Super CB's Super Party!

Choi Boy's birthday always falls during or right after the first week of school. As a teacher, it's a time that's always a *wee* bit hectic and stressful...just a wee bit. ;) But, since we love parties and and we love partying with our friends, and we especially love celebrating our little superhero, a party is always added to the mix!

This year, we combined two of CB's big loves: superheroes and golf! We found a great party package at a local county park that combined mini golf, carousel rides and a party tent. We kept things low-key with catered food from Chick-fil-A and brought some desserts and decor that fit in with the superhero/comic book theme. We told the little guests that they were all welcome and encouraged to come dressed as their favorite superhero, and delightfully, all of them came sporting some superhero costume or accessory! Even the hubs and I got in on the fun and wore Superman and Supergirl shirts. The kids had a blast playing mini-golf, riding on the carousel, playing on the playground, making superhero masks, giving themselves superhero tattoos and just stuffing their faces with super sugary sweets!

Here are some of my favorite snaps and moments from CB's Super Party (photographs courtesy of my very talented friend at Three Continents Photography):

CB and some of his best buddies!

The one crafty DIY project I did for the party... The felt banner is from the Spritz line at Target and I made Choi Boy's name out of construction paper, drawing freehand and using 3 different sizes of plates to trace out the circular pieces. It took just over an hour to make and was lots of fun to do!


An antique carousel chock full of small superheroes!



One of the never-ending games of mini-golf!


In lieu of a cake, I made cupcakes and used (a lot of) food coloring to dye the frosting red, yellow, and blue -- the colors of Superman's uniform. The cupcake toppers came from Oriental Trading. I also made M&M cookies with red, yellow, and blue M&Ms and displayed the rest of the M&Ms in mason jars around the cupcakes.


Lil' CB did not mind blowing out his candle on a tower of cupcakes!



We had so much fun at Choi Boy's party that I barely got any pictures on my own camera! I did manage to get some snaps on my iPhone...you can see the balls of cookie dough before I popped them in the freezer overnight (that's my trade secret for baking cookies!), as well as some other snaps of the little guests and my sister and me in our superhero masks! ;)


We had a super time celebrating our Super CB!

Fantastic Four!

It's hard to believe that I now have a four year-old child. I mean, seriously, where did the time go?? And, as silly as this sounds, FOUR just sounds old...it's fully out of toddlerhood and quickly moving into school-age territory...Yikes!

But, nevertheless, it's time to celebrate my little old man! Here are some tidbits about our newly 4 year-old Choi Boy:

*Three Continents Photography

Four is fun:

Without going into a lot of detail, I'll just say that three had its fair share of challenges. ;) The tail-end of three, however, was lots of fun and I think we're in for a great year! Now that CB knows more, he *gets* more and is quite amusing and entertaining. The conversations we are able to have now are so interesting and insightful and often hilarious. We've really enjoyed hearing his interpretations of things and listening to him explain his thoughts and reasoning. Of course, they don't always make sense, but that's part of the fun! For example, a few weeks ago, CB explained to me that people are like berries "...because berries can be all different colors like blue, and red, and purple. And people can be all different colors, too...like peach, and brown, and tan, and blue and silver." See? Fun. ;)

Four year-old Foodie:
We are grateful that Choi Boy has always been a great eater. He continues to be an adventurous little foodie and his latest favorites include blue crab, tuna rolls, anchovies, clams, mussels (do you sense a theme here??), roasted red peppers, and salad. Thankfully, he hasn't yet discovered lobster yet and my dad grills an amazing steak, so CB won't be depleting our finances with his eating habits...yet. And, also, don't let his fancy palate fool you. The boy also loves mac and cheese, french fries and all sorts of junk food goodness. We get along quite well in that department!

Four is fearless:
Throughout the summer, Choi Boy was conquering fears left and right! And within this past week, he's conquered a big one: swimming a few strokes with his head underwater! This is a huge accomplishment for our little fish who was not a fan of water in his face. We're still a ways off from really swimming, but he's definitely making progress. CB also learned to ride a two-wheeler and has loved cruising around the neighborhood on his "big boy bike". I'll say it again, those balance bikes really are amazing! Last week, as an early birthday present, we bought CB a 12" bike with training wheels, brought it home, promptly took off the training wheels and gave CB a push and told him to pedal. He did. And he took off pedaling and riding his bike on that very first try! It's been incredible to watch him zoom around and he is so very proud of himself!

Four year-old obsessions:
It seems we are truly phasing out of all things trains...they're still here, but they don't get played with as often, which means I'm not always stepping over or tripping on train tracks! In their place, it seems superheroes are here to stay...which is fine by me and my nerdy self! Though we try to avoid a lot of the "bad guy" stuff, we've been having lots of fun with the watered down versions of our favorite superheroes through the Superhero Squad and the DC Super Friends. In fact, we just threw a superhero party for CB which I hope to blog about later this week!

Four is full of learning:
It has been amazing to watch how much Choi Boy has grown and learned this past year. His incredible memory and interest in just about everything continues to impress us and we hope his curiosity only builds and continues. CB will head to preschool again in a few weeks in the same program he was in last year. We are excited for another year with his fantastic teachers and can't wait to see all he will learn! Before we know it, he'll be 5 and heading off to Kindergarten, so we're going to soak up this year as best as we can! It's gonna be a great one -- I can feel it!

We love our little four-year old! Happy 4th Birthday, CB!