Grasshoppers, Beetles and Flies – Oh My!!!

Naomi wanted another castle cake this year.  Actually, Naomi REALLY wanted another castle cake this year.  That’s all fine and good, except for the fact that I really didn’t want to make one. I wanted something a little less time consuming.  I also just wanted to try something different (I’ve already made 2 castle cakes, after all!)  So here’s my confession.  I (through use of the force – what else?!) convinced Naomi that what she really wanted this year was a bug themed birthday party.  Yup.  I sure did.  Goodbye princesses, hello creepy crawlies.  Once I had sold Naomi on the idea, she embraced it wholeheartedly.  We had bug bingo, pin the spider on the web (that one’s always a winner), a frog toss (not a real frog), antennae making and a bug guessing game.    

Here they are trying to toss the frog onto a lily pad for a prize.  Each lily pad had a different prize.  (Side note – the uber gross room we’re in is NOT my living room.  It’s our community room upstairs.  Our apartment is not nearly large enough to hold 9 rambunctious 6 year old girls.  While I’m grateful that we have a larger space available to use, I wouldn’t mind it being free from the nastiness to which it is sometimes home.)                    

                                         

Here are the girls playing bug bingo.  Note the bugs taped onto the girls’ backs.  Each girl was supposed to ask questions like “Do I fly?”, or “Do I have lots of legs?'” or “Am I red?”.  Then she tried to figure out which bug she was.  This task was met with varying degrees of success.  The ladybug figured out who she was.  The stag beetle did not. (That was Naomi.  Poor thing.)

                                         

Present opening and Heavy, Heavy Hangover….

              

Some beautiful bugs…

                                        

The cake…

                                 

The main reason behind my plot to change the theme of this birthday party was that I wanted to make a less labor intensive cake.  HA.  Whatever.  Why do I always do this to myself??  Someday I’ll learn.  Hopefully I’ll also learn that when I try to do piping after midnight, everything turns out a little wobbly…

Here’s Naomi before she blew out the candle.  I  had hoped to get a shot of her blowing out the candle but alas.  She couldn’t contain her excitement and blew it out before we were halfway done singing “Happy Birthday.”  Thinking I had at least two more lines of lyrics before I had to be ready I missed the moment.  Ah well.  She’s still pretty cute.

                                                                          

This is what Naomi has to say about herself as a six year old.  Note the similarities between her answers and Ian's answers.  It’s not every 6 year old girl who claims Pokémon as her favorite movie.  (Truth be told, I really think her favorite movies are the Tinkerbell movies.) 

                                                                  

It was a buggy blast of a birthday.  Naomi, you are a smart, sweet, wildly precocious, loving, caring, silly, fun, curious, imaginative, wonderful girl.  We love you so much and are so glad you are a part of our family! 

Just Not Sure Where to Start…

My resolve to become a more faithful blogger has been largely unrealized in the last few months.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been insanely busy.  I’m guessing this isn’t it, though, because I’m always busy.  Maybe it’s because I’m exercising instead of blogging.  This is definitely more likely a legitimate reason (something had to go when I started to exercise), however, I don’t think that I can blame my blogging inactivity exclusively to my attempt at a healthier style of living.  In my opinion, the largest culprit is the weather in Germany.  Yup.  That’s definitely it.  I think that due to cold weather, grey skies and generally miserable temperatures I just haven’t felt perky enough to write a witty and upbeat blog post.  My mom tells me regularly that I don’t need to write anything – just pictures will do – and I really do try (sometimes) to keep my word count down.  It’s hard though.  I want so much to share the fun and exciting things we’ve seen and done and I just can’t seem to do in a short sentence or two.  It’s particularly hard to do when what I really want is to whine about the cold and rain or the lack of space in my ridiculously small apartment.  Who wants to read about that?  I think I’m over this funk, however, and I PROMISED my mom I’d blog today, so here goes.  I’m just not sure where to start….

I guess we’ll do birthdays.  Ian and Naomi have both celebrated birthdays since I last blogged.  Ian turned nine(!!!!) and Naomi turned six(!!!).  Can you believe how old my babies are getting?  I can’t.  I can’t be old enough to have children this old!  Anyway, we’ll start with Ian’s birthday.

Ian decided this year that he’d like a return to his classic Halloween themed birthday party.  You may remember that last year we put together this Star Wars themed extravaganza.  I had assumed that Ian would once again request a party based on one of his favorite movies or games.  Nope.  Instead we had this…

                                                                     

and this…

                                     

and this…

                                      .

 

I must confess I was thrilled to return to the Halloween theme.  I still had my Halloween bingo game and the spiders for “Pin the Spider on the Web,” so party prep was definitely less intense.  For instance the pumpkin cake – sooooooooo much easier to make than R2D2 was.  We had a great time at the party, and I think the boys did too.

Here are a few more pictures.  From upper left and moving clockwise we have 1) opening presents, 2) pin the spider on the web, 3) bingo and 4) bash the bat.

                                          

        

All in all it was a swell party for a swell kid.  It is hard for me to believe Ian is nine.  How are the years passing so quickly?  Ian has grown up a lot in the last year.  He’s sweet, kind, responsible, silly, smart, hardworking, and loving.  He is a great older brother.  I feel privileged to have him as a son.  Here’s what Ian has to say about himself this year…

                                                            

Hmmm…. I can see we’re going to have to work on the handwriting a bit.  Well, maybe a lot.  Anyway, Happy Birthday Ian!  We love you and are proud of you!