Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Rocking Party!


My little man turned 3 Saturday and we celebrated with a Rockstar party. It was such a fun party. Being that we have a limited budget, most everything we made ourselves. It helps to have an incredibly talented husband. It also helps that he loves his wife and is willing to put a little work into it! Ollie loves music. He loves to play drums and guitar. He loves to write his own songs. He loves to dance. Considering his two loves are music and dinosaurs and we did dinos last year, I decided that rockstar was the way to go.

After scouring the net, I found some invitations that were close to what I wanted. I sent my dear hubs a picture and what I wanted on them. Viola! He created them for me! Love that man! They are darling. The cool thing is that I had that picture of Ollie. There was no posing.




As for the rest of the party, I really struggled with what to order for
plates. Silly huh? I agonized, quite literally. I spent time harassing my
dear friend Lindsey until finally I decided to ask Ollie. He went with the
monster rock ones. They are too cute. I got them at oriental trading along with blow up guitars and tattoos.

I decided to give out the blowup guitars instead of doing a goody bag. They cost about the same as the little junk I'd put in but were simpler and quite frankly, cooler! I personalized each one but cutting out a guitar
silhouette,writing each child's name on it with glue and adding glitter. I then attached it with ribbon to their guitar. I had planned to write on each with a sliver pen but alas, I could find it and then I decided I'd use the sliver paint we have...haha...I couldn't find that either. I never said I was organized. But I will say that I think the glitter added some depth and they looked really cool!


I planned too much for the party. On the agenda
were tattoos, shakers, slip n slides, dinner, presents, microphone ice cream cones, cake, karaoke. In reality, only two girls started making
the shakers, and no one did karaoke. I mean who wants to make lame-o shakers when there is a slip n slide? The kids all had fun though. I feel like I've learned an important lesson here--let's just have fun whether or not that fits the theme! ha!

Alright, back to the important stuff, Ollie fit the part perfectly with his adorable MOHAWK! Yes, I love it. Truly I do but I am not about appearances. He's three who cares if I get funny looks
because he has a Mohawk? I guess I should mention that it was a green Mohawk. How fun! We needed to cut his hair anyway so I asked Bob to hold off who raised his eye brows inquisitively and asked, "Why?" His response, "Yes! That would
be awesome." Did I mention that I LOVE that man? Of course, this hair cut was the one were Ollie decided to scream like a banshee but oh well, his Mohawk prevails. Of course now he doesn't want it cut. Oh well. The inventor of the Mohawk had to be cool. Just saying.

Other rockstar factors include the amazing sign. Once again, I harassed my friend Lindsey and we Googled until we were blue in the face. Then one night, I was nursing Dawson when it came to me...It would be a guitar and the cord would come out of it and write Happy Birthday Ollie and then plug into an amp. Of course Bob made it better and made his name look like parts of a drum.
Awesome!

The ice cream came in the form of a cone. I made ice cream cones and then dipped them in
chocolate sprinkles to look like microphones. I found that idea online somewhere. I wish I were that smart! I love cupcake cakes. I think they are so much easier to deal with than plates, sliver ware and cutting! Bah! Of course, I maybe should have thought of that before I ordered the dessert size plates. The cake turned out amazing. I love it! Bob added the strings and knobs. I then added some rub-on glitter guys to the tin foil. I think it's neat!

I ordered Ollie's shirt online from an etsy shop called IzzyBTees. Go give her some love and buy her shirts. It is so cute and it is really well made.







Saturday, August 27, 2011

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my little Ollie! I cant believe that he is 3. Being a mom has been an amazing adventure. I feel so blessed to have been one for three years! With the birth of my first son, I felt like I had finally found my purpose!

Ollie is an amazing little boy. He is so smart and compassionate. He can name off 50 or more dinosaurs. He knows words like predator, prey, nocturnal and eye shine. He knows the difference between herbivore, omnivore and carnivore. He hugs his brother and says things like, "I love you so much Dawson!" He kisses owies on anyone who seems hurt and always tells them he is sorry. He writes his own songs! So for a special birthday presentation here is Ollie Gray at exactly 3 years old! Enjoy!


Sunday, August 21, 2011

State fair

Sorry I've been having a bad case of the bloggenslackn lately. There is just so much to do all the time. On Tuesday evening, we went out to the fair with Grandma Mel & Grandpa Jim. It was a lot of fun. Ollie & Dawson started off their adventure in the petting zoo. This isn't just any petting zoo. It has exotic animals: cavies, zebras, & other various fun stuff. I'd tell you more but my 30 year old mom brain is fried!

We enjoyed great food & took in a few barns. Ollie got to go see the snakes with his grandparents. I guess he screamed with excitement at every one. Look at how excited he is to hold it. That is one devoted Grandma there!

Ollie rode several rides. His favorite was the motorcycle ride. I think that's because we told him he can't ride motorcycles since they are dangerous & he could fall off. Now every time we see one her says "see mommy. He can't fall off." Geez. Dawson rode one ride- the carousel. He loved it. I personally though it went a little fast for a carousel.




What a blessing it has been to be near family and enjoy things like the fair together!



Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Something Borrowed

I'm really not clever. I am just really good at finding and remembering other people's craft fun ideas! I have two places that I really love to steal, I mean borrow ideas from. One is family fun magazine. They are so much fun. I guess that is why it is called family FUN duh. Anyway, it's messy or it's not. I love their recipes and their fun ideas. I could talk about family fun all. day. long. amazing! I wonder if I could work there...but then I'd have to leave my kids. If I ever have to get a job, I want one there or maybe Hillsong kids. Ok now I am rambling.

The other people I love to get ideas from is play at home mom. They have the absolute best ideas. We have tried a ton of them. Here are a few of the fun things we've tried.

These first several are from play at home mom. We made this texture bag using hair gel, food coloring and glitter. The kids both loved it. Heck! Even I liked to play with it!



Here they are playing with glow sticks in the tub.



And making homemade moon sand.




This last activity was from FamilyFun. It was so much fun. We started by throwing the ball on the paper. Ollie soon used the ball to paint us! It looked really neat!



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A little of this and a little of that


We have been so busy this summer but intermittently we have time for a bit of "organized fun." Both boys get a chance to learn and explore at their own level. While Ollie pretends to sort through his tooth collection at the park (dinosaur teeth- he got that from dinosaur train), Dawson practices his motor skills by climbing the stairs and going down the slide. While at the pool, Ollie "dives" in while Dawson crawls around after his ball. I love each stage these two go through. It is amazing to see their brains work!

So while Ollie paints with my salad spinner (idea from play at home mom)


Dawson paints with baby food!


So I have discovered that an egg carton has about 900 uses. Our most recent activity was a counting one. I cut it in half and wrote numbers 1-6 on the bottom of each one. I gave him a pile of cheerios and we counted and put the right amount into each area. It was fun! I love egg cartons!

One of my other favorite "trash" is boxes. Once again, one item about 900 uses. Recently, Dawson got his new car seat. It came in a big box. The box became many things- a cave, a boat, a house...in the end we cut a door and window and it became a house. Ollie soon decided it would be fun to poke it and make it his "porky house." I had to hide all pens. Eventually, he did it in. The "porky house" is no more.


Oh and I also love laundry baskets...