The Mulloy's: April 2016

Dear Patrick,

How are you already five years old? You are growing so fast! It has really been amazing to watch you grow into such a big boy this year!

You will be starting Kindergarten soon and I am so thrilled for you. I know you will be in your element soaking in every little piece of knowledge that kindergarten has to offer! But, I am also very sad that you will be at school more days than you will be at home with me. I have just adored my time at home with you!

You have taught me so much about being a mom. You are constantly challenging me! You ask such thoughtful questions and I really have to think before answering. You are such a bright and curious little boy. You are constantly looking to learn and grow. It is one of the things I admire most about you!

Patrick, I love you so much. It has really been the greatest honor to be your mom. I am so excited to see everything that God has planned for you this year.

I love you to the moon and back,

Mom

I can't believe my 2 big boys are 5 and 3! Gosh where does the time go!

Patrick and Peyton had a joint birthday party this year. I thought I would never do a joint birthday because I want both boys to feel special, but it just worked out so perfectly this year that I decided to give it a try! Their birthdays are only 5 days apart so it was going to be really tough to host 2 birthday parties so close together! Patrick and Peyton both love superheroes so when Patrick said he wanted a Spiderman party and Peyton said he wanted a Batman party, I thought it would be perfect!

I tried to plan everything pretty far in advance so that I wouldn't be rushing on the day of the party, but it didn't work out that way! The chick-fil-a order wasn't ready and the cake order wasn't ready when Michael went to pick it up. On top of that, the bakery messed up the cake and did a Bat Mitzvah cake, but still put Happy Birthday Patrick and Peyton on it. WHAT!?!? So when Michael ran in with the cake 20 minutes before the party we really had to scramble to make it look somewhat like a superhero cake! I had originally ordered a plain cake with red on the top layer and blue on the bottom layer. I had made Batman fondant and spiderman's eyes out of fondant the night before to put on the cake. My sister and I scrambled to scrape off all the sides of the cake with the Bat Mitzvah decorations. She also added the spider webbing all around the top of the cake. I think we saved it pretty well. Patrick did ask after his party why the superhero cake had "fireworks" all over the back of it, haha!

Denton really helped save the cake!

Here is a picture of the food table. We had chick-fil-a chicken nuggets (the boys favorite), mac and cheese, pizza bites, fruit, superhero granola bars, pirates booty, batman cookies, and spider cookies. In the rush, I forgot to put out the superhero yogurt, but that's how it goes I guess!

Our make-shift cake. I wish I had taken a picture of the cake before we turned it into a superhero cake.

These popcorn boxes were too cute!

I found these signs at Bed, Bath and Beyond and thought they were perfect. The boys love superheroes so much that I figured we could just use them in one of their rooms eventually.

I loved these plates, napkins, bowls and cups!

The superhero capes. These were surprisingly really easy to make. I bought walmart table cloths, cut a hole in them and taped a batman symbol or a spider symbol on each. Each table cloth made 6 superhero capes and it barely took any time!

The photo booth was my favorite part! I thought it came together really nicely! I ordered the batman and spiderman balloons off of amazon and had no idea just how large they really were! Michael had them blown up on Saturday morning and could barely fit them into the car! I originally wanted to hang the spiderman with the webs above the party table, but Patrick insisted upon hanging it above the photo booth...and it was his party afterall :)

The black and yellow building on the right came from Target. Michael, Patrick and I made the actual buildings out of boxes. I stink at wrapping, so Michael was nice enough to wrap them for me. Patrick helped tape on the yellow windows. He was so excited about his party that he helped me craft a lot for it!

The party favor table

For the Power Punch, I put little superhero surprises in bowls and covered them with tissue paper. The kids could "punch" one of the circles to get their prize. We also had Batman and Spiderman lollipops and silly string for the kids.

We had the "P" in Peyton's room already, so we added a cape and made it "Super P" for Patrick and Peyton.

My big 5 year old!

And my precious little 3 year old!

The Villian Vaporizer (silly string) was probably the hit of the party for the 5 year olds! About five minutes after the party started Patrick and his friends grabbed the silly string and were ready to use it! A few of Patrick's friends hadn't shown up yet, so I was sad that not everyone got to participate. But, those who were there early had an absolute blast! In our rush to get everything ready for the party, Michael didn't have a chance to change into his "villian" outfit. So he rushed to get ready while the boys ran outside and got ready to attack the villian.

Patrick was just grinning from ear to ear his entire party! Before the party I put out a spiderman shirt and khaki shorts for Patrick to wear. He immediately looked at it and said "Mom, I don't have spiderman shorts! I HAVE to be in everything spiderman!!!" So he wore his spiderman pajama pants instead. He was so proud of how he looked! It was pretty funny! He has numerous spiderman shirts and was so excited about them all that he made about 3 wardrobe changes during the party! He was just so excited to show off all of his spiderman gear. It was adorable!

The Batman bouncy house and slide was also a big hit. We had originally ordered Spiderman since I thought the Batman banner looked a little scary for three year olds, but they forgot it so Batman it was! The kids thought it looked great, which was all that mattered!

We only invited the boys from Patrick and Peyton's class this year. However, when we were addressing the invitations Patrick said he really wanted to invite his girlfriend from his old school. He was SOO excited when she showed up! He ran out of the house and down the driveway to greet her in the driveway...it was so precious! He wanted to hang out with her the whole time. Here they are in the bouncy house together.

The power punch was really fun for the five year olds as well. They kept asking if they could please punch more. I don't even think they cared what was inside of them!

Patrick and one of his sweet friends from school, Owen.

Another sweet friend from school, Christian S trying to get Patrick with silly string. I love Patrick's face in this picture!

They were just too excited about the silly string to wait for the Villian!

My sister captured some of these pictures of Patrick with the silly string. Love them!

Here comes the villian! Michael was such a good sport. I had originally planned for his brothers to help him out,to spread out the love of the silly string a little, but they weren't able to make it this year.

Hulk getting a little revenge. I am honestly not sure if Hulk is a good or bad guy in the movie, but the boys think he is bad (and scary) so we went with it.

Classic! Silly string straight to the face!!!

Conor and Brooks were not sure what to think of the Hulk

Hulk Smash was a big hit with the 3 year olds. I wish I had thought of putting a stool up for them, since most of them were just a little too short.

This video cracks me up!

Sweet little Peyton asked me to get him some chicken nuggets on a plate. When I put them on the table for him to eat inside, he got so upset. I finally figured out that he just wanted to go and eat next to his friends. Precious!