Roar....Jack turned 4

This year I decided to take a birthday shortcut and have Jack's party at an indoor inflatable bouncy place. I had a couple other birthday ideas, but this just seemed like a good place to celebrate this year.

And with smiles like these, I'd say he had a great time. The kids bounced and slid and giggled and sweated. Oh boy, they were worn out after an hour of bouncing.


We then headed to the party room where the purple and red decor of the room really clashed with the blue, orange and green decorations I had brought. But somehow, when everything was decorated, it looked real cute. If you can't tell, Jack (with some nudging from me) picked a dinosaur party. I bought a couple of digital files on Etsy and made the water bottle wrapper, cupcake toppers and a few other bag toppers. I also found some cute fabric and I sewed a banner in coordinating colors. Probably not necessary, but it turned out super cute. We weren't supposed to bring in outside food (I purchased pizza and fruit trays from them), but I did and they didn't say a word. What's a dinosaur party without some herbivore dinosaur treats? A basket of squeezable apple sauces and bags of veggie sticks were perfect for our hungry little bunch.




I had some mini plastic dinosaurs on the table that I used for decorations, but it turned out to be a fun thing to keep the kids busy while the food was being served.


Jack ended the party by passing out the goodie bags. I purchased plain kraft bags at the dollar store added a dinosaur ribbon and cut out a dinosaur on my Cricut. I actually purchased all the goodies inside the bag several months ago. Found some dinosaur goodies at Michaels in the dollar spot and took a gamble that we'd be able to use them. There was a dinosaur placemat, a dinosaur book, an egg with a dinosaur inside, an etched dinosaur pad and a small bag of jelly bellies that I packaged with a topper that said "prehistoric dinosaur eggs".

We brought the gifts home to open them as we were running short on time and Jack has been in toy heaven the last couple days.


Happy Birthday to my sweet 4 year old, you are a little ray of sunshine who delights in play and makes us smile every single day.

The Party's Over...

The monster birthday bash is over and since then there has been a whole lot of this....


And then there were two days of this....

(can you tell how this ended?)


And a day of this...




(can you tell how this ended?)


And way too many days of this..


So yesterday I finally got around to taking down the party decorations and was about to put them in yet another tub in the garage when I realized, what are we going to do with these? The answer is uncover them in a couple years and toss them out. So thinking they'd be better off being passed to someone who can enjoy them now.
I have odd numbers of favors and decor left. Not enough for a party, but enough to have a few friends over for a festive playdate. Any takers???
I can cram the stuff in a flat rate Priority box and ship it off next week. Raise your hand (also known as leave a comment) and we'll send it out next week. And should there be a brawl over them (ha ha), we'll draw a name on Sunday night.

We had a Monster Bash

Yes, just three hours ago~lol.
But what a sweet bunch of kids and Jack is thoroughly entertained with his presents so thought I'd share his third birthday party while I have my feet up. (Not to mention I'm looking at a weekend consisting of a soccer class, 4 soccer games and a gymnastics meet an hour away, so if not now, when????)


Okay, aren't these adorable? My crafty and creative friend Carrie made the invitations for me. And the shirt? Found that on Etsy and it is really well made. Love it!

Here's a few before the party pictures I snapped. My Cricut got quite a workout making this banner. So happy I had it. The monsters were added with temporary tape so maybe I'll be able to recycle it for future parties?

And here's a few more crafty projects. Found the canvases at Big Lots for $3, bought one and painted with some acrylic paints from my stash. Turned out pretty cute so made 3 more. It was honestly a project I completed during one nap.

These banners were prompted by the fact that I didn't have much monster decor to choose from. I found an adorable monster print and cut them out and quickly sewed them to ribbon. They looked cute from afar, but definitely not my finest handiwork.

We did have other food, but I put it out a bit later. The little monsters are puppets I propped with water bottles.

Made the cupcakes, but bought the cake for the adults at Nothing Bundt Cake, because they have the yummiest cakes.

The whole monster theme started with these felt bags I found clearanced at Michaels this summer. Came across the monster counting books at the dollar spot at Target, added a monster lollipop, monster rubber duck, and some adorable homemade monster soaps made by Melsfunsuds on Etsy. And a big shout out to her, she rushed my order with time to spare.


Found these make a monster sticker faces at Michaels as well.

Exhausted the kids in the bounce house.

Hope you enjoyed your party Jack. I promise we'll do the cars or trains next year :-)

An (almost) Freebie

Came across this almost free deal and wanted to pass it along.

Get a free personalized party banner from ShindigZ.com through Thursday, August 12 for just a penny using the coupon code SS2R3M at checkout.


To order your banner for one cent, follow these steps:
1. Click on the blue "Banner" tab at the top of the ShindigZ.com home page
2. Select a banner design theme from those listed on the right side of the page
3. Select a design style from the many examples images that are shown
4. Look for the large yellow oval button that reads, "Add to Cart" - and under that, click on the small circle for option "18 x 54 Horizontal Vinyl Banner.... Item: B1118 $14.79 each"
5. After you've selected the $14.79 banner size, click, "Add to Cart" yellow oval button and here you can add your own wording, edit colors, text and more.
6. Proofread and click the "Add to cart" green oval button.
7. Add other party supplies items to your cart or click the "Check Out" green button in the upper right.
8. During checkout, enter Promotion Code SS2R3M when prompted to apply the $14.78 credit to make your banner purchase just one penny.
9. Shipping is $7.95

Here's a look at the one I made for our almost birthday boy.


I picked a somewhat generic theme so we could reuse it from year to year.

And here's another tip I read somewhere in the blogosphere. One mom created a very generic birthday banner that she hung for each child's birthday. And on the back of the banner she had the child put their handprints on it each year so you could see the growth of the hands. Brilliant!

If it's not fun, you're not doing it right...

14 years old



So birthdays and 14 year old boys are kind of a non-event. I'm sure I won't be saying this when Morgan is 14, but everything about a 14 year old birthday needs to be understated. Party...no, just wants to hang out with friends. Invites via email (not even Evite), dinner, movie, cake-but no candles and singing, sleepover and sleeping in till almost 9:00.



But all bets are off when it's my day to celebrate with my boy :) I don't have kids turning 14 everyday so I wanted to make the day special.
Garrett has had the same pay as you go phone since fifth grade and despite going through the washer and dryer, that thing would not die, much to Garrett's dismay. Garrett's been a little vague about what kind of phone he wanted because ultimately it needs to work with the phone plan that we are willing to pay for. So we decided to give him cash and let him decide.
So I made this cake

If you can't read texting language it says Are you 14? Happy Birthday. You are great.


And then I found this

How perfect was this? So now, what do I do about the money? Take a look.





I did good if I do say so myself! It's not easy getting this type of expression from a 14 year old.

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Little Party Big Gift

A little party for a little boy who loves Cars.

A big breakfast with little nutrition :-)


A little cake and a little mess...


A little bit overwhelmed so just a little bit of smiling caught on film...


But...this little car got a BIG response. He ran right to it, hopped right in and was so excited.



For the first few days, Jack was content to sit in it or let Garrett and Morgan help make it go. But he's driving solo now :-O

A Yearly Tradition

I'm not sure if two years qualifies as a tradition, but I do plan to keep this going. Last year I put together a slideshow when Jack turned one. I had pictures on different computers that I had to organize, worked with difficult programs, put way too many hours into it, but love that I have it completed. You can find it here.
Well how quickly another year passed and while he's not quite 2, I finished this ahead of schedule. This year I decided to keep it simpler, but I chose my favorite pictures from the year and I think it really sums up the physical and personality changes we saw over the year.
Thanks for looking.

wONEderful Jack

Jack had his one year check up today and boy has he grown. He's 30 1/4 inches (53%) and 23.9 pounds (50%). He also got two shots :-(.
In case you haven't gotten enough pictures of the birthday boy, here's a few more.






And the year in pictures.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com