Cowboy Party Fun! (part 2)

The last game that we did was the 3 legged race.
It was SO funny.

The kids lined up...



And then they were off!



Love this one...



The kids made it to the fence, then turned to come back and it was all sorts of falling down mayhem.




Shannon made this sweet collage of the little girls...



Isaiah and Matthew won!!



Noah was sad, and I think Andrew might have been comforting him...I love his sweet expression.



Dan said he'd do another race with Andrew against some of the big kids, backwards.



Being the competitive guy that he is, Dan picked up Andrew and ran the race.
(Look at Isaiah and Matthew in the background. :) )



Dan, never one to shy away from celebrating a victory.
Even against small children.

:) (That's a joke between me and Dan.  I'm really not being mean).
Look how cute Andrew is....



And now I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent and do my own equivalent "Royer Nose" photo.  I promised I'd post one.
It's not of my nose, but something I also avoid posting.  I saw this next photo as I was sitting next to Dan and said, "I don't post photos of myself like that" ~ and Dan said, "but they're good to have."  Which made me realize that I really should put this in here because it's me, and my kids I'm sure will remember this trait of mine....



My crooked smile.

It's at it's worst when I'm laughing....And I share this next part for my kids so they know it isn't a gentic trait.  I can't move the bottom left side of my lip...the muscles in my chin on that side and in my neck on that side don't move.  I can feel them but not move them....a Dr. said it was probably due to nerve damage during child birth which makes sense knowing that I didn't drop in utero after Mom's water broke and the nurse pushed on the outside of mom's stomach to get me out.  Don't think they'd do that these days....Anyway, I was teased a lot about it growing up.  It was the one thing that I was teased about that really stung.  And I definitely don't like photos of it.  But there it is.

Perhaps it had a little something to do why I so fell in love with Dan's smile. (Which Katie has!)  

And here's another smile that I love. 




I love how Andrew can just ooze joy.  You can practically see it coming out of those fingertips.
He just feels it with his whole body, it's so cute.



We came inside and were on to cake!



Dan said to the kids, "Who can sing the loudest?!"

They sang/shrieked to Andrew (so funny) and Andrew's reaction was above. :)

A fun little crowd.  Truly sweet kids....



Presents were up next and I love this one of Claire helping Andrew (that gift was really heavy) because she always looked after Andrew in pre-school.  I wish she were going to kindergarten with him.  I'd know he'd be in good hands. :) 



As the party was winding down I was outside visiting and came in to this sight....



It occurred to me I have never taken any "aftermath photos." This scene was pretty funny. That would be play-dough that was being played with on the carpet.



And this in particular tickled my funny bone.



Katie was responsible for most of this.
Shannon ended up performing the Heimlich maneuver on her during the midst of the craziness. Katie was choking on a piece of apple. Three times and it came up.

Yikes.

Thank goodness Shannon noticed her. I missed the whole thing.



On a side note, the caramel apples tasted good but were SO hard. I chilled them overnight and the caramel got REALLY hard. We cut them into slices, but they were still really hard to eat. Just an FYI if anyone makes them.

And with that, Andrew is officially SIX!

Cowboy Party Fun! (part 1)

Like I said before, I think this was one of my very favorite parties.  I'm a small party person.  I like to feel like I can connect with everyone at the party.   When there are too many people things get crazy...like Andrew's 2nd birthday ~ we had 30 people and I said I'd never do it again.

It was chaos.

Andrew really wanted to invite a couple of his friends from church/small group though, and that was great.  I was surprised at the difference just 2 children added ~ it felt like a bigger party!  But we had a great time.  Probably because I know these families well and so they are so easy to have around.



Here are Amy and Rachel ~ whose little ones Ben & Samuel came to the party.  Rachel wore her young life muscle shirt just in honor of Andrew's party because it was the most cowboy looking thing she owns.  She's sweet like that.  It was really great having them there and of course my party partner in crime was there as well. :)  Mike and Michelle were here too, but I didn't get a great photo of them.

After the kids arrived we played games in the backyard.  This was the part where I felt like we had a lot of people and my voice could not compete!  Thank goodness for Dan's natural megaphone voice.  I was very relieved when he took over.  We separated the kids into groups of 2 with one adult assigned to each group and they rotated through games.  That way they were always doing something and not waiting for a turn too often.

Waiting = chaos.  :)

The kids did great.  The first photo at the top of the post was where Andrew was "panning for gold" in the sandbox.   (River rocks that the boys dug out of Nana's yard the week before and I spray painted them gold).

Next was "Bobbing for Apples."
Someone was caught bending the "no hands" rule a little bit.... 





I just love this one of Ben and Samuel. 



And this one of Matthew and Isaiah. Too cute.  I rotated around with them and Shannon snapped pictures for me (thank you!!)  I was glad that these two were still willing to play the games.



Here's Hannah "Panning for Gold."



Michelle rotated with Andrew and Noah. Here they are "Calf Roping!"



