birthdays – Casa de Berry

2014, birthdays, cats, forty, friends, husband

Brain Dump

May 28, 2014by casadeberry1 Comment

It’s been a while since I posted – life has gotten super busy but also, there was a bit of news I was dreading to share. Our sweet Willie-Boo, our Egyptian Mau, passed away a few weeks ago. We had the pleasure of his company for over a decade, and will always remember him as the most loving kitty we’ve met.
willie1

He brought so much joy to our home and is sorely missed. Our other cat, Bernie, also misses his buddy of 11 years, and has become a lot more active in wanting attention and love.

In happier news, I threw a small party for Steve’s 40th birthday – he’s a voracious reader, so the party was book-themed. If you follow me on Instagram, then you got to see various shots of the party prep:

I had Steve create a list of books he wanted to read in case anyone asked what to get him for his birthday. He got a bunch of new books and our friends were kind and generous in other ways as well. It was a fun afternoon with lots of good food and even better conversation.

The boys are almost done with school. Part of me wishes they would bundle all the no-school days at the end so they could be done a couple of weeks early, mostly because of Alexander. Autistic kids, especially, rely on routine, even more than regular kids, and having days off here and there really mess with him and make it harder to go back to school. We have been lucky with a group of teachers and therapists that have worked with us to help Alex get the most he can out of school.

Last weekend we had a wonderful time with Steve’s sweet cousin, she is an amazing riding instructor and was great with both boys, getting them to ride and trot, and do pre- and post- ride work on the horse:

Thank you so much, cousin T.!!!!

I will be bringing a “virtual swag bag” post next Monday, sharing with you some ideas for cool gift items.

Hope the rest of your week is amazing!

2014, birthdays, boys, craft, february, parties

Aidan’s Skylanders Birthday Party

February 25, 2014March 6, 2014by casadeberry1 Comment

Tomorrow is our oldest’s birthday, he is turning nine and we couldn’t be prouder of what a wonderful boy he is. He requested a Skylanders party, and he asked that it be on his birth month, so we held the party last Sunday. We were lucky to have wonderful weather that day so most of the festivities took place in our backyard.

Games:
We decided to have a couple of games that would appeal to a variety of ages – we chose darts and a ball toss. Steve (of course) created the game boards:

I had purchased a set of decals specifically for the ball toss board, which ended up looking like this:

The darts board:

Set up in the backyard

And with balloons:

Piñata:
Aidan requested villain Kaos as the piñata and Steve obliged:

I helped a bit with the black robe but most of it was Steve’s work.

Cake:
Aidan chose the Skylanders portal of power as his cake design. It was Steve’s first time working with fondant, and he knocked it out of the park with the detailing:

Aside from the cake, we also had sheep and water cupcakes 😀

Kids could earn coins from games and the piñata loot, and then buy various items from “Portal Master Aidan’s Trading Post”:

The items corresponded to the elements in the game, i.e. candy eggs and LifeSavers for Life, gummy worms for Undead, Pop Rocks for Magic, bubbles and whistles for Air, etc.

Kids big and small had a great time and even some grown-ups ended up trying the games later on.

Steve says goodbye to his creation 😀

Our boy had a great time playing with friends and family, and so did we. As tired as we are the day of (I got one hour of sleep the night before) and after, we truly love throwing parties and having people over. Steve did a great job on everything and we were both happy how the party turned out. Of course, we’re planning the next thing already, but we’ll take a couple of days to enjoy the “party afterglow”.

2013, about me, birthdays, fashion, foxy, november

42

November 13, 2013by casadeberry10 Comments

This is how old I am now. I’ve been 42 for a couple of days now, since 11.12.13 😀

November 12 happens to be a popular date for births in our family. My sister was born that day as well, although on a different year. My cousin was also born on that date and so was a cousin-by-marriage.

My latest birthday started wonderfully, with some presents and my three men singing Happy Birthday to me. My sons happened to have the day off because of school conferences so it was a very lazy day, spent mostly in pajamas, except when I decided to try on my gifts:

My husband got me a beautiful fedora and an adorable fox sweater. Because yes, I am totally into the whole fox trend. I also used some of my birthday money to get these sweet fox earrings, although mostly because my dog’s name is Foxy. The day ended with our cousins watching the boys so Steve and I could go out to dinner, which was paid for by my mother-in-law, who kindly gave me a restaurant gift card. Sa-weet!!!

I have to say that I am a very lucky girl. I have a wonderful family, sweet friends, I get to stay home with my monkeys, I am over the plague we all had (except for the cough, but I can live with that) and I hope the rest of my 42nd year is as wonderful as the first few days have been!

2013, birthdays, blue, boys, kids, parties, yellow

Alex’s 7th birthday party

August 12, 2013by casadeberryLeave a Comment

I’m still going through 400+ pics from our Pacific Northwest adventures, so for now I will share a few pics from our youngest’s birthday party. It was a small, sweet gathering:

The birthday boy requested vanilla cake

AND brownies!

Aidan quality-tested the buttercream and declared it good.

We inherited a pool from some friends so our boys and their friends had a blast playing in the water:

After the party it was time to clean up and get ready for our road trip, which started the very next morning — stay tuned!

2013, birthdays, boys

Joy

August 5, 2013August 4, 2013by casadeberry2 Comments

Our youngest, Alexander, turned 7 last week. We had a little get together over the weekend, and I have tons of pics to share but this one makes me smile every time I see it.

