wrap it up

My kiddos love to paint, and color, and stamp, anything messy and colorful. And I feel so ever so guilty throwing away their works of art. I have read where people have made a wall where they change out the pictures, or scan them all and make a book of art, or make a folder of art. We just have too much for any of that. 

And to add to it I started buying big paper. I thought it would cut down on the number of masterpieces and save a little clean up, which it has, but it has also made storing the masterpieces more difficult.

I was clearing the table of the painting mayhem, so that I could wrap a couple of gifts for the grandmas, when I noticed their showpieces were the perfect size to wrap the gifts. 

It took a little bit of creative wrapping to get the best parts of the artwork on the front of the package. But the results are cute and I am guilt free giving them to loving admirers of my artists.

Now the challenge is for the grandmas to open the gifts without destroying the beauty. But its not my challenge so I am happy.

Rainy days

Yesterday was a rainy day. It rains almost every afternoon in Florida in the summer but it is usually a five minute downpour and done. Yesterday it never poured, it just drizzled. All day long. We had planned on going to the beach so a rainy day was a real downer. It wasn’t even 8 am and we had to over come rainy day blues and beachless blues. We played, made messes, built forts. They had fun but I felt like we didn’t accomplish anything, probably because we didn’t accomplish anything other than having fun of course. 

While looking for something else I found an unopened Family Fun magazine. And while flipping through I found a few projects to work on, as I do whenever I look through any magazine. One that looked simple and cute was to make a bookmark out of a picture that looked like they were holding onto a string. My eldest happliy cooperated. The baby, who decided to not nap,was a bit grouchy. I showed her the picture of what we were doing and she instantly fell to the floor reached her arms up and made a funny face.

After that we just printed out the picture, added a ribbon, and a balloon (her idea) and laminated it and it was done. The most fun for me was tormenting my husband when he came home. I put the bookmark in his Steve Jobs book.

This book is huge! So when he came home he saw his book sitting on the counter with his old bookmark on top. Thinking he had lost his place in this almost 600 page book that he had been reading on and off for forever now, he was instantly annoyed. If Annabelle could keep a secret he may have actually gotten mad but as soon as he looked annoyed and picked up the book she started laughing and he saw the balloon hanging out. It was a fun ending to our rainy day.

HG turns 2!

So maybe I go a little overboard with birthdays, I love them! Well, I love my kids’ birthdays, as for mine I try to keep repeating the same one. Seriously, how many years will I get to throw a Minnie Mouse or rainbow unicorn party before I am told “I’m going out with my friends this year, bye mom” Or worse yet I have to call them to say happy birthday because they have moved far away. So for now I will go crazy over birthdays.

My baby just celebrated her second birthday with a Minnie Mouse birthday party, with a Hello Kitty cake. We have no idea why she chose these but she was insistent. Minnie Mouse is an easy theme; she is three circles and a bow.  I will say this is one of those times, one of many times, that I wish I had a cricut or silhouette cutter thing. But I don’t so there was a lot of hand cutting of circles, mouse heads, and bows. 

I didn’t really like the store bought Minnie party supplies, for many reasons, but mainly because I just don’t like the prepackaged party #4 in blue. My mom would argue that I am trying to be difficult, which may or may not be true, but it lacks individuality. I also am not a big fan of the character parties, maybe for the same lack of character (ha!) reason. But she chose Minnie so Minnie it was.

We did get some prepackaged party supplies because HG wanted them and because they are cute. But not doing prepackaged party #4 means finding other ways to be Minnie. We used a lot of pink and pink with white polka dots. . Pink plates, pink bowls, pink table clothes (well cheapy plastic table clothes but tables plastics sound odd). There is surprisingly little party wear in pink with white polka dot.

I had perfected my chocolate covered Mickey oreo pop technique for my brother in laws Disney wedding, so Minnie pops were an obvious choice.

The hardest part in making them is not eating all of the melted chocolate! Warm melted chocolate. Yummy warm melted chocolate. We did pink with white polka dots (—>)   and dark chocolate with bows. OK, it is also hard to find small candy bows but a butterfly sort of looks like a bow. The warm dark chocolate was fantastic. 

The hats were one of my favorite element of the Minnie festivities. I must say I love party hats. I know kids only wear them for a few seconds but the picture lasts forever, and I really love pictures!

For my first child’s first birthday we had an animal themed party because she did, and still does, love animals. My brother in law helped by adding animal ears to the plain party hats. So naturally this year I set him to work on mouse ears, he did a fantastic job. They were not easy to transport or store however.

 

I used to know a lot about computers, back when there wasn’t as much to know. Then I met my husband, who seems to know everything about computers, and I stopped knowing anything about computers. A while ago I said I wanted a blog but I wanted it to be pretty so I asked my in house IT guy and he made me this. I like it, although I stand by it could be a bit girlier, but its pretty. He tested it with some of his favorite quotes. I don’t know how to remove them, luckily I like them. Or maybe I am just used to hearing them so much that I think I like them, either way I won’t complain.

To sum up, thanks Jase.