Grandpa was a great help at the water gun area and would fill up the water guns in between kids. Here he is helping Gracie.



Noah is happy to be doing the "Clothes pin drop." :)

~ we are in Vegas right now and I thought I might be able to finish this post tonight, (I'm falling really behind on the blog!) but I'm just too tired, so I'm going to be headed off to bed and will finish up hopefully tomorrow night. 

'Night!

Cowboy Party ~ Family Photos

We did a few photos before the party started....

















Dan's parents



My mom



By the time we did just our family, Andrew was all done smiling. :)

Yee Haw Cowboy!

Giddy-up Cowboy!

We had a Cowboy party for Andrew's 6th birthday ~ I had such a fun time putting this party together for him.  The theme just suited his sweet personality perfectly (he was a cowboy for Halloween for 3 years. :) )  And the morning of his birthday when he was jumping up and down with excitement next to my bed ~ made the "work" (fun) worthwhile. 

I'll share the details as I know I have a few party throwing friends and one with a sweet little boy in particular, that usually wants to know my sources. :)



I went to 4 stores looking for white daisies.  Didn't think it would be that hard to find white daisies!



Andrew's cake design was the compilation of a couple that I saw online.  I was planning on doing the silhouette on top (fondant) and Dan suggested that as an homage to Dad we use the University of Wyoming cowboy (his alma mater).    What a fantastic idea!  I know Dad would be so pleased. :)  Wish I could have seen him standing at the table smiling at it.  I could picture it perfectly.

It was a "S'Mores" cake with with Chocolate and graham cracker cakes filled with toasted marshmallow frosting.  The graham cracker cake was a time consuming cake to make and VERY crumbly.  I was sick when I turned the cake out of the pan and this happened:



The frosting filling was Roasted Marshmallow frosting.  It was SO good and found  here.



Andrew's invitation was from Etsy.  Found here.  So cute.  It reads:
"WANTED A stampede of friends to wrangle this outlaw
Andrew John Zeamer
AKA "The Kid"
for Crimes including cookie stealing, horsin' around, and turnin' 6!"



I found these free "Wanted" posters online.  I can't find the link any more, but if anyone does a cowboy party email me, I have the file on my computer, I'm happy to share.



So great that we had this photo of Andrew from when he turned 5.  See?  He's always been our little cowboy.  The sherriff badge is from the dollar store.  I just put a glue dot on it and stuck it on the frame.



The table...the plates, etc. came from Hobby Lobby.  Fringe from Jo-Ann's, burlap runner, I just purchased some yardage from Jo-Ann's as well and used it in a lot of places ~ it's very inexpensive.



Oriental trading Co. had some of these candies, as well as the Dollar store.  See the red paper silhouette on the side of the crate?  That was my back up in case the fondant cowboy fell apart. :)



It's not a party without sugar cookies.  A hat, sherriff badge and boots.  I especially enjoyed my friend Rachel's company when she came over and chatted away the night with me while I decorated cookies.



Caramel apples.  So yummy, but a little hard to eat.  Photo of that to come later. :)  I bought a roll of twine from walmart and used it on a lot of things. The cute tags came from here.  The recipe is here.  I just rolled them in mini chocolate chips after I dipped the apples.



The "Saloon."  People sort of munched on these treats during the party.





These were SO good. S'mores pops.  A marshmallow dipped in chocolate and rolled in graham crackers.  I could probably eat 12 of them.



Favor bags....see the wreath?  It's made of coffee filters.  I had seen them on blogs and wanted to make one.  Four hours later, two blistered fingers and a pretty nasty burn on my leg, I had my wreath.

Worth it?
Hmmm...not so sure. :)

But if you're up for the adventure, you can read about how to make it here.   Target has the brown filters at the end of their coffee maker aisle.  I folded the filters too many times, I think that's why it took me so much longer...it required more filters.

Shannon dressed it up for me with a rosette and I printed off the number six from a free font Shannon found for me online called "Outlaw."  It's what I used for the party signs too.   Oh, and the cow balloons were at Hobby Lobby too.









We played games outside and we found it was best to turn these bottles upside down They fell over easier that way when shot with water guns. 



The wood paper was from Michael's.  The kids threw hoola hoops over Dan's childhood "horse" which suited the calf roping perfectly.  :)



Katie (in her $4 post Halloween costume that Mom found last year:) ) ran around all morning saying, "Yee Haw Cowgirl!"  :)



We poked holes in pie tins and the kids panned for "gold" (river rocks painted gold) in the sand box.



The kids did Apple Bobbing too.  I was taking a picture when Katie came and put her hands in the container.  I loved her sweet hands there.

A big thank you to Shannon who always comes the night before party (stays late) and does whatever needs to be done, and always adds some cute idea that I didn't think of before.  Mostly, it's just fun to spend the time together.  I'm sure it's a memory some day we'll look fondly back on.

And I can't forget the Grandparents who help so much with cleaning up and entertaining little ones!

Party pics will come next!  That's always harder as there are always so many sweet faces and it's hard to narrow it down.