Dragons - Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus

It just so happened that the weekend of Jackson's birthday the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey "Dragon" Circus was in Lexington. We sure couldn't have planned that better if we'd tried given Jackson's birthday theme! Grammy and Grand-Dad decided to treat us to some fabulous seats and we had an amazing time!

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Before the show began Grand-Dad captured this picture of me with my little leopard girls (you can see the shoulder and hand of my uncooperative picture taking son in the bottom left hand corner of the picture). Thank you so much Grammy and Grand-Dad for such a fun afternoon!

 The cutest clown around ready for the show to begin with a special clown snow cone from Grammy

 Reagan and Jackson enjoying cheese pizza and clown snow cones too :)

 My littlest munchkins with Grand-Dad and Grammy and ready for their first time to the "Greatest Show on Earth!"

 The Dragon Circus Ringmaster 

 All the acrobatics and animals were incredible! As always Grand-Dad took some great pictures! Here are a few of my favorite.

 

 We saw some amazing talent! This person started 20 ft (or more) back from this ring of swords and fire before running blindfolded towards it and leaping through. Unbelievable!

 The Dragon

 Enraptured kiddos enjoying the show!

 Jackson was feeling a bit under the weather but he still enjoyed snuggling with Grammy and watching the circus. His favorite part was seeing the Dragon breath fire.

  Grammy gave Jackson this Dragon sword which was (and still is) a huge hit!

 Jackson sharing his sword with McKinley

 McKinley liked Jackson's Dragon Sword too! :)

 Our attempt at a group photo... At least the adults are looking at the camera and smiling. lol :)

Thank you Grammy and Grand-Dad for taking us to the circus! You definitely made Jackson's birthday celebrations even more special! The show was fabulous and it was so much fun sharing the experience with you!!! :)

Jackson's Birthday Gifts

Jackson's primary gift for his birthday this year was the Imaginext castle, dragon, ogre and accompanying accessories. He received most of it from us and Grammy & Grand-Dad. He also received the knight and wolf set from Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jen. Thank you so much to the LaBars for their generous contributions to this new collection! 

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Jackson is enjoying opening gifts more than he used too but he still enlists the girls to help him which they are more than happy to do! :)

 A pretty excited birthday boy about his new castle!

  This castle is so awesome because it recognizes the dragon, ogre and other various accessories. For instance when the dragon flies by knights begin shouting "Dragon!" or "Stay away from it's mouth!" or "Ogre, it's an Ogre!!!" It is super cool and we've all been enjoying it. :) I would highly recommend it for any little boys who like knights and castles.

 The dragon's first victim!

 The Hamlins gave Jackson a bag of Cars gifts that he loved! He now sleeps with this Cars blanket every night.

 

 A Cars movie and coloring/sticker book too! :)

 The Sligers sent Jackson a huge package with lots of fun things! Jackson was so excited to open his big package that was expecially for him! 

 Jackson was excited about everything (and the girls were pretty excited about the tether ball set) but Jackson's favorite (as you can see from his face) was the new horse for his knights! 

 Thank you also to Uncle Chuck and Aunt Julie who gave Jackson a gun when they visited in August and to Grandma and Grandpa for the card and generous gift of money. Increasing the college fund is always EXTREMELY appreciated!

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I hope we didn't miss anyone as we appreciated everything very much! We are especially thankful to all of you for making Jackson feel so special through gifts, phone calls or e-mails and Facebook messages! Thank you everybody for all your birthday wishes for our big 3 year old boy!

The Making of Jackson's Dragon Birthday Cake

I have to say this is the best cake I have ever made and most likely ever will make. What can I say, I've peaked extremely early! lol :) A cake baker I am not! Having said that, I LOVE Pinterest and all the awesome ideas you can find (for both play and school). I was so excited when I found this cake idea: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/53480314298152952/ . I thought I could handle this since dragon's don't have smooth skin and all the details were done with candy. I had to make a couple of changes but over all the directions were awesome! So the first step was baking two 9 inch circle cakes and cutting them. The sizes were a bit off so I had to use icing to make up the difference but it was a great starting point.

 Jackson wanted a red dragon, which I was worried about for a bit since my best attempts at red have always come out pink (icing, playdough, anything really). So sure enough here is my freshly iced pink dragon body.

 Luckily I had spotted "Wilton Red Color Mist" and decided to pick it up and try it out. So glad I did because it worked amazingly well.

Next came all the candy. Graham crackers for the back, marshmallows and chocolate chips for the eyes, upside down chocolate kisses for the noses, fruit slices for the claws and eyebrows (or ears?), and fruit rollups for the wings. The only thing I didn't add until the party was the wings was because the directions warned against the weight. As it turned out it didn't seem to be any trouble as the wings stayed up perfectly throughout the party.

 The finished product! I thought I was pretty smart with the wavy orange candles for Jackson's fire breathing dragon.

For my limited cake making experience, this did end up being a little more challenging and time consuming than I thought, but I was so happy with the way it turned out. It was completely worth the effort! Wish I could find fun cakes like this for every birthday, guess I have an excuse to spend some more time searching Pinterest! ;)

Jackson's 3rd Birthday - September 2013

We celebrated Jackson's 3rd birthday with friends and family the second weekend in September. Jackson chose a Knight theme and I found this super cute dragon cake on Pinterest that I thought I could handle making. Thank you to everyone who helped make Jackson's day special! :)

 Grammy made "dragon" sugar cookies and I found castle/knight Pepperidge farm cookies to match our theme as well.

