Happy 11th Birthday, Sophia!

Sophia celebrated her birthday (again) on the 26th with the honorary cinnamon rolls in the morning for breakfast.  Of course, I love a nice theme, so I carried through with another safari/jungle animal candle stuck inside.

Making a wish!

All of her gifts from us were wrapped in coordinating paper and bags (Sophia appreciates this just as much as I do) and she had a hard time deciding exactly which one she wanted to open first.  So many choices!

Her favorite gift?  A stuffed sloth pillow for her bed!

Later that day, we took the kids (including Ainsley from next door) to Relli's for pizza and breadsticks.  The birthday girl got to choose and everyone was definitely happy with that choice!

Sophia and Jimmy's Combined Family Jungle Party

The very next day, we celebrated our 6-year old and 11-year old with family.  I left a lot of the decorations up -- making a few modifications -- and added a special birthday cake onto the dessert table.  The menu consisted of burgers/hot dogs, mac & cheese, fruit, veggies and punch.  It was a definite success!

Sophia now has the painted "11" in her room:

And Jimmy has the "6" displayed in his room:

To be honest, I had a general idea in my mind on what I was going to design the cake to look like ... but I wasn't 100% decided.  In the end, I really like how it turned out.  The birthday kids chose the specific animals to put on it/around it and I embellished with homemade fondant leaves and grass to give it a jungle vibe.  The animal candles completed the look.

I know that one day these kiddos will ask to celebrate their birthdays separately, but I love how willing they are to share them now.  Happy birthday to my February, blue-eyed babies!

Sophia's Jungle/Safari Party with Friends

We celebrated our 'February birthday kids' (Sophia and James) with a combined jungle/safari theme at our house this year.  Scheduling is becoming a tad more complicated as the kids get older because we are finding that we need to work around not only our schedules but also the schedules of any friends that we would like to invite.  For that reason, we settled on a friend party for three of Sophia's closest friends on a Friday night -- bonus that it was on Presidents' Day Weekend and the kids were off school that Friday -- and then had a family party on Saturday.

All four of the Lapinski kids joined in on the fun of putting together the balloon arch.  Blowing up the balloons with the air compressor from the garage, assembling them together, taping others in ... they did it all.  I think that its safe to safe that we have perfect this particular technique now in our household.  

I love how this table turned out.  The leaves are dried (fake) and the pot was on clearance at the store.  It had a small dent in it and some chipped paint, but I added more gold paint and no one was the wiser.  In fact, Sam loved the centerpiece so much that she "stole" it for her bedroom afterwards.  The elephant was a cheap paper machete find that I painted grey and the zebra was actually a 'horse' that I painted to look like an African zebra.

I covered our usual painting in the dining room to match the theme, pulled in a fake plant from elsewhere in my house, painted some cheap "1s" in giraffe print for Sophia's friend party and put together party favors in animal print gift bags.

The party favors were the softest cheetah socks ever, a cheetah face mask (what girl doesn't love a nice face mask these days?!) and a leopard-print key chain with the first letter of each of the girl's names for their backpacks.

But the real highlight of Sophia's party was the chocolate fountain! The plastic leaf bowls were left over from Sam's 9th birthday party and I filled them with items that would be great with melted chocolate (rice krispie treats, marshmallows, Nilla wafers, pretzels, strawberries, bananas, apples and pretzels).  It was a hit!

The birthday girl and her closest 5th grade friends:

I had a craft set up in the dining room where the girls (including Sam) painted a sunset picture and then we added a safari silhouette to the paper and framed them.

 

They turned out even better than I had imagined!  Look how different they ended up being too.  The girls then got to take them home to (hopefully) hang up in their bedrooms to remember the party by.

A funny picture on the couch:

And a frame-worthy one:

The girls enjoyed pizza and breadsticks and then afterwards -- instead of cake or cupcakes -- I served 'zebra cakes' and mini cups of ice cream.

Happy 11th birthday, Sophia Marie!

Jimmy's 6th Birthday

Jimmy's birthday fell on a Friday this year and we made sure to make his day as special as possible.  We began the day with our traditional cinnamons rolls with a candle and all of us singing "happy birthday" to the special guy.  As you can see, he was all smiles -- even though it was early in the morning.

Making a wish!

He headed to school with a skip in his step and boxes of cosmic brownies to share with all of his classmates.  We are still not allowed to send in homemade treats but the store-bought and packaged brownies were certainly an easy request.  Spoiler alert: Sophia chose the exact same treat to take into school for her birthday later in the month.