This is my husband showing my boy the card his friends had made for him. Alex hasn’t even seen the gift yet, his reaction is to the sweet homemade card, and that his friends had written stuff just for him. He read it all out loud, and yeah, then he got to the present itself.

Good times for my seven-year-old.

2013, autism, birthdays, boys

Alex turns seven

July 31, 2013July 29, 2013by casadeberryLeave a Comment

Seriously, how does this happen? I know that I ask the same question every birthday, but how is it that my chubbalicious chunk of goodness . . .

is now seven and entering second grade??? Seriously. How does that happen? And even though he is in a special day class because of his autism, he is doing work that is at grade level. He’s fearless, will throw himself off of anything and into anything and is responsible for many of my gray hairs.

We shall be celebrating a few days later. Maybe he’ll sing for us. He loves to sing 😀

Happy birthday, my little sunshine. I love you so much.

2013, birthdays, craft, husband

Minecraft Party, part 2

March 1, 2013March 1, 2013by casadeberry5 Comments

So, when I woke up at 6:30am on the morning of my son’s birthday party, I went to the garage and found my husband doing this:

The poor man had spent all night working on the creeper piñata and diamond sword. They looked great, though, so I would say it was worth it. Our boy was very impressed:

The piñata was made out of cardboard but my husband made it so that the head rotated. All the candy was stuffed into the belly, so it didn’t have a lot of give. The sword is made out of wood and painted in various shades of blue to give it that pixelated look from the game.

After the complete destruction of the poor creeper, we saved the head, as we always try to do, and added it to our growing collection of piñata and costume heads.

And that was our Minecraft-themed birthday party!

2013, birthdays, decor, entertaining, green, husband, parties

Minecraft Party, part 1

February 27, 2013February 27, 2013by casadeberry5 Comments

Minecraft is everywhere. Just about every kid I know plays it, and just about every parent I know knows about it. It’s like Legos, but online, and each block has different properties. So of course, my oldest, a fervent fan of the game, decided he wanted a Minecraft party for his 8th birthday. Being the craft-crazy parents that we are, we happily obliged.

Can you tell I went overboard with the square/block theme?

I totally stole the popcorn baggy idea and creeper background idea from Puerta Bella. The popcorn baggies were a hit, every kid (and some adults) grabbed a baggy each and went on their merry way, eating popcorn. I loved that there were no hands grabbing popcorn from a big bowl, that each person could get their own popcorn. The Red Vines TNT idea was shamelessly stolen from Seaside Interiors, and I used some square candle holders I already had, the kids loved it!

I decided to make mini sandwiches, cut to look like blocks, of course. We had Chicken Pesto, made very easily by mixing cooked chicken and mixing it with some of the pesto I made last week; Peanut Butter and Jelly; and Tuna Salad.

My mother in law baked the yummy cakes and my husband decorated them. We had one creeper and two “dirt blocks”:

Aren’t those candles fun? My husband saw them at the store and grabbed them, I’d never seen them before. The sides of the dirt blocks are a mix of oreos and graham crackers. We also had block candies and starburst to complete the “block food” theme.

On Friday, I’ll tell you all about the awesome piñata my husband made!

2012, birthdays, gifts

Made by Girl bracelet

November 26, 2012November 26, 2012by casadeberryLeave a Comment

Like my gorgeous bracelet? It is a birthday gift ;D

Isn’t it gorgeous?

I wore it for Thanksgiving with a bunch of skinny bracelets on either side and it looked great.

Made by Girl also carries this bracelet in fuchsia and dark brown, I wanted something very neutral so I chose the camel color but I was tempted by the fuchsia as well. Hmmm, maybe for Christmas ;D

2012, birthdays, boys, craft, entertaining, kids, parties

Lego Birthday Party

July 31, 2012August 6, 2012by casadeberry12 Comments

My youngest turns six today. We celebrated on Sunday with a small birthday party in the theme of his choosing — Lego Dinosaurs. I did a simple invite based off the Dino Lego website, using the Legothick font I downloaded for free:

The day was beautiful, a little warm for my (arctic) taste, but my in-laws lent us their canopies and we had a great time chatting in the backyard and watching the kids play.

For the cake, we chose to do a Lego brick cake — actually two, since I made one chocolate and one vanilla cake. My son’s choice was blue frosting on his vanilla cake, so I made the buttercream, too. First time, and I think it tasted pretty good. The chocolate cake was covered in green buttercream. We had liquid food coloring at home so I used that, but it took so much coloring to get the shade I wanted that I think next time I will use gel food coloring. My son saw the blue buttercream and gave it a thumbs up. Then he tasted some and wanted to eat the whole container so I had to refrigerate it for a while ;D

A couple of friends suggested Ding Dongs for the Lego studs on the cake:

Here’s my sweet Alex blowing out the candles:

It worked out perfectly that I made a six-stud brick and he was turning six, I just stuck a candle into each, uh, Ding Dong stud. Man, that sounds bad, huh? lol

For the piñata, my husband made a fabulous, Alex-sized version of one of the Lego Dino wranglers:

Here you can see the “model” on the shoulder:

Clothing details:

It’s alive!

My husband gazes at his creation one last time before the kids go at it!

Alex with his piñata:

After the carnage, my oldest made sure to save the head for our future “trophy room” — seriously, we have saved the heads off a few piñatas and costumes, and I told my husband we should mount them on the wall the way others mount moose and tiger heads 😀

Hope you’ve enjoyed looking through our Lego party – have a great Tuesday!