 To compliment our Medieval theme we had all finger food. We had baked cheesy dragon legs (chicken legs), dragon eggs (specially died deviled eggs) and watermelon among some other less creative food. :)

Jackson requested red dragon juice (fruit punch) to match his red dragon cake

 Grammy sorting gems for our princesses to decorate their crowns with

 The girls decorated princess crowns as well as bags for collecting goodies on Sir Jackson's Quest

The boys decorated shields in order to become knights. Here is "Mr. Frank" with Uncle Dan.

 Jackson decided he didn't want to participate in the craft activities and opted for playing with the new Imaginext (http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=900002&e=storeproduct&pid=67057) toys he had received from us and Grammy & Grand-Dad earlier in the day.

 After all the kids arrived and had an opportunity to finish decorating their crowns, shields and bags we began "Sir Jackson's Quest." Tim spent quite a bit of time (I was so impressed with him!) coming up with the clever clues (included below) and this was a super fun activity! We began with finding a chest of swords and scepters to help our knights and princesses on their way.  

 The big girls took turns reading the clues

 And away our fearless crew goes to find the next clue!

 Tim did a great job of getting the kids to look all over the house and yard including Ring Pops in the mailbox.

While we had multiple clues we ended with the "Dragon's Hoard" (obviously guarded by a fierce dragon) where the kids found dragon eggs with money, jewelry and other fun goodies to fill their bags with.

The poor dragon's lair was thoroughly raided!

Next our knights and fair ladies took part in a "Jousting" event where they took turns participating or cheering from their respective castle (we had a blue and red team) for their hero or heroine.

  The object was to hit the red star with the sword while galloping on your horse towards your opponent

  We finished our activities with a "Water Balloon Seige" of the castles. I was definitely channeling my inner Aunt Jolene and Aunt Arla by the time I decided it was necessary to sort through 1500 water balloons to pull out the reds for the Red Castle and blues for the Blue Castle. You can see a video clip of our siege thanks to Grand-Dad at the following link on YouTube: http://youtu.be/fTDwPmao-XI or just enjoy a few more birthday pictures of our battle. :)

 The brave Red team ready for battle!

 The ferocious Blues were ready to go too! :)

 The kids loved this and it turned out better than we even thought as they truly used the castles (made of boxes and then painted) as a base and place to regroup. We may have had a little confusion and couple of defectors but fun was most definitely had by all! :)

 Jackson was a little uncertain about getting in the thick of things to begin with but decided it looked like too good a time to be left out for long! :)

 Miss McKinley hung out with her birthday buddy, Lauren, during the festivities :) 

After the games and dinner (which I just realized I posted in reverse order of which they occurred) we were ready to sing "Happy Birthday" and enjoy Sir Jackson's b-day cake! :) Thanks again to Grand-Dad for the video which can also be viewed on YouTube: http://youtu.be/HTJ5X64qa3Q

 Missy K was very hungry for cake and ice cream!

 We didn't manage to get through the gifts before our guests had to leave but we did get to a couple. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Dan gave Jackson an awesome indoor castle sandbox he can play with while we do school work. He has been loving this and I will include pics in a future post. The Veloudis' gave Jackson a Dragon Slayer outfit along with knight toys which Jackson also loves!

 The Hesslers gave Jackson a super fun bathtub toy for Hot Wheel Cars. We are all about cars here so I told Amy the only problem with this gift was we didn't have 3 of them to avoid fights in the bathtub! lol :) We have more pics of fabulous birthday gifts that I will do my best to post soon. Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and for making Jackson's day so special!

 Jackson ran out of steam pretty quickly into the gift wrapping and just fell asleep on Daddy's shoulder. It is hard work turning 3 and being a Birthday Knight!!! :) 

Thank you to everyone (especially Grammy and Grand-Dad who helped get everything together and ready for the party) for such a fun 3rd birthday for Jackson! :)
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For those of you who might be interested, here were our Quest clues. Tim made sure to match the clues up with whatever treasure they were finding at the next stop. To show his cleverness, I've added the treasures in parentheses at the end of each clue but they obviously weren't there for the kids to read. Thank you so much to my amazing husband!
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Sir Jackson’s Quest

 

(1)       Before the group can start its quest, first find the weapons that suits you best -- look in Jackson’s chest! (swords and scepters outside Jackson's bedroom)

 

(2)      Weapons alone won’t win the day, you’ll need brains to find the way – go to the room where music plays!   The place you sit is where the party, will find a treat to make you a smarty !  (Smarties candy by the piano)

 

(3)       Now that you are thinking better, search the box where you would get a letter.  It doesn’t matter which one you pick, just make sure you do it quick -- its magic protects you from the dragon’s trick! (Ring Pops in the mailbox)     

(4)       You truly are a royal bunch, but miss a clue and you are dragon lunch!  You must dig beneath the sand, if you want to save the land.  (pencils in the sandbox)

(5)       With these things you can make a map and avoid the dragon’s trap.  Seek out the garden - behind the wire, eating this potion is like breathing fire! (Pop Rocks hidden in the garden)

(6)       You are powered up and near his lair, but that dragon does not play fair!  You will need a crystal ball to beat the dragon for once and all.  Seek it out where you jump high and give the final riddle one last try. (balls that light up when bounced on the trampoline)

(7)      Bounce the ball to make it light, the dragon’s cave is as dark as night.  If you’re ready to find his lair, look behind the nearby rocking chair! (M&M's behind our glider/rocker) 

(8)      Grab a treat quickly, you’ll have to race, to find the dragon’s hiding place.  Climb the ladder or the slide and you might find where the dragon hides! (miscellaneous things hidden on the swing set under the inflatable dragon)