Happy 10 Months, Daniel!

Happy 10 Months, Sweet Baby!

Things I know about my 10 month old

• Favorite foods are graham crackers, string cheese, any kind of fruit (strawberries, bananas), or basically anything you'd like to share with him. He pretty much eats everything. We tried about one jar of baby food before we just did baby led weaning (before I knew it was a real thing haha).
• Still refuses to actually crawl. He gets around though, by scooting on his butt and he rocks back and forth a lot, just hates being on his stomach. Kid needs to get with the times already!
• Hates laying flat on his back, too, lately. He likes either sitting or standing.
• Has 4 teeth on the top, 2 on the bottom.
• Loves to put anything and everything into his mouth.
• Still likes to party all night, sleep all day (no matter how hard I try to get him out of that routine it doesn't work). If I don't get to him fast enough in the night he gets frustrated and then is wide awake and up for hours. Night owl. He's got Stefan blood in him. ;)
• Can sit up on his own and is currently loving to try to pull himself up (even if he can't really do it). He also likes holding on to your arms (or the couch) and just standing there until his legs give out.
• He's a comfort sleeper..sometimes all he wants is to just lay in bed with me in the night to go back to sleep. One time all he wanted was to hold my hand and he settled down. It was the sweetest.
• Favorite word - "Mamamamama" must be because I'm his favorite :P
• Smiles at me when I come into the room.
• Likes to take a nap 1 hour after waking up for the day, seeming like he's as tired as if he'd been awake for hours.
• Is a sweet cuddler and so ticklish.
• Favorite songs are "Patty-cake" and "This little piggy went to the market" - guess that last one isn't a song...
• He likes to make a raspy sound when he breathes, kind of like he's growling..it's so funny. :)
• He pinches my nose when he nurses, or lets me suck on his thumb haha
• He squawks so loudly, especially at 2am or when we're watching movies, it's hilarious. 
• That when I was a kid all growing up my mom used to say "I love your big brown lollipop eyes..." and now, I can totally say the same. I love his big brown lollipop eyes :)   
• When music is on and has a good beat he can be caught dancing and it's my favorite.
• Loves hearing you pop/click your tongue. It's how I get him to smile for pictures ;)
• Loves to steal Daddy's glasses.
• Also loves pulling the girls' hair when they get too close. I always hear them say, "Niiiiice. Be niiiiice" while trying to encourage him to let go. I kinda laugh inside.
• We have an appointment next Thursday, so I'm not sure what his height and weight are yet.
• Anyone who watches him for us says he's the sweetest, easiest baby ever. He lives up to his nickname. He truly is a sweet, sweet baby.

Lydia's Zootopia Themed 5th Birthday Party at the Park!

So over the course of the last week and a half I prepped and planned Lydia's 5th birthday, Zootopia style! There was absolutely no Zootopia supplies whatsoever anywhere in this town so I'm pretty glad I have Google images, a printer, and Pinterest. However, even Pinterest didn't have that many ideas so I had to wing a lot of it. Here's how it went down!

About a week before the party I made invitations and we handed them out at the end of Church.

Instead of ordering invitations I decided to just make my own

I chose today, Saturday, even though the forecast was cloudy and rainy. It was blazing hot all week then was pouring all last night and cleared up around noon just in time for the party. It wasn't super hot and it wasn't rainy or cold, but had a slight breeze in the warmth. It was perfect. What luck! 

I really wanted to do a scavenger hunt and a few other games. Unfortunately there's really only one blogger on Pinterest who has done a Zootopia party and documented it (and a few others had some ideas) so I had to basically come up with most of this myself. Some of the food place card names I got from one blogger, others I made myself. That was all the help I had from the Internets. Thankz.

Mr. Big's "Ice Em!" lemonade.

Chief Bogo's Buffalo Dip

Zootopia (garden) pasta salad

Bellwether's fluffy fur (cauliflower) and Hopps Family Carrots

Night Howler Serum (aka blueberries)

Yax's Brownies

"O-M-GOODNESS!" It's Clawhauser's Doughnuts. He's my favorite character!

Carrot Patch cupcakes (orange covered strawberries in chocolate cupcakes, Thanks Marz!)

Munching while waiting for guests to arrive!

 Once all the kids arrived and ate, we did the scavenger hunt! We started at the picnic table near the entrance and I had a vanilla folder titled "CLASSIFIED: Missing Critter File" with the first clue inside.

