Joslyn's Frozen Birthday

We were able to go see the new Disney movie Frozen over Thanksgiving break it was SO good! We loved it! Joslyn loved the princesses in the movie and commented about them and their dresses, "OH she's cute!" "OH that dress is so cute!"
I really didn't think much about it, after that except for how "cute" it was and how I wouldn't mind seeing it again! Well once I knew I was totally ready for Christmas, ideas started popping into my head and pretty soon Joslyn's Frozen Birthday party was born.

I found these blue, white and silver glitter balls at Michael's just before Christmas and that became my color scheme! Looks pretty Frozen to me!

 

  Every year the orthodontist in town gives us a smoked turkey breast so we borrow my moms slicer and slice it up for lunch meat and it is SO good! Since we have enough lunch meat to feed an army we decided to have sandwiches with all of the toppings!!

 

 

Blue Jello "Ice Cubes"

 

I follow the Best Bites girls on Instagram and just before Christmas Sara did these fun build-a-snowman treats for her son's class.  She mentioned that she would put the post up sometime in January but if anyone thought they could use it before then to email her.  Well I knew these would be perfect for the Frozen party so I emailed her and she sent me the printables! They turned out to be a hit!! The snowballs are powdered donut holes. The snowman arms are stick pretzels. The snoman buttons are whoppers.  The snowman noses are carrots and the cute mini water bottles say, Melted Snowman!! I also had ranch dip nearby for the "snowman noses." ;) Here is her post, it's up on their blog now if anyone wants the printables.

 

 

 

Blue and silver and white balloons

 

 

I found these blue to white ombre cone trees at Target after Christmas for 70% off!! For the little white ones I bought some fluffy white yarn and wrapped it around Styrofoam cones!

 

 

We even had blue punch! It is blue Hawaiian Punch mixed with Sprite.

 

 

These little snowflake strings are inspired by a picture out of a Frozen coloring book. There is a scene where Anna, Kristoff and Olaf are standing in the woods and the snow looks just like this! I used white shimmer cardstock and cut about 50 large circles and 50 small circles with my cricut and simply sewed them together!

 

 

Here is Joslyn's cake, white to blue ombre

 

 

And Here is our Princess in her "cute" dress. She is 4 years old! can you believe it?!

 

Make a wish!

 

Time for presents!

For the activities I had a coloring table set up full of coloring pages both boy friendly and girl friendly for the kids to color. And we played pin the nose on Olaf, very fitting if you've ever seen the movie.

 

Nate drew our picture (with the help of a projector ;))

 

Since Joslyn turned 4 on the 4th of Jan it was her "Magic Birthday" it was a pretty magical birthday for our Princess!

 

Happy Birthday Hudson

For Hudson's birthday we took him to Hop 2 It. It's an indoor bounce house place (aka: germ factory, don't worry I made them all come home and shower!) (weird mom!) They had a blast!!! They played for about 2 hours, then we came home so we could get ready for the family party!

 

 

We had Nachos with all the fixings including my homemade salsa!! It's yummy, it feeds a crowd and it's kid friendly. Win, Win, Win!

6 years old!

 

 

YAY!!

There's nothing like a birthday with tons of people you love around!!

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Huddo!

Christmas Day 2013

 

Joslyn and her Bitty Baby

 

 

Ninja Turtle battles

 

 

They couldn't be happier with this gift from Santa!!

 

We opened presents and played until about 12:30 and then went up to Nate's parents' for Christmas dinner. I love Christmas Day it is so wonderful to be with family.

Opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa Catmull:

Joslyn and Ashley got 30th anniversary Cabbage Patch Dolls!

 Braiden and Brody got nice sleeping bags and Hudson got a Ninja Turtle toy (that ended up being a duplicate so a few days later we went to the store and he traded it for Madden 13, such a boy! I don't think he had any influence from his older brothers on that decision...NOT! They all love it though!) 

I didn't get any pics of anyone else opening their presents, too much going on!

Look at this picture, do you see my nephew in his BYU football uniform, how cute is that?!

 

It was a Very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went out to my parents' house for hors d'oeuvres and Christmas Eve activities.

The kids colored pictures of the nativity. Some didn't last very long.

 

 

They opened their Christmas jammies from Grandma and Grandpa

 

 

These guys know the routine now, they would say things like, "I wonder what our pajamas will be like this year." or "I can't wait to open our pajamas from Grandma."  Little stinkers. ;)

 

Back at home we had to get our yearly pics in front of the tree.

Ready for Santa to come:

Catmull Christmas Party

This year the theme for the Catmull Christmas party was The Polar Express! We came in our pajamas and had breakfast for dinner. Now that's my kind of party!!! Nate's cousin did an amazing job, there was every kind of cereal imaginable on the cereal bar, as well as all the traditional breakfast foods.  I really do need to take better pictures of her work. We got our tickets punched and boarded the "train" headed for the North Pole, and guess what? Santa was there!!

Braiden:

 

Santa should have brought one of these for all the kids so they don't fight over it during church. ;)

 

Hudson:

All things Ninja Turtle for this kid!

 

Brody:

 

Brody got a Boise State football.

 

No tears this year!!

 

 

Joslyn is saying, "I wanted this!"

 

Such a fun evening, and a fun tradition!

Birthday Season is Here

 

Yes, I made myself a Texas Sheet Cake for my birthday. ;)

Yes, it was dang good. &

 Yes I am older than 6. :)

 

Let birthday season commence!!

 

Brody's birthday landed on a Saturday this year (Dec 14) and the ski resort had just opened the day before, so we figured what a fun birthday activity!!

 

Here's Brody! He learned to ski on his 9th Birthday!!!

 

 

 

 

It wasn't bad teaching the older two to ski, a couple times with help down the bunny hill and they were ready to do it on their own! Hudson just wanted to go sit the car. :D

 

After a fun day on the hill we went back down to Albion to watch the live nativity and have little birthday party!

 

 

Before the nativity started the kids got to go around and pet the animals! The camels are always the main attraction.

During the presentation there was this little goat that was bleating so loud the whole time. I couldn't help but think about Mary and baby Jesus trying to get some rest amongst the stable animals who probably weren't so quiet just like that little goat! There is something really neat about watching a live nativity the spirit is so strong and it makes you think about things you may not have thought before.

 

Party Time:

 

9 candles

 

 

About a week before his birthday grandma gave him a paper and told him to write a list of things he wanted. This is what he wrote:

 

A Minion

a small bag of jerkey

some mints

a hot wheels car

that's all Grandma

 

I love it!!

 

A Minion just like he told Grandma and Grandpa he wanted

 

 

I've decided that a birthday just before Christmas is pretty great because these kids were pretty content playing with Brody's birthday goodies pretty much until Christmas!

 

What a fun packed day!! Just what a birthday should be.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Brody wanted to have a little party with his friends, it was low key and a lot of fun!

 

 

I had planned to do a movie party but after he opened his gifts all those boys wanted to do was play.  I wasn't about to make them stop playing to watch a movie so I just went with it. It was a war zone in the basement you couldn't go down there without getting hit with a nerf dart. :) They had fun and it was pretty easy as far as birthday parties go!