Troy's "PUMP-IT-UP" Birthday Party

We celebrated Troy's 5th birthday with his friends from school at "PUMP IT UP!" It is a place filled with huge bounce houses and slides. The kids had a great time and the adults seemed to have a good time as well! The kids had 40 minutes in one room. Then 40 minutes in another room. Who knew there were so many bounce houses out there?? The last 40 minutes was for the party room, where Troy had his own blown up thrown, crown and sceptor to open his presents.

Troy has been asking for a castle cake with Toothless, the dragon

from the movie, "How to Train a Dragon." Who am I to say no to a challenge? We were able to use some of the same pillars from Emma's cake and change them around a bit, which saved A LOT of time. We came out with the result below. The cake was a huge hit! Matt was a big help, especially with the dragon.

Grandma and Grandpa Mehlbrech (Bob & Val) came up especially for the party, along with Matt's sister, Becky. It was great having them here for it, and I know it meant a lot to Troy. Thanks, guys!

That is it for us for birthday's this year.  I am always up for the opportunity to take on an order or two, but no takers yet. Matt would have a fit! I love doing it, though.

Mehlbrech Family Pictures

We just had family pictures taken with Jen Taylor, a fantastic photographer, out of the Twin Cities.
We had our pictures taken last fall with her and some of those you would have seen on our Christmas cards.
Anyway, we had summer photos taken this time. I can not wait for the rest!

Check out our initial set of pictures on:
http://jentaylorphotography.com/blog/troy-and-emma-minneapolis-family-photographer/

They are fantastic!!

Troy - 5 Years Old

Troy is 5 years old! It is so hard to believe that he will be heading off to Kindergarten soon, but he is ready. He can hardly wait and asks every day if it is time for his new school. I can wait a little longer...it seems like yesterday he was taking his first step.

Height: Approx. 46 inches tall

Weight: Approx 50 pounds!

Hair Color: Strawberry blond
Eye Color: Blue
Favorite Foods: Chicken Nuggets, Strawberries and Grandma's Sweet Corn

Favorite Colors: Blue

Favorite Activities: Playing with Legos

Favorite Animal: Elephant

Favorite Movie: Hero of the Rails and Dinosaur Train

Favorite Characters: Lightning McQueen and Toby the Train

Favorite Items: Alien Dog
Language: Troy speaks a bit of spanish with me, but we are working on it.

EMMA - 3 Years Old

I can not believe I am even typing 3 years old. Time sure does go fast. Emma just celebrated her third birthday and I thought I would tell you some of her favorites and facts.

Height: Approx. 37 1/2 inches

Weight: Approx. 33 1/2 pounds

Hair: Curly/Wavy Ash blond hair

Eyes: Blue

Favorite Colors: Pink and Purple

Favorite Foods: Chicken nuggets and broccoli

Favorite Activity: Coloring with markers

Favorite Characters: Dora and Sleeping Beauty

Favorite Movie: Princess and the Frog

Favorite Items: Blanky and Pillow

Favorite Animal: Tiger (so she says)

Language: Emma's annunciation for different languages is very good. She was counting to ten in Swahili in school and does really well with Spanish at home.

Emma 's Princess Birthday Party

We celebrated Emma's 3rd birthday at The Wisconsin Dells this past weekend. Emma had requested a Princess Dora Castle Cake. After seeing many castle cakes on various cake sites, I thought I was able to rise up to the challenge. I now know what is involved in getting a monsterous cake like that together. Let me just say it takes many layers and many days to get it to what it became. Starting with the cobblestone pathway on the bottom to the Princess Dora figurine, it was all a worthwhile process for a three-year-old princess.

Aside from the cake, we stayed at the Copa Cabana Resort again. The same place we had Troy's third birthday party. It worked so well then, we thought we would try it again. Friends and family came in from various places and it was a nice day outside for some water slides and fun. Thank you to everyone who made the trip up. You really made Emma's day extra special.

The weekend would not be complete if we had not gone to Mr. Pancake's House. This has become the ritual, I guess. One that I am definitely not complaining about.

A Night With Star Wars

For our anniversary, I bought two tickets to "STAR WARS in Concert". I had heard so many good reviews and couldn't pass up hearing John Williams masterpiece in a live setting. Another great part about the concert was the museum portion. Displays showed movie costumes, head pieces, Chewbacca, Darth Vadar and the mold of Han Solo from Empire Strikes Back!

Matt even ran into some trouble with the storm troopers. I can not take him anywhere.

The show was fantastic! The laser show did not last too long, but the narration by Anthony Daniels, known to us as C3PO, made it that much more real. I highly recommend going if you are able to.

WORLD DOMINATION!!

Matt thought he would teach Troy a new game over the weekend. I thought it was a little too grown-up for him, however Troy had perfect reasoning for choosing his color red. Red was good and black was evil. When asked why black was evil, he responded by saying "black is not a color in the rainbow." You can not argue with that logic.

Troy proceeded to dominate without Matt actually letting him win. That's my boy!

Happy Fourth of July!!

We were in Monroe, Wisconsin for the Fourth of July fireworks. Unfortunately, after about 10-15 minutes, the weather decided to not cooperate and proceeded to pour with rain. We have been very fortunate in previous years, so I suppose we were due. Troy took off with a chair over his head and most people just ran for it! We luckily had some umbrellas. The fireworks kept booming all the way home. This is video we took of the beginning. Please excuse any singing and/or commentary.

Matt's Surprise Birthday Party

We had planned on going to Monroe, Wisconsin for the 4th of July this year. With Matt's birthday falling on a Saturday, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get the gang in from Milwaukee for a surprise party for Matt. With much help from Nick (friend of Matt's from college) and Val (Matt's mum), we were able to pull off a great surprise!


As you can see, Matt's cake was the Favre Viking's Jersey. I thought this might be my last chance to ever do this cake, so I put my plan into action. Val did a great job making the cake, the cookies-n-cream filling (YUM!) shaping and frosting the cake. Thank you so much, Val!