Heather Bird Photography

We had so much fun last night celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday.   I know that we were 4 days late.   Ricky reminded each of us every time we said it was his birthday that his REAL birthday was on Sunday, Sunday, March 2nd.   I didn’t have my act together enough to celebrate on Sunday and this was the first night of the week that I had open so we celebrated last night.    Sorry.   Happy belated, Dr. Seuss.

Years ago, I started buying Dr. Seuss books, bags and stuffed animals thinking that one day I would plan a Dr. Seuss birthday party for my boys.    Years have gone by and my stash has sat high up in the shelves of my closet.   After being reminded of Dr. Seuss’ birthday this past weekend, I started thinking about my hypothetical party and decided now was the time.   Nolan is currently obsessed with stuffed animals and Ricky is on the brink of an age where it will no longer be cool to be excited about stuffed animals.   So, being that I had a stuffed animal to go with every Dr. Seuss book that I had purchased, I jumped at opportunity this year.

I sent a couple of texts, inviting some friends over whom I haven’t seen in awhile and the boys and I spent the afternoon preparing to celebrate Dr. Seuss.    At one point Nolan wanted to know if Dr. Seuss was coming to his birthday party.   When I explained that he had died, (because you know if he was still alive, he would SO be at our birthday party)  they both wanted to know how he died.   I answered with the easy answer that he was old.    “Old” could have been the end of the conversation and I could have continued blowing up Cat in the Hat colored balloons without having to talk after each exhale, but I have some curious four year olds and not a day goes by where I don’t feel like I need to look up the answer to some random question.   My boys are going to surpass my knowledge of things in about 6 months!   Anyway, with the knowledge that he was old, they next wanted to know if he was married (apparently you’re old if you’re married)!   And then they wanted to know who he married.     Having no time for google or Siri, I again, took the easy way out…. “Oh, he married Mrs. Seuss,”  I answered.    But Benny, who is a little bit of a know it all lately, looked at me with a confused expression and defiantly stated, “No, Mom.   Mrs. Seuss is his MOM!”  Touche’ buddy, touche’.

We did a couple of easy, fun things to make the party a little more Dr. Seussy than just ordering pizza and having some plain ice cream.     First we made our own Thing 1 and Thing 2 Ice Cream by using food coloring to dye some vanilla ice cream red and then layered white and red in clear cups.   We topped them off with turquoise sprinkles.

We put red Swedish fish into blue Gatorades for a little “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish” action and added some red and white striped straws, which make any drink more fun!

And then we decorated the table with our various Dr. Suess books, my go-to Halloween costume Cat in the Hat Hat and extra Red Fish.

Oh and I also printed Cat in the Hat name cards.   I can’t resist, no matter how few people we have at a get-together, having name cards.  I just love ‘em! 

And, the piece that made the night the most fun?  Our friends who we haven’t seen in months that were able to celebrate with us.

Two peas in a pod.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
Now, I’m kind of in spring cleaning mode.  I wonder what party I’ll have next?   I know I’ve got party supplies stashed in other closets too!
Love,
Heather

 

A few weeks ago my baby boy turned EIGHT!   It truly is amazing how fast eight years can fly by.   It seems like just yesterday that I held this beautiful boy in my arms and was changed forever.   And now he’s doing things like losing his 8th tooth on his 8th birthday.  I think he wiggled and wiggled and finally forced that thing out so he could have a cool “8″ memory!

In lieu of a big party, Ricky invited a few of his best buddies from the neighborhood over for dinner.   However, with little brothers and cousins it turned into enough kids to have a mini party and you know me, I can’t refuse planning a party.   So… we had a little race car themed party.

We started with decorations.   I wanted to keep things inexpensive and fairly simple.   These turned out to be easy and impactful.   I’ve seen this idea of stringing balloons with a needle and thread on Pinterest many times and have always wanted to try it, but instead I typically tend to wait until the last minute and run to the store to spend a fortune on a few helium balloons that are flat in a day.   This year I bought 4 packages of balloons for $1.00 each and strung them on every wall of the party room!  48 balloons and the room was transformed for $4.00!   (And we still have fully inflated balloons over two weeks later!   If you’re looking for decorations that you can prep ahead of party day – this is one!)

I used white butcher paper for a tablecloth and painted black and white checkers down the middle and street signs with names as place mats.    Again, easy and cheap.

I printed labels on my home computer to tie in the drinks and a couple other simple things (Soup cans for “Tools” shown below).  And that was about it for decorations.

We had a few little activities.   The boys had so much fun and were so entertained with each of these.   First, each boy colored their own hotwheel car.    It was a little tough to find plain white hotwheel cars, but I managed to find Hursts.  Yep, hursts!!  I was slightly creeped out that I was buying 8 mini hursts, and felt like I needed to send a disclaimer home to the parents, but the boys didn’t know what they were and just thought they were cooler because they were bigger and had more space to color.  :)   Most moms can’t believe I let my boys color with Sharpies but they love them and it was necessary for the cars.

Then each kid got to color their own personalized name road map.    These were a hit!    These are foam core boards, also purchased for $1.00 each.   I painted each kid’s name on the board in cursive ahead of time.  Then, at the party, they each created their own roadmap by drawing in their house, their favorite places, (Target, The Indoor Soccer Center, Utah Utes and BYU football stadiums depending on where their allegiance lies) and trees, lakes, tornadoes, etc.   The boys were so creative and these turned out great.

They drove their own car along their own road for awhile which I expected, but then realized they could connect them all and make one big long road.   I didn’t think of this but they had fun driving their cars along the very long Name Expressway.

The last activity they did was to race their cars.   Again, this race car track was made from black foam core boards that I taped together and painted lines on.

I intentionally made 2 separate race tracks, assuming things may get a little crowded and crazy.   This way I could move one into another room for the little kids and Ricky and his friends could have their own in the party room.   But it didn’t take long for them to request that we put them both together for one big long track.   So we did, and THEN we put that track down the stairs!   The boys loved this.

Ricky’s cake was made from 2 bundt cakes and lots of m&ms in party colors.   This is the second time I have made this type of cake.  Benny and Nolan had a “3″ cake of the same type.   These cakes look cool, are easy to make and are surprisingly tasty.   I wasn’t so sure about SO many m&ms on cake tasting good, but it’s yummy.

So…. a simple, easy and very fun party.   I think the boys might have enjoyed this party more than any other one we’ve done.

Ricky had so much fun and was so excited about everything.   Seriously everything!   He was over the moon about his book that I finally made recapping when he was one year old (one year down, 7 to go!) which made me so happy.   He was thrilled with every gift he received from his friends.    He even went a little nuts about some mouthwash that I wrapped up for him.  (Hey, he had been requesting it, so why not?!)  And he was of course super excited about his big gift… a Kayak from us and my parents.   We’re still hoping for more snow this winter, but are now anxious for summertime too.

Happy Birthday, again, buddy.   We love you.
Love,
Mommy.