Ellie Turns 5: A Mermaid Birthday Party

Ellie has been wanting a mermaid birthday party ever since she went to a friends mermaid party a little over a year ago. I have been collecting mermaid things since before that for the possibility of one:)

Here she is with the cake I made:

One of the main decorations was the Balloon Arch that have been wanting to try. I got it for under $12 on Amazon, and now I ahve the connecting peice so I can make my own in the future:)

(sidenote...I reused the balloon arch for the Graduation Parade a few days later)..

The Food at the Party. I had some creative food, but the main food was pulled pork sliders and "shells and cheese" (and regular mac and cheese for the picky ones.

The Cake. I had taken the afternoon off to make the cake on Friday because Ellie's bday and the party were on Saturday, but then Andy had stomach pains and couldn't go to school in the morning, so I had the whole day off. Turns out he just had constipation and dehydration.

The Activities. I knew that everyone would kind of run around and do what they wanted...so I had a few activities, and we let kids jump on the tramp and play wherever in the house. I did have a "make a treasure box" activity using things I got for free, and a "take a Shellfie" photo booth area.

Celebrating Ellie

The party favors:

The rest of Spring 2021

Wow, all the activities that we started again while "coming out" of the pandemic made our lives pretty busy again this spring. In February we did the Kitchen Remodel, but that will be a different post. In March there were quite a few quarantines, and I got to spend time at home with Andy and Jay as they learned remotely (and most of the time I taught remotely). During the remodel we took Grandma bowling!

Some exciting things happened at school. Jay got a first place ribbon in the science fair "Can a Video Game calm you down" where he experimented on his siblings, Andy presented his totem pole project on "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No good Very Bad Day". Ellie had quite a few dress up days at school. (the thing 1 reminded me of when I threw together that costume for the boys in preschool:)

We had a few snow days during Andy's Quarantine, and even lost power for a bit, but we made the best of it and built snow forts, napped, and made Andy a Jimbo Jones (the comic book character he draws) shirt (when the power came back on).

And after the snow came the puddles:

We finished up basketball seasons for the boys:

The boys did a flashlight easter egg hunt, where Jay found the "grand prize" egg!

There was Palm Sunday and Easter:

There were still many moments of just silliness:...and THEN We quoted this video soo many times (especially during quarantines)

Ellie ended the school year at Dayspring with a preschool concert. She put something on her head at the last second, so I guess Miss Andera went with it:)

Spring break 2021 and Flag Football

We hung around here for SB this year, and ended up getting free tickets to the zoo! We invited Grandpa and Grandma and had a great time:

We also did some shopping and the boys had enough money for thier big purchase:

I came up with creative things for them to do, like make movies:

I took all 3 kids to Ikea by myself...and we visited Chad:

Flag Football with John coaching and Andy playing up on Jay's team was great. Jets vs Packers Jets vs Browns Jets vs Cheifs Jets vs Bills Jets vs Patriots Jets vs Chargers Jets vs Broncos Jets vs Bears Here is Andy's pick 6: Here is one Jay to Andy play: Here is a different Jay to Andy play: