::eggs::

The ladies have finally decided that laying eggs is cool.  I love all the different shades the eggs come in.  But I think next year I need to add two Americana hens so they can lay me greenish-blue eggs.    

The ladies happily spit me out about 4-7 eggs a day!  Which is really a lot of eggs when you do the math.  I give the extra's to my happy neighbors, friends, and family.  

::halloween party::

Every year we have a Halloween party for the girls.  Lily gets the early time slot and Emma gets the latter.  I was actually thinking about not doing it this year – a little burnt out on parties, but Josh tells me that I will regret it if I don’t and I think he is right.  Since the birthday party went over budget I want to do this one for $150. 

Here are my idea’s for this year –(Emma and her Mom “plan” her party, so this will just be my idea’s for the first grade party)

Invite:

A bat outline cut out on black paper with an oval information sheet on his belly and his wings fold over.  I actually came up with this myself and then found it a few days latter already on esty.  Guess I am not that original.  Here is the link to the shop that I got these images from. 

           

Decorations:

Everything we got!  We pull out three families stuff and put it all together to make the barn full of scary stuff.  We wrap the inside with black plastic to hide away all of Josh’s tools.  Lots of string lights.

New things – a ghost circle in the yard with lights

Silver painted sticks hanging from the rafters with ghosts or bats hanging from them

Crafts:

            Pumpkin decorating

            Family Fun hanging bat craft

            Ball and pipe cleaner  spider

Games:(I don’t expect to have time for this all, I will narrow it down latter)

     Donut on a string – classic game of eating your donut on a   string with no hands

Wrap the mummy – two or more teams wrap up their mummy with toilet paper.  First team to wrap up everything is the winner. 

Mix and match pumpkins – bowl of pumpkin parts get stuck on pumpkin faces

Bat relay – bat cutouts and straws.  Suck the paper bat onto a straw and move it to a bowl.  First team to get five wins.

Dissapearing tombstone – like musical chairs but the stand on paper tombstones

Spider hunt – hide plastic spiders around the yard, first team to 15 wins

Corn relay – move corn with a spoon from one end to the other with a spoon to fill a cup at the end point.  (teams?)

Pass the pumpkin – hot potato with a mini pumpkin

Witch hat ring toss

Frankenstein relay – walk with straight knees through an obstacle course

Prizes

            Candy and little Halloween toys

Food

            Mummy dogs – cocktail wieners wrapped in dough

            Eye ball cake bites

            String cheese fingers

            Halloween cupcakes

            Popcorn machine

           

What idea’s do you guys have?  How many crafts and games is a normal number for these little first graders?

::cruising::

Maybe I was a little excited to get on the boat. 

Maybe this guy was too.  

Till he saw the price of redbull from the mini bar.

$5

 .2

5

Seriously - $5.25???  Insane

But I got very excited to have good soup and three different drinks sitting within arms reach.  

Ready to get off the boat and explore.

Josh's new BFF who we bought our kids presents from.   

Did you know that 10 tourists can fit in this cab?  We did it.  

My motto on the cruise.

H O T!

Chilling on the private island beach.  

We loved all the fresh fruit. 

Some one was sick of getting his picture taken, but I couldn't resist the light.  

We had a BLAST on our trip but I missed the shorties too much.  Glad to be home, but feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the weight of real life crashing back down on me.  I'll get my land legs back.  

::random-ness::

Things I like

   


Guitars hanging on the wall.  I love that my hot husband plays guitar and the shorties play and dance.  He used to play for much more alcoholic crowds, but both groups danced pretty similar.


Really cheesy pop music "I came to dance, I hit the floor cause that's my plan" maybe not deep but makes me shake it


Ikea - at least online.  Great color, modern lines, love it, want it.    I order the catalog over and over and it never comes.   I think a little selfish day road trip is in order.  Who shall join me?

Shorties with curly hair - and straight hair too.

The smell of Aveda

Anything rainbow

Thing I don't
    Curtains - much to Josh's disgust "it looks like a frat house with out window treatments", how metrosexual is that statement?  He has come a long way from the guy who worn JEAN SHORTS (yeah, I said it) when I met him, and he may have a point about the window treatments.  Way out here we don't need them for privacy, but they might help finish things out. 
   
Carpet - I get the warm and soft thing, but so are my slippers.  I want hardwood floors - mostly to watch  the dog try to run on them.  WHACK - right into the wall every morning.  Doesn't she know it is coming?


Bedskirts - it all goes back to Charlotte on Sex and the City, but the fact is that if I do have one it is a straight and smooth one. 

Shabby chic - sorry loves.  I have seen it done not-so-flipping-over-the-top and it is good.  I love over the top usually - but not in light pink.    

::how I met Josh::

I have been thinking about fate lately.  And that always leads me to Josh.  I wanted to write down the rated G version of how a feel in love with him.  

With out too much boring detail about unneeded history - I had actively spent the entire year before I met Josh being single.  I was actively done with dating.  I felt I had learned enough about it, and I was very uninterested in going thru the whole process again unless it was with someone very different than my usual type (slightly dim and easy to control).  I was 23 and already burnt out on the process.  What a narrow minded little 23 year old I was.  Most of the people I started college with had already graduated, but a few were back to attend Grand Prix (a Purdue tradition of hard partying and something about a go-cart race).  Those alumni friends had come back to stay with me for the weekend.  Just as we were walking out the door I said to one of the guys of the group, “Maybe tonight is the night that I get to meet someone special.”  But really I was just trying to talk myself into being interested in the activity. 