This is what it read:

"You have 24 hours to solve the case! It has been reported that there are some missing critters in the area. They need our help to find them. Can you help me? Here’s the first clue:"

Clue #1
I’m orange and sly, I’m a cool guy
I’m a hustler and I rhyme with rocks! I am Nick the  (FOX)

 Then they were to look for the little Nick plush toy which happened to be tucked into the handle of the cooler by a tree. Inside the cooler was Mr. Otterton's otter pops!

Not random scissors... they were used to open the popsicles!

Attempting to read the next clue!

Say "Otterpops!"

Mr. Otterton!

 The kids said that we found Mr. Otterton but I told them that he wasn't missing anymore because Judy already found him, we were looking for the missing critters! Kids are so smart :)


So the clue tucked by the cooler read:

"Nick Wilde says he knows someone who can help us solve the case!
It’s Yax the Wildebeast and Nangi the Yoga elephant."

Clue #2 But first…we have to stretch

Try a little YOGA, it doesn’t take much

The next clue at my yoga mat :)

Getting ready to stretch

Touching the sky! (I just love this picture because Lydia threw Judy Hopps into the air at the perfect time!)

Forcing the kids to do some yoga! ;) Haha yes we exercise at parties :P

The third clue read:


#3 We’ve stretched our bodies, let’s stretch our minds
Let’s find our witnesses by coloring in the lines

  So we had the kids run to the picnic table with coloring pages of the different characters from the movie, besides Judy. Everyone's a suspect! ;)

Getting everyone all situated with their crayons. Got my serious face on!

You can barely see it but the folder says "CLASSIFIED" haha

Awesome group of kids!

My sister Mari aka the photographer and Judy photobombing ;)

*coloring super fast because everyone was done except her* She's great! :D

Reading the next clue

 The next clue says:

#4 We have one suspect missing, he’s black as night
He rhymes with Ranches, and keeps out of sight..

What’s his name? (Mr. Manches)

"Mr. Manches lives in a tricky part of the jungle
Climb through the Rainforest District to find the next clue"

So the kids were supposed to go up through one side of the playground to the other and there would be another clue waiting. 

Haha Rachel is so funny. Here's me trying to redirect her. She said "My mom told us not to go up the slides." I told her it would be okay this time :)

Probably my most favorite part of the hunt!

 We didn't find Mr. Manches. I told the kids he was too fast and ran and hid in the jungle (woods).
So, the final clue read:

#5 Shh.. I hear the critters are nearby
Howl like a Timberwolf so they can hear your cry!

And then I had all the children howl like wolves. We probably looked like nuts to strangers nearby but it was so fun to hear them howl. As they were howling my sister had a bag of little zoo animals and she came out of hiding and then the kids got to pick one to keep :)

 

Hearing 7-8 little kids howling is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

"AHH-OOOOOOO!"

Yay! They solved the case!

 THE END of the scavenger hunt. Made it up myself, no thanks to the Internet! ;) Seriously, there needs to be more ideas out there.

Having fun!

Present time!

Opening the My Little Pony blanket from Billie! :)

I absolutely love her and Tommy's face here. Opening Finding Dory Operation game :)

Nice job, Tommy!! Every girl's dream toy! an Elsa doll!

The happy, birthday girl :)

Blowing out the fire-less candle lol

So after cake I decided to have the kids play one more game (we were kind of running out of time since we got a late start to the party). It's basically a Zootopia version of "Red light, Green light." A child holds up Nick and the kids run, they hold up Judy and they stop. I found images on Google and printed them on card stock, cut them out, and glued each to two large popsicle sticks for support.
I was pretty proud of myself for this one, since it was a huge hit with the kids! And easy.

I don't have pictures of the other kids playing it, but Elena was ECSTATIC to be able to do it, even though she was the last one and by then the kids wanted to run around. Every time the first kid made it to the person holding the characters they would win a candy of their choosing and be the next person to hold the characters. Only a few kids got pouty it wasn't their turn right away (mine included haha).

Kind of a crappy picture...as I'm trying to taking pics and direct the game haha. They stood at one end and went to the other side.

After it was over, each kid got to pick out a party bag! Blue with Judy Hopps and green with Nick Wilde. They had zoo themed sun glasses, candy, zoo finger puppets, and a party blower thing.
I also had to print and cut out the circles for the bags since this town is decor-less. Next party... I say we just do pizza and cake ;)

Well, that's it! I guess it was a pretty fun party... because when it was time for one of the kids to leave she started crying that she had to go. That's great in my book! And my siblings said I went all out and that I am officially a "Pinterest Mom" wahoo! Just ignore the fact that I forgot a lighter/matches for Lydia's candle.. oops!