Football Birthday

On Saturday we had the boys' birthday party. All year they have been saying they wanted a football party--I really meant it when I say they are totally obsessed! Even my sports-crazed husband says he thinks it's remarkable how into it they are at such a young age. We were driving home from my parent's house last night and they asked if there were any football games on the radio. Seriously! It's hard enough for me to watch a game, and here they were asking to listen to one! Crazy boys.

Anyway. Back to the party. I started out by sending out these invitations:

When I asked them what they wanted to do at their party, they said they wanted to go to the park and play football with their friends. Easy enough! But not with last week's snow storms and the freezing temperatures. So I had to get creative.

We started out by eating food that you eat at a football game, or as the boys said, "Dome food", so-called after the big dome NAU plays in. We had hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, nachos and soda--all very healthy. It was a huge hit!









The boys said they wanted to buy football jerseys for all the kids at their party, but after we explained how expensive that would be, we opted for making our own t-shirts. They were really easy and turned out pretty cute--football players for the boys and cheerleaders for the girls. It was a packet I got at Wal-Mart where you can print right off the computer onto these iron-on papers. Then the kids colored them with markers and crayons, you remove the backing, and iron on to a shirt. The instructions say you can wash them--we'll soon find out!

Next we played some games:
**Musical footballs: I cut a bunch of footballs out of foam sheets and hid them around the room. After a game of "find a football", we then played a variation of musical chairs with them.
**Hot football: Hot potato only with a football. I had no idea they would like this so much!
**Dizzy Kicker: Jason was the target. I would spin a kid around until he/she was dizzy, then they had to try to kick a balloon and try to hit Jason. The kids thought this was hilarious!

All the games were a big hit. Our house was sooo loud! But it was a lot of fun. And with the exception of one little boy who kept trying to cheat, all the kids got along really well. The winners of the games received a "Superbowl" trophy with gum inside.

Then on to cake and ice cream. I miscalculated and the cake only went up to the 40 yard line. Even I know that there should be 50. The boys were so excited about the football action figures that they didn't even notice. If they had, however, we had a backup plan--when Jason was in High School, he played 8-man football on an 80 yard field. So if they had noticed, we would have told them that we did it on purpose. The scale of the players is way off, but oh well. They didn't care.















Instead of goody bags, Jason had the idea to put all the loot in Gatorade bottles. What a creative husband I have! I found Strawberry Shortcake cantines for the girls. The kids seemed to really like them. Especially when they found out there was candy inside. We also included gum in plastic football containers, gold medals, candy watches etc.




I bought these little foam footballs and it was my plan to have each of the kids sign the ball, but I totally forgot! So I just wrote their names on them so they can remember everyone who came to their party.

On their real birthday, we had a family party with aunts, and uncles, cousins, grandmas and grandpas. And of course, another cake.

Football Cake #2

Enrichment

Last Tuesday, we had our Enrichment Night. It was a huge success, despite all my stressing. We titled the evening "The Gift of Our Savior." We started off with a message from our wonderful Enrichment Leader about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and about what a gift his birth and life was for all of us. It was such a sweet message and was exactly what I needed to hear. A reminder to my frazzled nerves about what Christmas is really about. As a gift to each of the sisters, I found these cute little ornaments made of olive wood, all the way from Jerusalem. (Thanks, Mom, for letting me be a copycat!) I attached a ribbon and this quote from Pres. Faust that Kate used in her message:



"I testify that the greatest gift of this or any other Christmas is the Atonement of Jesus as the Redeemer, the Son of God. It is a gift we cannot handle or touch, but we can feel the immeasurable love of the Giver."

For the rest of the evening, we decided to do a service project for a local women's and children's domestic violence and homeless shelter. We had advertised for weeks for sisters to bring all their gently used toys and clothing that they were no longer in need of. The response was incredible! We had such a good turn-out of sisters and even more impressive was the amount of things we collected. Many hands made for light work and we were able to quickly sort and bag all of the items. We also had another table dedicated to putting together hygiene kits. We were able to put 40 together!

The next day, my wonderful husband helped me load everything up and haul it all to the shelter. We filled the back of his truck all the way up to the top of the cab, packed my van tight with only just barely enough room for the kids, and also packed the back of a friend's jeep. I just had to take a picture of all the stuff. It truly was amazing!



The lady at the shelter was in awe. I had told her there were a lot of things, but I don't think she realized just how much. She said over and over, "Thank you so much. This is so overwhelming." At it was. I was so glad we were able to help out. I can't even imagine what some of those women and children living there have gone through. I am so, so blessed.