We went to the frat party that we had preplanned to attend.  It was going to be a gathering of my dearest friend’s boyfriends fellow alumni (is that too much detail?)  I knew most of this alumni group and was happy to see them.  Being the little flirt I was, I went down the line hugging each one and kissing their check.  There were two strikingly hot ones at the end of the line that I did not know.  When I got to the tall one I just gave him a little smile of hello, but he says, “Were is my hug and kiss?”  So I stand on tip toes and kissed his check – at which point he grabs me off the ground and holds me in the air like I am a feather.  I fought him to put me down, which he did not initially do.  To you currently or formerly petite girls this may not sound like a big deal, but at that time I was 5ft7in and about 140 (that is a slight lie).  I had never been literally picked up by anyone since I was a child.  This guy was S-M-O-K-I-N-G hot and acted like I was just a peanut of a girl.  I was speechless and stunned.  And I liked it.  A lot.

(Pause to think back on that initial image – tall with huge arms and eyes that sparkled with intensity and flirtation)

It is hard to explain the initial pure jolt of electrical chemistry that occurred to me when I met him, but it was so undeniable.  He was fresh on a separation from his first wife and had a two year old kid.  Not exactly every sorority girls dream – but I never was a very traditional sorority girl.  (Hell – I just had to spell check sorority.) 

After a short time I got the chance to meet his daughter.  I always had a spot for kids – even in those old selfish days.  Little two year old Emma woke up from her nap and was groggy, she reached right out to her Dad as her main source of comfort.  I had never seen a father be such a calming agent to a child.  Once she was awake he put her down and pretended that he was going to tackle her and she jumped right in my arms as her play protector.  I cried and cried.  I had never seen anything like them together.

As our rocky relationship began I tried many times to cut ties with this guy and his baggage (not Emma, but his Ex was not the peaceful person she is now).  Most of my friends just could understand the relationship at all.  “He is a little too much reality for a Saturday night.”  But I never could stay away for long.  I would drive down to throw his stuff at him and break up and he would stand too close and smell too good and…

It took us years to find an equilibrium.  He was scarred from his failed marriage and I was full of a long history of bratty-ness.  I really can’t believe he asked me to marry him when he did, we had just started to settle in as a couple.  But sometimes miracles happen and we just figured it out.  It was surprising how easy the marriage part has been so far.  Our getting married and having Lily 13 month latter was the key to both of us getting our heads together.  My friends that I have now don’t know him as the troubled boyfriend of my past, just as the adorable father of my children.  It’s been 10 year now as a couple and 8 of it married.  I adore this life that we have created together. 

::palette cake::

I loved this cake.  

I took the largest oval mold that I could find and baked this monster. I flipped it out of the pan and onto paper towel sheets on my largest cutting board.

Then I cut out the thumb hold-like the palette in the background had.(You can't see the thumb cut on the real palette, but it is there.)

Then I put on a thin layer of icing. 

It needs to sit in the fridge for a few hours between layers of icing.  But on the way to the fridge this part of the cake started to fall off.  

NO PROBLEM!!  Two years ago this would have made me cry - but now I know the joy of sticking kabob sticks in my cakes to hold them together.  So, some touch up icing and sticks and no one will even know.  

A few hours latter and I put on the second coat of icing.

Then I mixed up all the stunning colors for the "paint".

This is just white icing with LOTS of icing tinting in it.  

Maybe too much...

 

But Max was still willing to eat a little bit of each color.  

"It's yummy!"

Then I cut a large hole at the end of each icing bag and slowly drew on the icing "paint".  I used lots of pressure on the bag to get the fat paint like look.

Next, I pulled out the paper towels.  (The point of them is to keep the decorating surface clean.) Then to finish off the bottom I used white chocolate chips with the point in.  It did take forever, but I wanted it to look more finished than just leaving it. Normally I would use skittles, but I didn't want it to take away from the other colors that will be on the table.  

;

::THE ART PARTY::

Take home baskets 

Happy birthday banner

The sheet of dry wall is all set out and ready for the guests to arrive.

It was nearly impossible to keep Max away from it.

I really loved the mural that they painted.  

The little green guy is my favorite.

Rainbow cupcake decorating was a big hit

And even the mess afterward was pretty

The popcorn machine is a party staple.

My favorite birthday girl.

THE CRAFTS

Picking aprons to decorate.

At the first table they decorated an art apron with ribbon and markers

And they could also make a fruitloop necklace/bracelet

After every one got there, I had several different craft stations for them to choose from.

This table had oil painting and coffee filter painting.  

And under the table was a precious little dental problem dog. 

My oldest, Emma, and Grammy ran the next table.

It had pinwheels, sun catchers, and paint chip notebooks.  

Another table had bubble painting and shaving cream painting.  

As they made their art they put it in their baskets to take home.  

Because I am blessed by the greatest friends ever I didn't have to spend the day being photographer and Mommy.  

All images taken by my dearest Emily and Shelly.  

All printables are by Birds Crafts.  Please link here to see her clever party idea filled blog and here to see her Etsy shop.