Faces of Audrey

Ethan's LOVES Wall-E

Ethan got Wall-E sheets for his birthday from Grandma Vivi and Pop Pop and he was so happy when I put them on his bed.

St. Patrick's Day

We started off St. Patrick's Day by making green eggs. I wasn't sure if the kids would eat them, but they seemed pretty excited to see the eggs change color when I put in a few drops of food coloring. I would have to say that the eggs didn't look very appetizing, but the boys gobbled them up. Audrey tried a bite, but wasn't interested. However, it wasn't any different than any other day I serve her eggs.

THE KIDS MADE UP THEIR OWN CRAFT

I had a few crafts planned for the day, but before doing the crafts I told them about why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It was a story I never heard before and it was very interesting to learn the real reason for the holdiay. St. Patrick was a missionary in Ireland and used the clover leaf to tell people about the Trinity: The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. He died on March 17th and that is why we celebrate St. Patrick's day. After telling the kids the story I had to run upstairs to sign some paperwork for the bug man who came to spray our house. When I went back downstairs Jacob was making St. Patrick and they found the clover leaves I printed out. Audrey almost had her's completely cut out. Jacob decided he wanted his clover leaf attached to St. Patrick's hand and had me write Father, Son and Holy Spirit on each leaf. Ethan wanted the body of his St. Patrick to be a cross. This spontaneous activity they created touched my heart and let me know more than ever how truly special it is to home school my children. 

Disney on Ice

We had a lot of fun going to Disney on Ice. Our favorite part of the show was when Buzz, Woody and Jessie came out. However, Audrey loved the princesses...of course.

Ethan's Wall-E Birthday Party

Ethan loved the Wall-E cake I made him!!

Ethan sat in the Captain's chair while he opened his presents and was surrounded by Gopher, Eve, Auto and Wall-E. We decided to have Ethan open his presents from us before the party and I'm so glad we did. It turned out to be a very special time!

The activity we had for the kids was making robots out of marshmellows and sticks. This was a lot of fun for the kids. After they were done making them most of the kids couldn't resist eating them.

Doug handled the games. He did a great job, but getting all the kids to do the same thing turned out to be a bigger challenge then we anticipated.

Time for cake!! Ethan was so excited to blow out his candles.

Most of the gang!

We had 13 kids at the party, but I waited too long to take the group picture so a few kids are missing.

Working on the Wall-E Birthday Party

THE DECORATIONS

Drawing and painting the robots was the most time consuming thing I did for the party. I ended up making 2 Wall-E's, 2 Eve's, MO, Auto, Gopher, 2 Security Bot's, the Axiom, Umbrella bot, Beautician bot and Flash bot. The only reason I was able to draw and paint any of these was because I bought a book about how to draw them. I thought the robots turned out well, but I wasn't able to present them on the wall the way I wanted to. If I had more time I would have drawn some lines to add dimension to the scene.  

I turned the school side of the basement into outer space. It was definitely the coolest room in the house. However, I learned a lot about what sticks to plastic table covers and what doesn't. I found out too late that you have to have special paint for painting plastic after all my stamped paint stars started falling off. I ended up knocking all of them off, flipped the tablecloths around and stamped silver ink stars all over. They stayed on, but if they were touched they smeared. Thankfully no one got too close to the stars and they were small enough so they weren't a problem.

THE PARTY FAVORS

Since this was my second Wall-E birthday party for Ethan I had a few things left over and a couple new ideas. One of my new ideas was making everyone a pot with their intial on it that immulated Wall-E's E symbol.

 

I also decided that I would make family party favor bags. Each family got a Wall-E book, Wall-E Goody Bag, personalized pots protected with Wall-E cupcake liners, a bag of seeds, individual bags of dirt, twinkies and a bag tag made from a picture I copied off the computer, laminated, then wrote the family name on the back.

THE CAKE

The most involved part of the cake was making Wall-E's body parts. Doug was able to get involved in this project and was a huge help. The first thing he did was make the stand that Wall-E's body sat on. I painted it black then wrapped it with silver cake board paper. I used three boxes of cake mix and the scrap pieces were used to put the cube together. I used frosting to glue the pieces together for the cube and I was very surprised it held together.

Wall-E's neck was made out of a plastic dowel and PVC pipe. Doug glued it together with super glue and it worked perfectly. The only thing I questioned was whether I made the dowel to long. The cake was starting to slowly fall forward during the party and I have a feeling it was from the dowel. It's something I'll have to research if I ever feel like I need to use a long one again.

The hands were my biggest fear with making this cake. I had no idea what I was going to do until I started working on them. However, the arms were the easiest part of the project for me. I used two wooden dowels and a foam marshmellow which I found in the foam paper craft section at Micheal's. I made an L shape with the dowels. One dowel went into the cake and the other was for the arm. If I were to do this cake again I would have used glue to secure the foam and dowel together because we had one instance where the dowel came out of the arm and we were trying to put it back into the marshmellow. The next thing I did was glue a thin flat stick to the end of the dowel which extended into the yellow fondant of the arm and then we glued the hand to the tip of the flat stick. Doug made the hand by gluing flat craft sicks together. Once the hand was attached I wrapped the fondant around the hand and wrist and cut a slit between the fingers. 

These are some of the pieces I made. Wall-E's eyes were made out of two foam circles I shaped to look like his eyes. Then, I attached them together with thick toothpicks and wrapped them with fondant. The eyes were the first thing I did and I quickly learned that I needed something between the foam and fondant to hold it together. The only thing I had was a tube of icing and it thankfully worked.

After attaching the head and fondant pieces (his name and solar charge), I decided I needed more detail. So, I took the extra frosting I had from doing the cube to pipe the detail work. After that I attached the arms using extra wooden dowels to support them and the wheels. I was very happy with how it turned out and it was definitely the best cake I've made so far.

Ethan Douglas Edwards

Today was Ethan's 5th birthday. It's amazing to look back and think about how much he has touched our lives. Some of my favorite things about him are his beautiful brown eyes, amazing hugs, sense of humor and gentle spirit. I am so lucky to have him for a son.

March 5th, 2005

6 Months Old

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