Noah's Birthday Party

Another moment of needing the mother of the year award. How hard can it be to plan a fun birthday party and carry through with it? Moms do it swimmingly every day around me. But one day I suddenly realized that it was actually the middle of November and that I didn't have any plans for this boy's birthday party and the invitations should probably be out already! And we don't do full up parties every year, so that should actually help me step up when the time comes, right? Well, due to lots of reasons and excuses, I didn't even get the invitations made until 3 days before the supposed party.... and then Noah's teacher said she would let him slip them into the folders at school, but he came home not having done it because there was a substitute that day and she wouldn't let him. So then I had finally gotten the directory from the school and emailed out and emergency evite and started getting lots of "no" replies pretty quick. I was feeling horrible about it, but in the end I didn't need to stress. We had the perfect size group and everyone really seemed to have a fun time at the party. Phew...Noah's actual birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year, which he is very excited about...."Now I have even more reasons to be thankful!" ....."A feast on my birthday!" etc. So he naturally wanted a Thanksgiving birthday party, and I loved that idea. They came in and made Indian vests and headbands and necklaces made from colored pasta.

And Noah had to show off is Christmas songs on the piano (I love how excited he is about the piano right now)--He has been asking the bishop at church if he could show him his songs. So the Bishop took us into the chapel after meeting with him yesterday, and listened to all of his songs. Then he said that if we got to church early next Sunday, and the organ player is not there yet, that Noah can sit up there and play his songs for the prelude music....Here's all of our little Indian braves (and a squaw).

Then we played a few games that represented the different skills that the Indians taught the pilgrims to help them survive. And for each game they earned a feather for their headbands.

And after they had learned the necessary skills we celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast of popcorn, pretzels, goldfish, apples, and oranges.

And cupcakes...

I can't believe my little boys is almost 8 years old! Holy smokes where has all of that time gone? I will have to do a "Noah reflection" sometime soon. ...

Ooops this picture is out of order...

After the party we went out as a family to try to clean the mounds and mounds of leaves and piled after the storms and were finally starting to dry enough to clean. It is so amazing how much more effective you can be working together. Ammon was a bum and stayed inside, but everyone else was excited and cheerful about helping. Even Micah was surprisingly helpful, putting huge armfuls of leaves into the bags. And he stayed focused ALMOST the entire time! I love moments like these.