Dr. Suess Baby Shower

My soon-to-be sister in-law is about to have a sweet baby boy! Yay! More babies! This little guy makes 9 grandkids on this side of the family!! Wow!! So, as expected, I asked her if I could throw her a baby shower!

The theme for her nursery is Dr. Suess and I couldn't have been more excited about it! I went ALL OUT for this shower!! I LOVE Dr. Suess because of how whimsical and versatile it can be!!

First was the invitation. In the beginning of planning, I wanted to go with "Dr. Suess Books" as my main inspiration. I was thinking books for everything (decorations, the cake, etc). So.....my invitation was a modified The Cat in the Hat book. I found an image of the cover of the book on google, copied pages from my book and replaced the words with my own, and then put in some brads to hold the invitation-book together. Here are my pics:

The sun was not out. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house wishing we could have fun on this day.

"I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny. But we can have baby shower fun that is funny!"

We can all bring a bag or a box and inside them we'll put bottles or sox. Presents for Stacy and the new baby boy. Showering him with things he may need, what a joy!

We thought about it and what fun for you and me! Baby shower for Stacy and her little baby to be! We watched out the window for guests to appear! We can't wait for the party, the date is almost here!

Once I began planning.....I fell in love with all of the story characters. I wasn't happy with just "books" as the party theme. So....I began drawing The Lorax, Horton, and The Cat in the Hat characters on dollar store foam board to incorporate them into my decorations. Then I just used an Exacto knife and cut the little guys out!

I began thinking of how I was going to do the main dessert table. It occurred to me to bring The Cat and the Hat to life!! So I began drawing more on foam board like the window the kids look out, the kite, their mom's dress, etc.  I went shopping to find ANYTHING that looked crazy and/or colorful to create a Suessville experience. I bought frames from the dollar store so that I could put a bunch of Suess quotes on the table. I also bought foam balls, craft sticks, and feather boas to construct a bunch of Truffela trees. Here are some pics:

The cake was crazy. Plain, old crazy. I decided I wanted the cake to be HUGE!! It ended up being the thorn in my side through this whole party. I baked for DAYS, then ended up throwing the icing and decorations on it at 2 am the night before the shower!!! The dumb top layers began to lean from the weight almost immediately. At least the guests all thought the cake was supposed to be leaning, you know, Dr. Suess style!!!  

The top layer was the trunk of Horton wrapped around and holding a flower. The middle layer was The Lorax and the bottom was Cat. I went with buttercream smoothed by Viva paper towels , rather than fondant. I know almost everybody dislikes fondant. I THREW this whole thing together so quickly.....it really bums me out that I didn't have more time to make it look good. I also made some chocolate cupcakes with caramel filling and buttercream frosting. 

Finally was the game table. I made up a game to go with the Dr. Suess theme and then bought a 

candy Dr. Suess game from etsy. The game I created was played by answering the questions I made up from Dr. Suess books and having two teams compete to find the answers within 1 minute. If the team found the answer in the book then they would spin to see how many spaces they could move on the board. (I used the board from The Cat in the Hat game that Stacy had). Example questions were: what was the first game they played, what did Thing 1 and Thing 2 bump on the wall, etc.

 Then I made some decorations for outside.....you know....because I couldn't stop drawing pictures!!

It was some of the most fun I have had throwing a party!!! I cannot wait until the next one.....well, maybe I can wait a little! ;)


Congratulations Stacy and Kris!! We cannot wait to meet your baby, sweet Dexton.

Past the Pierce

Well.... the new Green girl, Delaney, finally got her ears pierced. She is a few months older than her sisters were, at a whopping 4 months old! Gracie and Myleigh were a tiny, young 8-10 weeks old when I pierced their ears! So I was excited to finally get hers done! I know people may have different opinions on infant ear piercing, but I must say, if anyone is worried about it being too painful, stop worrying. She. Didn\\\'t. Even. Cry.
She was more upset that I held her head and hands down than the actual piercing!!
This is her mad at me for holding her down to mark the spot.






She was such a trouper and definitely the toughest out of all of my girls. Seriously folks, she didn\\\'t cry! This is her after the piercing, completely ok!






It\\\'s good to know that I have at least ONE kid that is tough!! Here she is with her new blinged-out ears, sleeping off her exciting day!!

Frosty the Snowman Birthday Party......in March

My funny, sweet, caring little Myleigh turned 4! Whoa. Kinda hard to believe. 

She has been begging for a Frosty the Snowman birthday party for 2 years. That would be cool...except her birthday is in March. 

Alas, I gave in this year and put my heart and soul into throwing her an awesome Frosty party. I think she was very happy!

Here she is posing in her snowman outfit at the treat table.

I know, I know....she is adorable. :)

Here is the treat table. It had the Snowflake cake balls, Frosty the Snowman cake pops, Frosty hat marshmallows, Snow-girl cake, and many Frosty decorations.

I made the Frosty wreath,  at the top, out of a floral wreath and body-wash sponges I bought from the dollar store. Then I just cut the face pieces out of card stock. Easy, cheap!

Then I just hand wrote her Happy Birthday banner on card stock and strung it up with ribbon. 

The back drop and table cloth are sheets. Luckily, my girls had white/multi-color polka dot sheets I used for the table cloth. Then I found the multi-colored striped sheet on clearance at walmart.  I liked them much better than plain colored, cheap plastic table cloths. 

The Frosty stuffed animals were left over from Christmas. Duh.

Snow-girl cake

Frosty the Snowman cake pops

Snowflake cake balls

Frosty hats


Yeah. It was certainly the TREAT table. LOT'S of treats!!

The other table was my dips table.  Not much to it. Also, I made snowman faces on all the cups. (And wrote everyones name on them ahead of time. No sharpie-losing-which-is-my-cup problems).

I tried to get the lyrics to the song all over the party. Here is the walkway into our house, so I put the lyrics about walking. You can't see but the signs on our door say the rest of that stanza, "But he only paused a moment when he heard him holler -STOP!)

Here is our Frosty pantry door with more lyrics. I didn't get the picture of my "melted snow" (which was the big jug of water), or the lyrics near it that said, "Frosty the Snowman knew the sun was hot that day".....

Frostys were everywhere. On the windows, doors, and counters.
The first activity was making snowman out of marshmallows, pretzels, edible pens, etc. Here are some of the kids at work! 

The kids had fun but mostly enjoyed the eating the snowman part!!!

What kind of party would it have been without being able to dress up like Frosty and take a picture? 

Of-course the kids were only excited about swinging and playing in the bounce house!!! (I may have done a little jumping myself)

I have to admit, the best part of the party was hanging out with friends and family!!!!

The party favors were a mason jar filled with Snowman Snack Mix (marshmallows for the body, chocolate chips for the coal, pretzels for the limbs, and cranberries for the nose.) and a Frosty paper bag (I just ran white paper bags thru the printer) with a few treats inside.

All in all, it was a magnificent party! I hope it was as fun for the birthday girl and guests as it was for me!!!!

My Quadruplets

I have this awesome ability. You see, I can create clones. Well, God can create the clones....I simply birth them. God must know how much I love my babies and decided to keep on making the same ones...over, and over, and over, and over!!!!!

These are my quadruplets. They were born in 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2012.

Jakob

Gracie

Myleigh

Delaney

Can I just be 29?

I had my 32nd birthday on January 30th. I don't mind getting older. As they say, it's "a privilege denied to many". However, I don't want to get older. I mean, who does? So, I turned 32 whether I wanted to or not. To celebrate my 32 years, I ate. I devoured a fancy dinner at Perry's Steakhouse, a not-so-fancy plate at Niko Niko's, and a few pastries at Rao's. I think I gained 5 lbs from all of the festivities!!

Perry's Steakhouse was my first birthday food celebration (a week early) and I was accompanied by my beautiful friend Kristy.  We were actually celebrating BOTH of our birthdays! We had such a good time!! I was baby-less, which means I was able to really relax and have fun! We laughed and giggled so much! The poor people around us! I'm sure they were either mad at us for ruining their fancy dinner or jealous at how much fun we were having!! Kristy gave me an AWESOME Victoria Secret night shirt. She put so much thought into the gift, even making sure I could nurse the baby easily in it!! Then it was time for dessert!! This is the free dessert that they brought us!

Oh my!! I think I MAY have enjoyed the dessert more than the food? But if you know me, that shouldn't surprise you. 

The next birthday food celebration was Niko Niko's. It is Greek food and it's one of my favorite restaurants in the world. I ALWAYS get the gyro plate. It's gyro meat, yellow rice, tzakiki sauce with pita bread, and a dolma. I'm drooling just thinking about it!! YUM! The hubby took the day off of work to celebrate my day with me. Also celebrating with me was my beautiful friend Bobbie and her family. We all ate that Greek food with a big smile on our faces. Bobbie gave me the funniest (and most AWESOME) gifts. One gift was a gift card to Express. Ummm...yes, please! The next was a water bottle. This was very thoughtful since I keep complaining about not having a water bottle every time we go to the gym. It's such a cool water bottle too. It is the one floating around pinterest that holds your keys and credit/gym cards. SO handy!! The last gift is the funny one. It is a shirt that says, "Help me I'm poor". It's a quote from the movie Bridesmaids and it cracks me up!!!!!

The last birthday food was at Rao's. This place is a bakery/ cafe. I LOVE this place. The in-laws tagged along and bought almost every pastry in the place!!! Needless to say, we had a great time! I ate  tons of bites of so many different cakes, chocolates, and ice cream. It was so much fun! My father-in-law even bought me this little treat!

The whole day was a blast! I felt so loved all day long! There were so many surprises through-out the day. So many friends dropped off little gifts on my car, at my door, etc. It was definitely one of the best birthdays!!!!!

This is the loot from my birthday!

Daddy Loves His Girls

Yes. This is the hubby having a tea party with his girls. There aren't many things that are cuter than tea time with Daddy!!  He even pretended to have a british accent!! The girls were giddy with excitement as they filled each cup of pretend tea. My heart over-flowed as I sat there and documented the whole thing. I wasn't sure how many times good ol' dad would be willing to accept his invitation to tea time! He loves his girls and plays with them all the time but tea time is few and far between. So, out came the camera!!

Myleigh filled tea cup after tea cup. She must have served Nik about 100 cups!! Gracie was more of the baker and cleaner. She made sure there were plenty of "crumpets" and cakes. Then she thoroughly cleaned up time and time again. 

The only one who was not  in the spirit of tea time was Jakob. He walked into the room a few times and almost gagged. He couldn't believe Nik was playing tea!!! 

It was definitely an extraordinary night for the girls (and Nik). I know all of the "love buckets" were filled to the brim!!

Fun for Free

It doesn't get much better than having TONS of fun with the family for FREE! All I had to do was search my house for a few items:

1. Balloons
2. Toothpicks
3. Marshmallows
4. Yarn
5. Straws
6. Tape

Ok, ok. I had to go buy marshmallows and balloons. So, it wasn't exactly free.

The first thing we did was "build things with marshmallows and toothpicks" contest. It was gals against boys, which is NOT a fair contest. The hubby builds things all the time. He can build just about anything. Me? I can barely put Lego's together!

Here are the kiddos getting ready to build

We decided on a few rules and began working on our toothpick/marshmallow masterpieces. The girls, of-course, wanted to build a castle. The boys were very secretive on what they were building. Us gals kept trying to peek at their creation but those boys were not letting us see very much of what they were doing! The little we saw seemed like theirs wasn't going to be strong and one of our rules was that the structure must be sturdy.  I was having such a hard time trying to come up with a design for our castle but I finally decided to just go very simple, hoping that ours would at least be sturdy. I knew ours wouldn't be as intricate or look nearly as cool as the boys. Finally it was times up! It was time to reveal our creations and pick a winner!
This was our castle:

The girls castle

And this was the their airplane:

Boys Airplane

It was clearly obvious who won. Like I said, the boys had a huge unfair advantage. Their airplane was awesome!! Our castle......was not. Our family believes in winners and losers, and we certainly lost. Gracie is very competitive so she was mad at me for not being able to produce as cool a creation as her daddy. Next time we need to have a girls vs boys gymnastics or singing contest!

The next thing we did was "balloon on yarn" race. It's very simple:

1. Put a straw through yarn and string it across the room.
2. Tape a blown up (untied) balloon to the straw.
3. Let go of the balloon and watch it race across the yarn!

Ready to race!

The hubby ready to race

We had such a fun night! The kids still talk about it! And I'm still picking up toothpicks!