Cruise's Birthday Weekend

When I asked Cruise what kind of birthday he wanted, he told me a bird watching birthday. I tried to talk him into renting one of those water bounce houses like the one we had on the 4th of July, but that was a hard "no" and he was adamant he have a bird watching party. Planning was interesting. But I love a good challenge.

After searching all over the website, I ended up calling the aviary in SLC because they didn't have any birthday party info. Sadly they weren't doing birthday parties this summer because of some construction going on. Then I thought it would be cool to have someone come bring a cool bird and talk about birds at the party. I researched far and wide and the cheapest price for that sort of thing was about $200. So that wasn't workable. Finally, after exhausting all my ideas, I turned to the Utah County Birders Facebook page and put out a call for help. My friend, Laurie, who is not only a member of that FB group, but also one of the directors at the Melisa Nellesen Center for Autism at UVU, messaged me with an awesome idea! One of the students at UVU who is in the Passages program there (a program that helps students on the spectrum navigate the college experience), had just done a presentation about birds for some of the students at the university. She is getting her degree in biology and works part-time at the aviary. Laurie had the idea to connect us and see if she would be interested in doing the presentation for Cruise's party. I thought that was an amazing idea and so we set up a time to meet at Laurie's office.

We had our meeting and I instantly loved Laura. She was wearing a t-shirt with an eagle on it and seemed pretty excited to talk about birds. In fact, she even told me, when I asked what would be a fair price to pay her, that she didn't need to be paid because she loves any opportunity for someone listen to her talk about birds (I still paid her). I told her about Cruise and how he can identify all the birds that live around us and even tries to make their calls. She said he was a boy after her own heart. Lol! We talked about the specifics and then after figuring it all out, I picked her brain about getting Cruise a bird. I couldn't believe just how smart she was and how she could answer all my questions.

Once I had that all figured out, I just had to plan the rest of the party. There was only one bird watching party I could find on Pinterest, which is my go-to because my creative juices aren't as juicy as they used to be. The lady who did the party had put together a great package on etsy.com with invitations, labels, signs, a banner, etc. So I purchased that and took a couple of her ideas. This is the cute invitation:

On Friday the 4th, I spent the day making Cruise's cake. I made a white cake from scratch as well as a really good buttercream. It looked, smelled and even tasted amazing, however it was a little dry, which is sad. But overall it turned out great. I had gone to Michaels a couple weeks before and purchased the decorations since I knew I'd go crazy trying to make a bird and nest out of modeling chocolate. It turned out pretty good. I hoped that it didn't look like a baby shower cake; I was pushing it with the butterflies, but I needed to fill all that white space. I bought an awesome cake platter from Target that was perfect for the whole theme. It's my new favorite purchase.

After I finished the cake, we went to dinner (because I had used all the dishes to make the cake). We decided to have it be Cruise's birthday dinner and went to get sushi. We didn't go to our usual place because it's expensive and not child-friendly (dates only!), but we tried a new place that had really good ratings. Overall, their food was pretty good, but of course once you've had amazing sushi, anything below that is slightly disappointing. But the boys had fun trying some new foods. I made Cruise try a little of everything, telling him, "Remember, it's always good to try new things." So he was a trooper and tasted miso soup, egg drop soup, tempura vegetables, and 3 different kinds of sushi. He liked the Executive (also my favorite) and the California roll. Jett liked the California roll and the miso soup. Miles ate rice. Lots and lots of rice.

That evening after the kids went to bed, Dave and I decorated and got everything ready for the party. It was fun seeing everything all put together.

 It's kind of ridiculous how much time and effort I put into these stupid water bottle labels.

 The lady who did the themed stuff had this cute scavenger hunt printable. However, because she lives back east, all the birds were different, so I had to print out my own and glue them to the papers. It was very time consuming, but I did get a lot of episodes of Arrested Development in.

The next morning, the 5th, I woke up early, got ready, and headed out to get balloons from Macey's, which is where I usually get them. It was about 8 AM and the party started at 10. I walked in, asked to buy some balloons, and then was informed that they were out of helium. I got in my car and asked Google where I could get some balloons at 8 in the morning. I got mad at Google. Everything opened at 10, because who on earth does parties at 10:00 on a Saturday? After driving around, I ended up at Target (because we always end up at Target), was this close to buying a helium tank (they have those), but settled on just buying balloons and dealing with the fact that they wouldn't float. We all make sacrifices. I also got some giant sticky hands for the favor bags while I was there. Everyone loves sticky hands.

I got home and Dave had set up the shade pavilion thing that we borrowed from Joe, and got everything set up for the Angry Birds game. Then he helped me move the picnic table down to the yard. I got that all ready for painting birdhouses/feeders, set out the favor bags, and double checked my itinerary. The boys helped me blow up the balloons and then Dave strung them up.

 I had planned for 9 because one person didn't RSVP, but we had 8 total kids there, including the birthday boy. It was a good number. Definitely manageable. We had Sam from down the street, Claire (of course), Braeden from next door, and Ethan and Reese from school. And of course Jett & Miles.

