~ The High Family ~: November 2009

invite created by Christy

Can you guess the theme?

On Ryan's actual birthday (11/19), I surprised him with a lunch date at Friendly's! The waitstaff sang a silly birthday song and served the birthday boy a candy sundae. Ryan had a very confused look on his face during their serenade. After they left the table I realized we had never taken Ryan to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday! haha. He was a little disappointed that they didn't just sing the "birthday song" but quickly got over that after the first bite of his sugar creation.

Here's my 4 year old making his new "signature" pose...

Ryan insisted on taking a picture of Kara and me at the restaurant. I have to admit, he captured a really sweet picture.

That evening Ryan helped us make the bugs that would sit on top of his cupcakes.

Then we sang the traditional birthday song...

....and he blew out his 4 candles.

On Saturday, November 21st we celebrated a bug themed birthday bash with family and friends!

Ants, Spiders, Centipedes, Ticks...oh my!
The bug cupcakes turned out great!

Believe it or not, the bugs were a lot easier to make than the our failed attempt with Kara's flower cupcakes!

And what goes well with bug cupcakes?

Dirt Cake of course!

(hands down, the easiest dessert we have ever made and EVERYONE loved it!)

I came up with this favor bag the day before the party. Originally I wanted to just stamp the bag with some sort of bug stamp, but I couldn't find one I liked. My mother-in-law found a large container of spider rings and I thought, hmmmmm...wouldn't it be neat if we could string the spiders on the bags to make it look like they are crawling down the bag?! With some fishing line and a hole punch, we were able to make it happen! (thanks aunt gibby and sahira for helping me with the bags)

SPIDER BAGS!

Our friends and family are always asking why we "go all out" for our children's birthdays. My response to this question is, why not? We enjoy coming up with creative ideas, cooking and entertaining our guests. We only have to host two parties each year (one in June and one in November), so to us it's not a big deal...plus the look of pure joy on our child's face makes all the time spent planning and exhaustion afterwards worth it. :)

The one thing that I do find difficult to do while hosting a large party is taking the time to document the event!!! I always find myself saying, where is the camera? Hey Chris, do you have the camcorder? Shoot, we didn't get a picture of that before digging into it!

Well you get the picture (no pun intended)...

Luckily this year my nephew took some photos for us and I was able to snap a few myself. Here are some of my favorites from Ryan's big BUG day.

I love having a craft for the kids to do together. This year we had them create bugs with little pom-poms. Sadly, I did not get pictures of this craft! I also had planned a few bug games to play with the children, but it turned out to be such a nice day that they played outside instead. Which was fine with all the adults because the boys had a ton of energy to burn off.

I am titling the next few pictures Girls versus Boys.

The girls spent over an hour playing nicely in the sand box AND were able to keep the sand in the box. Amazing.

While the boys spent that hour running around the back yard and wrestling each other!

My nephew Joey turned 5 years old on Nov. 18th. Ryan and Joey are only one year and one day apart. We joke that Ryan didn't want to share his birthday with his cousin so our stubborn boy waited a few more hours to be born!

Here is Joey with the gift we got him....

This next picture of Lily makes me smile. Tired?

I will title the next three pictures Baby Fever because this little one makes me want to have another one!

Meet Emma.

Isn't she the cutest?! Kara really, really liked Emma too. (sorry the silly picture wouldn't turn) We were surprised how nice and gentle Kara was with baby Emma. It gives me hope that she will be a wonderful big sister someday...well that's if we decide to have more.

Just look at that face....sooooo adorable!

Here's an artistic shot of me and my mini me.

I am sad that we do not have a picture of Ryan with us. He was having too much fun playing with his cousins and friends to stop for pictures!

Time to sing to the birthday boy!

All we had to do was announce CAKE to get the children back into the house!

Kara enjoying some sweetness!

Then it was time to open the gifts!

I love this one from our dear friend Luci! Both Ryan and Kara (and mommy too) think this puppet is neat! We sing There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly all the time now.

This talking microscope with bug slides is really COOL!