Beauty and the Wil'DaBeast Party

The Birthday party was so much fun. I really can't image it could have gone any better, but that is thanks to my wonderful in-laws, my amazing hubby, all of our amazing friends and Mr. Mike who saved the day from a miserable rain out.

I decide to do a Beauty and the Beast party because it is Caleb's favorite Disney story, I thought it would be a perfect way to do a boy, girl party and I thought it would be easy to find everything needed for a themed birthday party. Finding the Merchandise posed a real challenge. There are no longer any items that have the Beast. Everything Belle related is total Princess, so what was supposed to be easy turned into a nightmare. There was literally only one item in all of the Disney merchandise that even remotely incorporated the Beast. This was a 7 piece set of figurines that included all the characters from Beauty and the Beast and thank goodness for that or my sweet little boy who only cares about the Beast would have been very disappointed. While we were at Disney World he watched the play at the Disney's Hollywood Studio (MGM) and every time the Beast would leave the stage he would say, "where'd the Wildabeast go?" He got a little confused, because the day before MGM, we spent the day at Animal Kingdom where there are real wildebeests. But needless to say he is a huge fan of the big scary Beast. So after much searching brain storming I came up with some fun activities, which didn't require merchandise and I could make on my own. Easy right. Not so much.

The Craft




I love scrapbooking and with our pending move I thought it would be fun to have each kid make their own scrapbook page so we could have a special memory and I would take pictures at the party to put in the scrapbook. I turned this into a chore because it really was a craft way over their head, so coming up with something that 3 year olds could do and would still look pretty took some major effort on my part. I cut all the items up and prebagged, so it would be easy but this process took me some time. It did however, turn out great. I especially loved the one done by Jay and Jack. It definitely had a masculine twist.

Story time



Our friend David read the story and put his own entertaining twist on it. The kids loved it and the adults had a number of good laughs. I purchased personalized Beauty and the Beast books from Disney that incorporated the child into the story as the party favor. I was really excited about these.

The Rose Petal Hunt



I found this fun game on the Internet and I thought it would be a great way to incorporate the rose from the story. I put stickers on 12 of the petals and scattered them around the room. There was enough for each child to find one. Once they found their sticker they were allowed to claim a prize out of the goody bag, with princess stuff for the girls and a random arrangement of toys for the boys Caleb picked out. I would say the harmonica was a hit.

The Beast Foot race



This one had me worried. I figured it would be either a blast or a disaster. For the most part all the kids did great and I was thankful there were no injuries. Only a few tears. Sweet Caleb got inches from the finish line and fell down and then had a meltdown and never completed the race. And Jack went home and told his mom, "don't make me where the fury feet."

Cory and I made these fun little beast feet out of cardboard and faux fur. I'm pretty sure I got high on the glue I used. The day after we worked on them all night I woke up with a splitting headache and a terrible case of nausea.

The Cake



I purchased the Cinderella cupcakes from walmart and had them leave off the Cinderella figurines and used the ones mentioned above. It was actually really tasty.

The Castle



This was a total hit, and I was very grateful. I found this fun website http://www.mrmcgroovys.com. He sells these rivots for cardboard and then gives you the plans to make just about anything you can image. The only thing that was a little misleading was the assembly time. He claimed the whole thing takes 2 hours to make. Maybe if you are a super builder. It took me 4 hours to cut it out. Then 4 more to paint. We had a great time as a family painting it.



Caleb was very helpful and he probably enjoyed painting it as much as playing in it. I probably spent 5 more hours going back and forth to the Conn's distribution center to get 8 refigerator boxes. In the end though the kids had a great time playing in the castle and it really made the party theme come to life. All the time and energy it took to put this thing together was worth every minute to see all the fun smiles on our precious kiddos faces.

Kiss on the Booty, Bump on the Chin

The Vannoy sister both had an eventful Saturday. For me it was extremely fun celebrating my sweet kiddos birthdays with a fun party, which I will post as soon as I get pictures organized.



My sweet sister on the other hand got to spend the day at the Emergency Room.

The story of what put them there was pretty fun so I decided I would blog for a great memory.

Attie is so affectionate and just adores her mom, so it does seem appropriate that this would be what put her in the hospital.

So here is the story as told by Attie to the Doctor.

Doctor- "What happen?"

Attie-"I was going to kiss mommy on the butt and I slipped and hit my chin."

Doctor-"that is a first."





She and Kaycee had just finished taking a shower and Attie was wrapped in a a towel so when she slipped she had no hands to catch herself.

Week in Colorado

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We had an amazing time. It was crazy with 9 adults and 5 kiddos in one house, but it was so much fun. Thank you Havertys for hosting such a fun filled weekend.