To start out, the kids each grabbed their scavenger hunt papers, pencils, and binoculars, and set out to bird watch. Claire, before leaving to search, asked if they were real birds or if I had hidden fake birds. I told her that they were real, and she was kind of amazed. I don't blame her, I never knew there were so many different birds all around my neighborhood until Cruise started pointing them out. They found a red-tail hawk, robin, starling, magpie, chicken, and a duck. Those last two were gimmes since the neighbors have them in their yard.

When they got back, I sent them to the backyard to do the Angry Birds game. Dave made a slingshot and I bought the balls and collected the boxes for two weeks. I didn't' put too much work into the game. I could've, but I just didn't want to put all my energies into that one. No one would've even noticed anyway.

While they did that. I greeted Laura and her mom at the door and helped them bring stuff to the backyard to prepare for the presentation. She brought a chicken and two pigeons. One was a baby and was super cute and impressively chill. Laura talked about identifying birds, eggs, feathers, taught them how to hold a chicken, and then gave everyone a peacock feather. She also gifted Cruise a filled goose egg, which was pretty cool! All the kids were really interested in what she had to say and they all had really good questions for her. During the first half of the presentation, Dave left to get pizzas for lunch. 

After the presentation, everyone went inside, washed their hands, and ate lunch. I saw Laura, her mom, and the birds off. 

After lunch, we all went outside so they could paint their bird feeders. 

After painting, I got the cake all ready and we sang Happy Birthday! It always surprises me how many kids don't like cake. 

Cruise must have had a really specific wish because those candles were melting all over the cake, waiting to be blown out. 

After cake, we did presents. Cruise got a lot of great gifts. A lot of them were bird related (surprise, surprise), and some even specifically for Cupcake. He got some birding books, a bird whistle, a budgie playground, some budgie supplies, a build-it-yourself birdhouse, some drawing paper and pencils, a couple fidget spinners, a little R/C robot, and a gift card to Petsmart. One kid who couldn't make it to the party was so sweet and brought over a gift card to Petsmart as well. 

Unfortunately, we ran out of time and didn't get to the gummy worms in whipped cream game. Two and a half hours went by so fast! But I think everyone had a lot of fun. The moms of the boys from Cruise's class told me their kiddos couldn't stop talking about the party. So...win! 

I spent the rest of the day laying down. My feet hurt. Later in the evening, Jett asked me to take him to buy Cruise a present at Target. So we went and he picked out the game Operation and spent his own money to get it for his brother. He was so excited to give it to them and they played it before they had to go to bed. Such a good brother!

The next day, Sunday the 6th, we had Cruise's family party. I made chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting. Cruise wanted Andes cupcakes. I made some vegan ones for Abby and Liev, which actually turned out pretty good (according to Abby); I was a little more critical. I had never made vegan cupcakes before. Luckily, Duncan Hines cake box is vegan, so I used that but struggled for the egg substitute. I ended up following a recipe but it still made them a bit delicate. I topped them with mint frosting from scratch (also not super easy) and fresh mint leaves from my garden. The animal-hating ones turned out great! I made the cake and frosting from scratch and topped them with chopped up Andes mints. 

 These were what was left of the regular ones. It looks like someone got to the top one there. I forgot to take a picture of them, which turned out to be about 24 cupcakes.  They were a hit.

Abby, Casey and Liev came, as well as Dave's parents, Joe, Mary, and 3/4 of her kids, Aaliyah, Eli, and Oliva. 

I was not expecting everyone to bring him gifts, but he got some great ones, which was so so nice of them. Abby & Casey gave him an iTunes gift card (he loves buying music!). 

This is Abby's "Don't take a picture of me, it's awkward" face.

Grandma & Grandpa Ybarra gave him cash and a new wallet! He was super excited about the cash. Who doesn't love cash?

Uncle Joe gave him a really nice camera bag for him to use while he's out bird watching and documenting. Which was really great because he kept taking my old purse out for a stroll around the neighborhood, and while I didn't have a problem with that, I was worried neighborhood kids would tease him. Also, a shoulder strap is just not sensible for a bird watcher. 

The Elliotts gave him a puppet making kit, and the kids threw in a necklace, some marbles, and some change. Definitely stuff Cruise loves to put in his pockets. 

Finally, Cruise opened Grandma & Papa Greer's present: a bike! They had it sent to our house and Dave put it together. Cruise had outgrown his old one and was in need of a bigger bike with handlebar breaks. It didn't take him too long to figure out the breaks, but the gears are tricky to learn. That evening he rode it around the neighborhood for about an hour. 

On Monday the 7th, Cruise's actual birthday, we actually didn't do much. We just hung out and Cruise got to play with all his new toys and chill with Cupcake. I also didn't do much. I was recovering from too much birthday. And...I was Pinteresting ideas for Miles' birthday which is next month.