Birthday Boy

We celebrated another birthday at our house this month. Micah turned 5 this year!! His actual birthday (the 13th) was celebrated on Vancouver Island where we were staying with the Toews family for a Christmas weekend together. Then we had his (first-ever) friends birthday party about a week later.

Micah originally wanted a Wall-E party, but I could hardly find any Wall-E birthday stuff. I convinced him to switch it to a Ratatouille (rat-a-too-ee) party after I found a bunch of cute Ratatouille stuff at the dollar store. It didn't take too much arm-twisting since he loves that movie (even though it's not one of my faves). If you haven't seen it, it's about a rat who loves to cook - so we went with the cooking theme.


Everything ready - just waiting for the guests to arrive!


First the kids decorated little take-out boxes that I found at Michael's. They would later hold extra cupcakes that they could take home after the party:


Cupcake decorating was next on the agenda. Keziah was waiting ever-so-patiently for that segment of the party to begin...


Let the decorating begin! A few of the moms stayed to help with the party which was necessary with all those messy little cupcake hands...


Partway through, Micah reminded me that we needed our chef's hats. I almost forgot!




Can we eat these now???


Max inspecting his masterpiece.


Time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out FIVE candles!


Micah experiences a moment of pure pleasure as chocolate, icing and m&m's hit his taste buds!


Chef Caleb looking very cute!


Dee-licious!


I was pleased with my idea for party favours. I found stuffed rats and kitchen utensils in the toy section of IKEA, so I combined them to create little "Ratatouilles" :)


All our chefs (minus one who is apparently anti-photography these days!)

From Our House to Yours

Loft Beds for Christmas

Erik's been wanting to build bunk beds for the kids for a LONG time. It really came down to finding the time for him to do it. He ended up having some days at home last week and he got right down to business. We changed our original plan of bunk beds and decided to make Micah and Keziah each a loft bed instead so that we could have the full floor space available for toys. I feel so blessed to be married to such a talented and handy husband :)

Micah sporting his new tool belt - ready to help with the construction:


Yay for new beds!


The end product:


We would still like to paint them eventually, but for now I think they look pretty good in their "rough" form. The wood smells so amazing too - it's like a Christmas tree in their room :)

I wasn't sure how Keziah would do with the climbing up and down, but she's already a pro at it. And I love how much space they have to play in their room now!!


Stay tuned for pictures of Micah's Ratatouille birthday party...

I know, I know.

A new post is long overdue!

We have been busy entertaining my parents, celebrating birthdays and early family Christmases and traveling to Vancouver Island... WAY too many pictures to post here! So, I'm going to cheat and direct you all to my facebook page HERE to view my December pictures.

And, I won't make any promises, but I hope to have a new real post here in the near future...