Spencer's Party

Spencer fortunately had his birthday party in a little more timely manner. We scheduled his for the afternoon following Ashley's (if we didn't pack it in it might never happen). Luckily for Spencer a friend kindly loaned us a camera so that we could get some photos. Spencer also wanted to have an iceblocking party. Paul helped out. Here are some pics:

Ashley's Birthday Party

As I said previously about Hayley's party, Ashley was still reminding me six months after the fact that she didn't have a birthday party. I've already defended my reasons, but Ashley just did not want to be birthday-party-less. I decided on something fun and easy for her.

Ashley's dance schedule made it really difficult to schedule something for her, so we decided to do a late night Friday party. We started at 6:00 after ballet. Ashley invited just four friends so that they would all fit in the van. First of all we went to the swimming pool where the girls had a great time swimming. They had such a great time swimming that I couldn't get them out of the pool. Suffice it to say, we got to our next part of the evening very late! After swimming we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory where the girls had a "grown-up" dinner followed by spumoni icecream and cupcakes. Ashley was very particular about the way the cupcakes were to look.

Ashley and all the girls had a great time and we dropped off the children very late at their houses. We now have to live down a reputation with the neighbors of being late night partiers with eight year old children.

Unfortunately I cannot post any photos of the night's festivities. Our house was broken into in the wee hours of the morning and the camera was one of the things stolen :(.

Rockin' Ice Blockin' Birthday Party

Hayley and Ashley got ripped off this year I completely failed them in the birthday party department and occasionally had nagging pangs of guilt. Their birthdays are five years and five days apart, only that just accounts for their age difference. Every year for the last eight years they have been having their birthdays five days apart. This year April and early May were completely slammed because of the temple open house, Temple Youth Celebration, temple dedication and dance competitions. We were blessed to have family visit us to see the temple and we billeted six girls from other parts of BC. Once the temple was dedicated then there were more dance competitions and by that time I needed to start writing report cards. Just the words IEP report card evokes panic in my chest but that's another story. After report cards it was time to start planning to go away. Once the summer started, friends went away on vacation. In the end we decided to hold a party for Hayley right after Summer's birthday. Summer and Hayley both agreed that it would be super fun to have an ice-blocking party together. Ashley still gets to wait a little while longer.

If you have no idea what ice blocking is, that's okay, you're not alone. The invitation left all of their friends curious as well as some of the parents. Most mormon kids who have attended mutual activities know about this works. Our girls went to a church activity a couple of summers ago where they learned about it.

First you take a block of ice to the top of a gentle hill, then you place a towel on top and sit on the ice block.

Next you make sure you keep your feet off the ground (or wear really slippery shoes) and go as far down the hill as possible.

While you are riding down the hill, remember to scream A LOT!

The kids had a great time having races, making trains and just challenging eachother to see how far they could go. When you are done you have to carry the block back up the hill again, they got pretty winded.





Getting ready for the pizza that we had delivered to the park. Awesome!




 

Cupcakes with sprinkly fairy dust 





Birthday Girl with sprinkly fairy dust



the birthday gang





party favors



The only boy at her party, "wrapping" her present (origami folding a $10 bill).





The girls said they wanted to share a cake.




 

Hayley's turn

This is the typical ending pose. That is to say the picture above, not the one below.

Ashley can't resist a photo op!

I think he's tired.

Overall the party was a great success. Nobody got injured, nobody cried, the pizza arrived at the park on time and hot, the sunshine was glorious and there was enough ice left over for some other kids at the park to get really wet and muddy. "Can I please do this for my party?" asked Spencer. I think that was his stamp of approval!