After school, I had the table set with a bunch of gifts from us and he asked to open them immediately.

He ended up with a lot of different things and loved the pizza wrapping paper.

While I wish that time would stand still and I could bottle his personality at this age and keep it forever, I love seeing the little person that he is becoming.

For dinner, we had homemade mac and cheese and hotdogs -- the birthday boy's request.  Then we finished our meal with homemade brownies and more candles!

Later that night, Jimmy tested out his new smelling markers -- a gift from Jack -- and made the nicest picture for his teacher, Mrs. Wilson.  He even wrote both her name and his name on it.

Valentine's Day - 2022

One thing that the COVID pandemic has not completely robbed us of is the chance to hand out valentines in the kids' classrooms.  The parties are definitely muted and it still saddens me that I am not able to volunteer to help during them or to make homemade treats to send in like I used to (everything needs to be pre-packaged or store-bought for fear of transferring household germs, I guess?).  

Anyway, the biggest thrill for us is choosing the special valentines ahead of time and then spending an morning/afternoon together assembling them.  I prefer to make ours a bit more special than just simply buying a box of cardboard valentines at the store.  Rather, I print the cards myself after the kids choose exactly what fun, little surprise they want to include.  Over the years, we have done some really cute things!

This year, the process was simplified because Sophia, Jack and James all wanted to do the exact same thing -- attach a "pop-it" keychain to their valentine card.  Pop-its are 'all-the-rage' right now and the fact that you could then attach it to a bookbag afterwards was just plain genius.  (I tried to talk Samantha into giving some to her friends too, but I guess that when you're in 8th grade, it's just not as cool to gift valentines to your friends anymore).

I found some free valentine 'printables' online and printed/cut random ones that the kids could then sign their name to and punch a hole in the corner.

Each of the kids were meticulous and made sure to use neat handwriting.

It was a little bit tricky to open each of the keychains and then re-attach them, but Sophia took on that task and excelled.

Jimmy and her formed a little assembly line and then put them in the respective piles for each classroom.

Of course, there were several 'breaks' where the kids took the time to pop a few.  These pop-its are great sensory objects ...

For the teachers, we printed a separate valentine that said, "You Knock My Socks Off" and gifted them each a soft pair of socks, tied up with a beautiful ribbon.

All separated and ready to go:

On Valentine's Day morning, I made our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast and set out a something special for each of the kids at their seats.

They are past the age where I can dress them in coordinating outfits highlighted with red and pink, but I smiled because Samantha was wearing a pink dress because it was a home basketball game and she is required to dress up on those days.

Their packages contained two things: a book that I chose specifically for each one based on their interests and their favorite kind of candy.  They were excited with everything and it made me happy to start their school day (and week -- Valentine's Day was on a Monday!) off on the right foot ...

New Year Randoms

We always begin each new year celebrating Grandpa!  When your birthday is literally on New Year's Day, it's a great way to jumpstart the year.  His meal of choice was chicken wings (Steve handled that part) and an apple pie (my specialty).  Of course, we had lots of other fixings too; watched some New Year's Football Bowl games; and watched Grandpa blow out his extra-fancy candles.

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As an extra credit project in Spanish class, Samantha was supposed to work with a partner and make an authentic Spanish dish that they could bring in and share with the class.  

There were a few 'hiccups' along the way (I forgot to pick up the most important ingredient that day at the store -- the fresh corn!) and she got a much later start than planned ...

... and her partner forgot about doing the project with her -- resulting in more drama than I really needed that evening ...

... but the end result was perfect.

The class raved over her "cornbread type of dessert" and she score lots of extra credit points on the project to add to her already high score that she has in the course.

I even took her to school that morning to make it easier for her to transport the beautifully-plated dish,

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December did not bring with it much snow to Michigan.  In fact, the month was unseasonably mild, but it looks like January finally got the message that we would like a bit of snow.

Jack has been 'itching' to get the snow-thrower up and in action:

Yup, while Jack used modern technology to clean the driveway, Jimmy plugged along the 'old-fashioned way' with his shovel.

How old do you think he needs to be to start snow-blowing the neighbors' driveways for cash?

Smiles for miles!

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Basketball season is underway for Sam!  Her non-school-affiliated league took 2nd place in their division and now we are waiting to start her 8th grade season:

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