

Waiting to rescue platypus eggs...Eli, Brady, Ashley, Jackson, Reece, (me in background) and Brock.  Zach is taking the egg to the nest.

Game 4: Bat Power

Here is Brady with his bat power disk.  For this game, Uncle Devin cut out about 100 insects and hid them in a dark room.  I gave each kid a flashlight to use as bat power to find the insects in the dark.  (Since bats are nocturnal and hunt at night.)  They loved this game!

It is dark in the room, but you can see Eli by the door in this first photo, and Brady is flying by between the chairs in this second photo.

Game 5: Kangaroo Power

In this one we divided the kids into 2 groups.  One got to be kangaroos first, the other group got to be the dingo hunting the kangaroo, then they switched.  Each kid got a baby kangaroo to put into the pouch of the mommy kangaroo.  And since dingos are scared of water, the kangaroos got water guns to shoot the dingos with.  Above I am explaining the game...Max (almost out of the picture), Eli, Brady, Lily Pace, Brock, then Ashley and Ben with their backs to us.

Max, Eli and Brady ready to save some baby kangaroos!

Best friends: Max and Eli

First round of dingos: Lily, Zach, Reece, Max, and Eli

First round of kangaroos with joeys and water guns: Ben, Jackson, Brock, Ashley, and Brady

Ben and Brady getting their joeys into the pouch of the mama kangaroo.

Second round of dingos: Ashley, Brock, Brady, Jackson, and Ben

Second round of kangaroos: Reece, Max, Eli, and Lily (Zach came in later)

Lily with her mom, Stephanie, trying to find the mama kangaroo to put the joey in the pouch.

Game 6: Butterfly Power

For this one we started out as caterpillars on the ground, then got wrapped up in toilet paper and burst out as butterflies!  Here is Brady getting wrapped up by Aunt Kam

Gran Betty holding Major, Jackson, Lily, Brady, Eli, and Max all ready to bust out.

Daddy finishing wrapping up Eli

Brady and Eli in a cocoon

Game 7: Helping the Beavers

In this game, the kids used chocolate frosting as mud and pretzel sticks as wood and built dams for beavers.  Here are Brady and Eli building their dams. 

There were 8 games, but we didn't get any pictures of the last one.  It was Firefly Power and we played it like "Simon Says" but we said "Firefly Says" instead.

Cake time!  Here is Brady with his cake.

Presents!  Lots and lots of presents!

After the party was over we had lots of play time with new presents!  One more shot of Brady in his creature power suit with the cheetah creature power disk.

Me and my big man!

Buddy and Mr. Conductor with Brady.  These toys are from the show "Dinosaur Train", another favorite of the boys.

Sweet boy sleeping with some of his new toys.  Happy Birthday my big 4 year old!!

Here are all the creature power suits and creature disks I made.  Whew!  It took a long time!

Mother's Day 2012

Here are Eli, Brady, and Major with me on Mother's Day.  Bill and the boys did a great job of giving me the day off on Sunday.  They took me out to lunch after church, and ordered pizza for dinner.  Bill did any dishes that accumulated and changed all diapers.  Eli kept asking if he could get me more water or fold the laundry for me or something.  And Brady gave me his big Brady hugs all day long.  It was a really nice day.  I love my boys!

Major's First Steps and 10 Months Old

After church on Wednesday, May 9th, Major decided to take his first steps!  We were saying good night to Eli and Brady in their room, we stood Major up, and he took 2 steps to Bill!  These first two photos are of Major taking more steps towards Bill.  The whole family was there, and we all cheered for him.  It was really cool.

Those steps really made me feel like it was all going by too fast, so the next day I got out the camera and just took some shots of Major playing.  He goes EVERYWHERE!!!  (And puts everything in his mouth.  Last night at Eli's ball game, I looked over and he had a cigarette in his mouth.  Yuck.  Today, during Eli's conference, I look over and he has a moth in his mouth.  So gross.)  So the next 3 pictures (and the very last one, I'm not sure how that happened...) are just Major cruising around doing his thing. 

These next 6 pictures are of Major on May the 11th...his 10 month old birthday!  He has been taking more steps and really talking a lot more.  At 10 months, Major is sleeping through the night consistently (hallelujah!), he says "dada, mama, nanana (I think this is "no"), E-I (Eli), Ah-ee (Brady), and can really mimic the inflection in our voices as he tries to say what we are saying.  As I already mentioned, he is everywhere and into everything.  He has never met something he couldn't fit into his mouth.  (This includes his classmates at Bible class...we will have to work on that.)  He loves to have fun and loves his brothers.  He is constantly laughing and smiling.  He doesn't say "hi", but he does wave hi and bye to people.  He lights up when he sees his brothers and follows them throughout the house.  He knows the sound of the door adjacent to the garage opening and he knows that means daddy is home, and when he hears it, he drops what he is doing and makes a happy squeal to the house as he makes a bee-line to Bill.  Another really cute thing that he does is, no matter where he is in the house, if I start singing, "Where oh where oh where is Major, where oh where or where is Major..." he will come to me.  I love it!

Cornerstone's 2012 Auction Gala

I don't get much of an opportunity for dressing up, so my friend, Rebecca Pace, and I really had fun at this year's Gala.  We've been going to this for the past 3 years, but I got pictures this year because of the dressing up!  The theme was Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the Places You'll Go" and you were supposed to dress "whimsical".  We weren't exactly sure what that meant, but here is the end result.  We wore big fake eyelashes and made these fun hats.  I also wear these crazy earrings and zebra print shirt.  I think we pulled of the "whimsical".  And we were definitely the hit of the gala!  So much fun!

First Camping Trip

Bill took Eli and Brady on their first camping trip on Friday, April 27th.  They went to Brazos Bend State Park.  They were fully ready to stay in a tent, but turns out there was a shelter available, so they stayed there instead!  Here is the air mattress that all 3 of them slept on...

Here is Brady ready for a day of animal adventuring!

The boys absolutely love animals and they love spending time with their Daddy, so this camping trip was the perfect combination for them!

Bill took lots of pictures of the different animals they found on their nature walk.  They saw some pretty cool animals close up...especially the alligators!  Brazos Bend is known for their alligators and the boys couldn't wait to find some!

They went camping with the Shane and Carole Gage.  The Gages have a daughter, Ashley, who is Brady's age.  Here is Ashley with Eli and Brady.

ALLIGATOR!!!

Project time.  I'm not sure what they are building, but they looked little houses of some sort when they were finished.

The boys were super worn out from this camping adventure.  When they got home, they both took a 4 hour nap, were up for 2 hours, and then went back to bed for the evening.  I'm so thankful to Bill for taking them!  Next time, Major and I will try to join them. :)

Dinosaurs at the Zoo

On Thursday, April 26th, we were able to go to the zoo and see the dinosaur exhibit before the general public because we are zoo members.  We went to see the dinosaurs a couple of years ago, and the boys still love it!

The ankylosaurus with Eli and Brady

 Dionynchus...scary

Brontosaurus

 T-REX!

 All my boys

Brady with the fossils.  He wanted to badly to touch them.  The boys loved it so much, we went through twice!  (And Brady still asks if we can go again.)