Fourth Birthday Party

A couple months before, Julianna and I browsed the internet for different party themes.  She was convinced she wanted to have a party at the house and I tried to sway her to anywhere but the our house.  I guess its easy when you are the little one enjoying life not stressing about cleaning the entire house.

The day belongs to her so we came to a compromise for a house party with a small guest list.  Julianna wanted a sleepover, again another compromise, "Pretend Sleepover".  I found a great inspiration blog post of a mom for her also daughter's fourth birthday party, tinyoranges.com. Julianna liked the site so much too you will find many similarities in our parties.

Invitations

After Julianna's last party invites went via email through Evite, I figured I could do better given the small guest list.  Now how to do it, photo cards seem the latest craze; and why not they are cute and customizable.  I search Costco Photo Center, Shutterfly, Snapfish, nothing wooed me.  I have a habit being very frugal at times and coupled with my attitude of why pay for something I can do on my mine lead me to fully designing my own photo cards on Photoshop Elements. I was able to further save money by printing on home photo printer.

Kids at table engaged in craft project

Based on the suggestion from TinyOranges.com, kid friendly seating, I found All-Star Rents and rented a single 6-foot long children's table along with 12 children's chairs.  They offer a $5 off coupon on your first rental when you sign up for their newsletter.  I found a set of 8 multi-colored paper lanterns for $7 on Amazon.com. Since Julianna wanted to paint lanterns I ordered 3 sets to use for decor and craft.  We hung 8 of the lanterns from ceiling with fishing line and used the remainder for the craft project.

Pizza

Homemade pizza dough was prepared and everyone was able to decorate their personal pizza. The kids loved it! In small bowls I put the spaghetti sauce for pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese, chopped turkey bacon, sliced orange bell pepper, pepperoni, chopped spinach, and sliced olives.  And you can guess the most popular was cheese.  

Birthday Cake

Idea straight from TinyOranges blog, I loved the cupcakes and mini cake idea.  Well going with Julianna's favorite color purple, I asked Courtney, of cupcakesandwineblog.com, to create the cupcakes. She even flavored the frosting strawberry :) (I secretly adore her and her talents).  Nugget Market made the chocolate cake and continuing the polka dot them on the frosting.

We ended the evening with Dora the Explorer: Birthday episode with the kids snuggled in their sleeping bags on the floor.  It lasted maybe 5 minutes.  But it all turned out fantastic. The 3-hour party wrapped up by 8pm and my kids were off to bed just in time.

Goody Bags

Our parting gift was a box of soy chocolate milk, homemade blueberry muffin, and two NurtiGrain bars.  Some kids were surprised there was no candy, but seriously kids its bedtime.

I was meticulous in planning every detail days before so during the party I was cool and calm.  I had a minute-to-minute schedule of activities, adult helpers assigned tasks, and realistic mindset that nothing goes as planned.  

Kids don't really care if the cake frosting matches the tablecloth and it helps keeping it in mind that they are there to have a good time.  Luckily, that attitude is helpful in keeping the costs down ;)

I received no compensation from any of the mentioned companies or blogs and all opinions expressed are solely mine. I do, however, recommend the companies based on my experience.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday to the Man!

We celebrated another birthday Sunday night for the man of the house, Desserts and Drinks party. YUM!

Wordless Wednesday

My Four Year Old

If you write it down it will come true

I believe this is true, when you write down a goal it will come true.

So I am here to write a promise to myself and family the following:

   When potty training is all over with my Lil' Miss, we will begin planning a family trip somewhere that involves getting a stamp in our passport.

There I said therefore it will come true.

Potty time

On this evening the day Lil' Miss turned 18 months, she used the potty. Oh wait, she used the potty! She has watched her big sister and picked up all her tricks, put potty seat on, take off pants, sit, wipe, flush. Lil' Miss knows the whole routine but never did any business just wasted a lot of toilet paper until now.

After the kids' bath, she is running around her room diaper-less until she stops stands still and looks at me. Oh crap, seriously, please don't poo on the carpet. I ask if she needs to go potty and she laughs at me. I whisk her away to the toliet without any trails behind us. We sit in the bathroom for a couple minutes, big sister in there too. Her bottom is "talking" and we cheer for that. Then I hear the plop plop, yeah! My baby did it. Lots of high fives and cheering is taking place. This plop plop, cheers pattern continues for a couple more minutes. We wipe and Lil' Miss flushed her own mess away!

Yeah!

Oh eff the potty training begins. Honestly, I did state, to myself for no one else to hear, that I would begin potty training when Lil' Miss turned 18 months. I did not realize that was today.

Oatmeal Bread - Recipe

Oatmeal Bread has been used for French Toast, sandwiches, toast


Taken from Cuisinart Recipe Booklet


3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tbl unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbl maple syrup
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 1/4 tsp yeast


Combine all ingredients in order listed into bread machine.  Use cooking setting for 1lb white bread.  Cool on wire rack when cycle complete.

This recipe will be archived on Recipe page.

Eek! Last Minute Holiday Card Orders!

     The holidays are here! The holidays are here! Every year the season sneaks up on me and each year I have the brilliant idea to order those gorgeous holiday photo cards.  You know, those adorable ones with the photo collage and just enough room to put all your favorite pictures from throughout the year.  I get giddy with excitement when I open holiday cards from family and friends.  Displaying the cards we receive is like my own popularity contest, and I feel extra special when the number of cards we receive each year increases.  There is something about sharing with others how our family grows but even more rewarding knowing that my friends want to share with us the same.

     The first Christmas of my oldest I was organized enough to get a family portrait taken at a professional studio.  After the dramatics of the family photo process,  I was disappointed that I was unable to find photo cards within budget. But this year, I am determined to succeed.  

     I have spent countless hours searching for the perfect store.  Shutterfly has it all! Great selection and fantastic deals, so my challenge is deciding which of the fabulous cards to go with. First I can take the easy route using a snapshot of the girls with a short message.  Maybe I could insert a newsletter of 2010 with the stationary card.  My vote is usually the simple one that requires the least amount of work.

      The next selection would be the best of everything I had in mind when sending out holiday cards.  It has room for three pictures and just enough text to share the best family adventure tales.  Eek, already the decision is getting stressful.

     My last selection is a holiday card that doubles as a keepsake calendar.  How can it get any better, pictures of the family and a nifty calendar.  Ahhh, I'm in love with Shutterfly.  Of course, I could just get the year's worth of cards for every occasion in one order. Yes, it would be nice to be ahead of the game.

      This post was part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly.  Do you want 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly? Click here to go to Shutterfly for information on how you can get 50 free cards this holiday season, and make sure to select Clever 1000 as the referral source.