Shopping
We started out in typical Vannoy girl fashion with endless shopping. I think Caleb was feeling emasculated after three days of solid shopping. Each evening when we would get home he would rough Attie Jo up a little. Caleb's bulling followed by Attie tattle telling has historically been a regular thing with cousins who act like siblings, but this week they did so well together and for the most part enjoyed each others company a ton. Kaycee had an ingenious solution to the tattle telling which usually leads to more bulling. She made Attie go in timeout while Caleb was in timeout if she told on him for the physical encounter. It nipped the viscous cycle that can about drive two mommies crazy.

Lacrosse
We did enjoy a couple extremely physical lacrosse games. Played by none other than Clay Michael Haverty. It was very exciting and action packed. Caleb learned a few choice words from the crowd and when I asked him what his favorite part about lacrosse was he responded, "hit um, hit um hard."

Chelsea's shower





Kaycee is the Matron of Honor or "MOH" as we like to call her, so part of the event filled fun weekend was the bridal shower hosted for my sweet cousin who is getting married in June in Hawaii. Thanks Chels for the awesome excuse to go to Kauai. The shower was so fun and beautiful and we will always remember the cupcake debacle that actually ended up magnificently.



Other than a short moment of spiked estragen levels, which Chelsea quickly reeled us in from, we got away pretty tear free.



I still can't believe sweet little "Chel-see-a" is getting married. I still see her 7 years old running around the soccer field.

Easter
We started the day with a fun Easter basket tradition and Easter egg hunt.











Then headed off to an amazing church service.

Thank you Christ for conquering death and giving us Eternal Life.

After church we headed over to hang out with more family. We had so much fun over at the Merrit's house.




It was neat to watch Caleb play with the big boys. For about 4 hours he was entertained and forget I existed. Makaylee slept in the car for the first couple of hours, but woke up her typically friendly flirty fun self. We all enjoyed an amazing meal and lots of visiting, but the highlight of the event was our encouragment to Chip to lose his nasty bar stools. We wrote a fun little poem and our preformance brought many laughs.

Moving to Pitt

The trip was all and all very positive. We had so much fun as a family hanging out and learning about the new place we will call home. The kids really were amazing. We spent most of the days driving around looking through all the possible neighborhoods we would want to live in. Thank goodness for DVD players.

A few of the things that occurred during the trip made me laugh. Caleb kept asking when are we going to “Picksbird” and we kept saying we are here. He was convinced there must be more to it. Over and over when we would say we are in Pittsburgh he would reply, “Nu uh mommy not yet.” Maybe he was expecting a thing instead of a place.

One evening we watched the Hannah Montana concert and used the hotel bed as a trampoline. It was a great workout and good for lot of laughs. Daddy’s dead fish and chicken walk were show stoppers. Caleb was laughing hysterically. I started laughing when Caleb decided to mimic Daddy and did his own version of the chicken walk.

We were trying hard to make them excited about the move and I have to admit it broke my heart the few times Caleb would sob and say I want to go home. I am not sure what that was all about, but he has never been known for adjusting well to change. One of our many attempts to get him to love it was driving 35 minutes to the only bounce house place in the Pittsburgh area. So sad, when we got there it was closed. Caleb was pretty disappointed, but as a consolation we found a Chucky Cheese and had fun playing for a couple hours.

It is definitely a lot different up there. Overall, everything is much more vintage. This is probably the nice way to say it. My Starbucks addiction will be eradicated. There are only 2 Starbucks in the area (USC) and neither are drive thru. This is quite a contrast to the plethora in the Dallas metroplex. The people seem very friendly which I am thankful for. Everywhere we went people would comment on how pretty Makaylee was and she was her faithful flirty self giving her coy smile and pretty eyes.

We really enjoyed the 10:45 service at the Chapel and when we asked Caleb if he liked the church he quickly said, “I like my new church.” The nursery ladies said Makaylee did great. It is very comforting to know we can get plug into a great church.

I will say I am starting to get really emotional about the move. I guess going up there made it a lot more real. I seem to tear up every time I think about leaving. Caleb was watching Diego one morning, while I was getting ready. I overheard him say when they asked, “who are your good friends you like to do stuff with?” He replied,” Jack and Hampton.” Going to the mall play area at South Hills was just not the same without his buddies. I know he will meet new friends, but it is going to be really hard to say goodbye to the dear sisters and their little ones we have bonded with over the past 3 years. Not to mention all the other amazing friends we have been blessed with in Dallas.

The last day in Pittsburgh we decide to venture into the city. Our first stop was the Carnegie Museum of History where we saw T Rex vs. T Rex. Caleb loved all the dinosaurs. He also got to dig for dinosaur bones with Daddy.




Makaylee also thought the dinosaurs were pretty fascinating


We also saw the University of Pittsburgh campus, which we enjoyed immensely. I think my favorite part was the enormous Cathedral of Learning. Caleb was sure that it was a princess castle and that Mickey Mouse was there.

History seemed to be everywhere. This is probably one of the most exciting things about moving to this part of the country. Living in a place that we will have easy access to much of our great country’s History. The township we will live in is Upper Saint Clair and it was founded in 1788.



View from the road our house is on.



The house we will be living in.