On Saturday we had Wesley’s 5th birthday party. The theme of the party was reusing and recycling. I tried super hard to do most of the party this way. Thank you to Jessica and Kathleen for helping me collect items for the crafts!
The room is all set up for making recycled crafts.
Big things for the projects: boxes, milk jugs, egg cartons...
Lots of small items for the crafts.
I made these tape dispensers! http://www.instructables.com/id/3-Roll-Masking-Tape-Dispenser/
The cups are from Red Robin. They collected 22 cups for me that were going to be recycled in the 1 hour we were there for dinner.
Snacks - I reused items from past parties. Plates from Wesley's 4th birthday, napkins are from Becca's baby shower for Lila, blue cups are from Jillian's 3rd birthday party & the colored bowls are from value village.
Bug cake...again. He had this cake (with the same bugs) for his 2nd birthday.
Goodie bags are made from reused food contaners.
In each goodie bag is a shirt - monogramed for each kid. I got the shirts used from value village. And I made the stamp (several years ago) out of a block of wood and craft foam.
He's ready to party!
The kids are very ready to make their crafts.
Everyone is working so hard!
After creating for over an hour – they made some wonderful things.
Stellanne's creations.
One of Lily's.
Wesley's flying car.
Aidan made a ton of things.
Jillian and Kailyn worked on "Jillian's doll house"
This peacock Kailyn made is just amazing!
The kids are all eating a snack and watching Wesley open his gifts.
I asked him to thank everyone for their gift...and he fell over... As you can see by the mess - he got a lot of great stuff.
Time for cake!
Blowing out the candle.
Everyone clapped so W & J had to cover their ears. :)
Then it was time to say goodbye…
To Great Grandma & Great Grandpa
to Lily
to Ben and his creation.
to Grams
to Pat
to Stellanne
to Papa (& Yaya too)
to Aunt Dri
to Aidan, Kailyn & Derrick
What a fun and creative day! Thank you to everyone who made the day so special for Wesley.
Happy 5th Birthday Wesley!
Tuesday November 2nd we went to Wesley’s open house at his preschool. He was so very excited about it! He loved showing off his classroom to Yaya and Dad.
Starting the tour
Tour of the kitchen - where they eat lunch.
"This is the men's room" ~ Wesley
Let's go downstairs to the classroom.
Wesley's pumpkin with handprint stem.
Introducing his teacher to Yaya and Dad
His Family Tree
Fall Tree
Showing Yaya his scarecrow
Scarecrow
Owl
He worked really hard to make this special book
Reading the book to us.
Saying goodbye to his teachers. Mrs Parker in black & Miss Chelsy in plaid.
Time to go home!
Wesley is having so much fun in preschool!!!
Shutterfly cards are so awesome! Earlier this year I made about fifteen different cards from my own pictures – thank you cards, birthday cards and just plain hello cards.
While I was there I got so excited when I found the Christmas card section. I was in love with the designs with three or more pictures. I take so many pictures that it is so hard to decide which one will go on the Christmas card.
And not only do I get to choose three or more pictures for the cover of the card – but I also get to choose one for the inside of the card too!
There are so many designs to choose from with Shutterfly’s 2010 holiday cards. There are a lot of new ones this year too!
I won’t give a way which design I will be using this year – so you will be surprised when you get it in the mail in December. 
Here are some great links:
- holiday cards linked to http://www.shutterfly.com/
- greeting cards linked to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery
- upload pictures to http://www.shutterfly.com/upload-pictures/
I guess we had a pretty good Halloween this year. I say that because Wesley has told me no fewer than three times tonight how much fun he had yesterday. He’s also mentioned that it was “a great day”. And asked at least twice how much longer until next Halloween.
Pumpkin Patch
Our Halloween started with our first trip to the pumpkin patch. That’s right, there were two. Amber the kids and I went to Craven Farm in Snohomish. It is a nice place with lots of things to do: pick your own pumpkins, a corn maze, and kettle corn. Not exactly cheap, though. On the way there we saw a farm with some cows which happened to be eating about 40 pumpkins. At the Craven Farm rates you could have bought a used car for what those pumpkins cost. We were able to save money by enforcing a rule I remember from my childhood: If you can’t carry it, you can’t get it.
A week later, Wesley’s Preschool class was back in Snohomish for a pumpkin patch field trip. This time they were at The Farm at Swan’s Trail. Since this is preschool each kid had their parent or guardian drive them to the pumpkin patch. That meant that since Amber was going, Jillian go to go, too. Both kids picked out another pumpkin. They also go to go on a hay ride out to the field, go through a hay maze and pet some animals.
Pumpkin Carving
Before we could carve our pumpkins we gave them a bath in our wading pool. The kids really liked it. And we learned that pumpkins float. Once the pumpkins were all clean the kids used their boots to drain the water out of the pool.
Inside we carved the pumpkins on the dining room table. Jillian wanted a happy face and Wesley drew and partially carved his own scary face. Amber made a smiley face with scary teeth and I made the pumpkin on a pumpkin. Once the Jack-O-Lanterns were lit all the kids wanted to do was blow them out, immediately. I had to relight them after they went to sleep.
Trick-or-Treating
We went trick-or-treating up in Sedro-Woolley with Corey and Aidan. Their neighborhood is apparently the place to go in the area. There were car loads of kids being dropped off all night long. After only about an hour of walking the kids scored nearly 6 pounds of candy between them. We only hit about a third of the neighborhood. There were kids with so much candy they filled up entire pillow cases. It was really busy, but lots of fun with so many little kids running around.
Jillian the Duck:
Wesley the Penguin:
