Conversations With A 2 Year Old

Back when we were childless I swore that I would not become that mom who does nothing but talk of her child, tell stories at adult only gatherings, and push pictures onto strangers and know my boundaries.  I'd also refrain from comparing what my child could do and not try to trump stories no matter how much more awesome my kid was than yours.  I would roll my eyes at facebook posts of silly conversations or "funny stories" and think to myself, "that wasn't funny at all!"

So here I am with a child of my own and I really do try to stick to what I swore I wouldn't do so that I'm not eating too many of my words.  I mean I've got enough of a weight issue to deal with from eating too much fast food, I don't need to add to it with my own words ya know! 

But I did want to share this story although you may not find it as cute or funny as I.  My first edition of Conversations with a 2 year old:

Let me paint the picture:  We're sitting at the table for dinner and I'm done eating (Poppa hasn't made it home from work yet) and Monkey is working on her apple sauce.  As I sit and wait I pick up my iphone to check my email which is a no-no at the table but Poppa isn't there to catch me so whatev!

Monkey:  I wanna see I wanna see I wanna see I wanna see
(History for you.... she loves to look at pictures on the computer or our iphones so anytime we pick it up to use, she thinks we are looking at pictures and wants to see them)

Me:  I'm not looking at pictures, I'm doing some work.

Monkey:  Momma, your phone is poopy.  (Just another reason I'm ready to be a stay at home mom so that I can shelter her from older kids at daycare teaching her this nonsense!  BTW that's total sarcasm if you can't read it because I'm sure it's from us she picks these things up from, I'm just thankful she didn't say "Momma your phone is Shitty" because that's the kind of thing I or her Poppa, and by I or her Poppa I mean her Poppa, would teach her, cause we rock as parents like that!) (Also my phone really is poopy, I'm constantly complaining about it crashing and locking up)

Me:  Monkey, that is not nice, do not say that again.

Monkey: Momma, your phone is poopy.

Me:  Monkey, this is your warning, if you say it again you will be in timeout for 2 minutes.  Now apologize to Momma.

Monkey:  OOOOKKKKK, Momma, I'm sorry your phone is SSSOOOO poopy!

Once I gain my composure and can speak without laughing I simply say "me too baby, me too!"

Poppa and I are aware of the trouble this one is going to give us!!

Worthy of note, this is her "I am being good" look.  You know that grin is just screaming, I'm really thinking of how I'm going to conquer you in 3 moves or less!
So, do you have any stories you want to share to make me laugh and make me feel better about knowing my child is not the only one that is smarter than her momma?!

Happy Thursday Ya'll.

Ladybug Birthday Party - Decorations and Banners

Are you getting sick and tired of seeing red and black in my posts yet? :)  Thanks for humoring me, I promise just a few more and I'll be done and then we'll get back to normal blog posts next week.  Like Dear So and So, Talkin Tuesdays, Yay You Did It, Dream Book, Tutorials, For You Friday, and More.

Today I want to show you more in detail the decorations, the banners, signs, and the printables we used.
First decorations:

I didn't have a very big budget for this party but I did have a very big room to decorate.  I knew that the Sweets & Treats Table would add lots of color and decor to the room but I'd still have lots of filler left.  My go to decoration for most parties is the tissue paper flower pom poms.  I think we had about 15 or 20 big ones hanging from the ceiling this year.  I did them in red, black, white, and green. 

We mainly just hung them over the tables. 

We also had about 50 balloons blown up with helium and tied a few to buckets in corners and let the rest just float the the ceiling.  However the a/c was blowing and blew them all to one corner. :)

 

                    

Remember when I asked for your opinions on centerpieces?  I got some great ideas so thank you.  For the food table I just opted for glass vases filled with green tissue paper and some red flowers.

             

The cupcake stand that I made was the centerpiece for the Sweets & Treats table. 

                        

The food table centerpiece was inspired from Amy Atlas and one of her pieces.

                                                 

We stopped on the side of the road by the rodeo grounds and found some big twigs, I took a ladybug tutu that I'd made my niece that my Sister In Law sent back to me to use, and made smaller versions of the flower pom poms and hot glued them to the twigs.  I really love how it came out.  

I made 3 banners which were all done using my cricut.  The vinyl sign I designed and had printed and shipped via vistaprint. 

I also designed circle cut outs and ladybugs with my computer and cricut and hung everywhere.

The Favor bag tags, thank you tags, waterbottle tags, and cupcake toppers all came from one of my sponsor's Little Mel's Zoo.  The matched perfectly and I printed and cut them out to use everywhere.

Stay tuned for the Food Table, and then the summary post and I promise that will be it!  Thanks for bearing with me. 

Ladybug Birthday Party - Games, Prizes, Favors and Favor Bags

Today I want to show you the details and pictures of the games and favors from the LadyBug Party.  If you missed the previous posts you can go HERE to get caught up. 

Instead of party hats I did Ladybug Balloon Animal Bracelets.  The kids really enjoyed these!  They were the perfect addition to this theme.  The birthday girl got a special one.

It's kind of hard to do games in my opinion at this age and keeping in mind that there are all ages at the party, from newborns to about age 10.  It took me a while to decide on the 2 games, I put way too much pressure on myself.  Kids really don't care they just want to do something and if they're going to win something then they are even more into it.
For game 1 we played LadyBug Ball Toss.  I drew and painted a ladybug on posterboard then cut out felt circles in 3 different sizes and adhered those to the ladybug.  I also added strips of velcro to the spots.  Then I took balls and wrapped the strips of the other side of velcor around the balls. The kids then tossed the balls and tried to stick them to the velcro/felt spots.  The larger spots were worth 1 point, medium spots were worth 3 points, and the smaller spots were 5 points.  I think the kids would have stayed here all day playing this game if they could have.

The 2nd game we played was pin the spot on the ladybug.  Just like pin the tail on the donkey.  I painted a ladybug on poster board and left the spots white instead of painting them black.  Then we took black cut out circles to fill in the spots with.  Oh and if you ever play this game, don't forget to bring a blindfold. :)  I took off my flower bib necklace that I made and used that, the kids laughed at me. haha.

              

              

Of course we gave out prizes to everyone win lose or draw.  I decorated a little bucket up and got trinkets and toys from Party City.  I had to laugh because one of my best girl friends from my childhood thanked me over and over for the tooting horns as her son played it in her ear.  That was awesome.  Your welcome moms! 

For the favors I made homemade ladybug crayons and placed them in match boxes that I spray painted black and decorated with a sticker.  This was easy just took me some time.  I did ladybug sugar cookies, ladybug bubbles and the girls bags got lip gloss and the boys got a bouncy ball.  I placed shredded green paper that I shredded with my paper shredder in the bottom of the bag to resemble grass and then put the favors in and used a baggie favor tag to decorate it. 

In the Ladybug bucket were ladybug jokes I found on the internet and rolled them up like scrolls.

Hope you enjoyed looking at the games and favors, I've got lots more to show you.

Stay Tuned For More Ladybug Party Posts

Monkey is 2

Another year has flown by and our little Monkey has turned 2.  Last Year we did a Monkey Themed Birthday Party and this year I went with LadyBugs.  Over the next few days I will fill you with pictures and posts on all the details but first I want to wish Monkey a very Happy Birthday. 

Birth Day

1 Year Old Birthday

2 Year Birthday

Monkey you bring so much laughter and joy into our lives and I often find myself wondering what we ever did without you.  You make life so much sweeter and I am constantly counting down the seconds of when I get to have you run into my arms when I pick you up after work.  You have the biggest personality for a 2 year old.  You are great with babies, other children, adults, and animals.  You are shy when you first enter a room filled with people but quickly warm up and make friends with everyone.  You don't feel the need to be the center of attention and a lot of times just sit back and watch the others but you will always be the center of my attention!

Your Poppa and I will often just sit in the living room after a hard day's work and laugh and have you entertain us by your imagination.  It is amazing to watch you discover new things and soak up learning.  When we have had a stressful day, a hard day, a sad day, all we have to do is pick you up and you running to greet us melts all of that away in an instant.  God gives us the strength to endure all things but He gave us a little extra help getting over hurdles when He gave us you.  I often wonder what I did to deserve a child like you and a husband like your Poppa.  You don't know how blessed you are to have him as your dad but I will spend my life making sure you do. 

You talk non stop, most of the time your words are clear enough to where I know what you are saying.  You will repeat anything Momma and Poppa say and I do mean ANYTHING! :) You love to color and write and are working on writing your name, you have the C down pretty good.  You know most of your colors and can count to 5.  You love to sing the Bible song and you are precious and heart melting when you say your prayers.  Night time is the sweetest time for me because Poppa gives you a bath then you cuddle in the rocking chair with me and we read a book, sing 5 songs, and then you say your prayers.  I look forward to it each day! 

You are more into stuffed animals than baby dolls but you LOVE shoes, I know you get that from me!  You also LOVE to eat.  Your school tells us that they never have to look to see if it's time to eat as they have you to let them know. :) Your favorite foods are tomatoes, avacados, grapes, brocoli, and smoked sausage. 

Some of your favorite activities are jumping, playing with Maximus, throwing balls, and wrestling with Poppa.  You are obbessed with balls and could spot the only ball in a room full of squares quicker than most people could spot the squares. 

You will be starting dance in September and I'm very excited about that.  You will be taking tap and ballet on Saturday mornings.  Momma took many many years of dance and hopes you enjoy it as much as I did.  Of course Poppa is chomping at the bit to get you out on the golf course but he'll get his day. 

You are still in the 95% of weight and length and head.  You are a tall baby with the cutest pop belly.  You are loved by so many and we are all so much more with you in our lives. 

I hope your life is full of happy birthdays and Momma will do my upmost to show you how much you are loved each and every day! 

Happy 2nd Birthday Monkey.

Dream Book Experiement #1 Pinch Proof Shirt

I completed my first Dream Book Project, I should call them experiements because it certainly is by trial and error on some of these little babies.  If you're new here, I do a weekly post where I blog about projects, recipes, ideas I want to do someday, my own little Dream Book, things I'm sure I can do someday just maybe not today, you can see my first post here on it. 

So here's my first Dream Book Experiement

I've seen the Pinch Proof shirts around the blogs like here at That's So That's So Cuelgy and here at LuLu's Tiles and on some online t-shirt stores like here so I thought I'd give it a go for the monkey.  I had my awesome sister in law over at Bree Bee's Binkies and Boxes cut me out the words Pinch Proof on her cricut since I don't have one but oh so want one and she mailed them to me.  She rocks.  I then drew a clover for the front pocket and a larger one for the back of the shirt on freezer paper and cut them out.   First I tried using the spray paint fabric paint and well that just ended up in a big mess.  I'll need to start a crafts gone wrong label. LOL.

One hot mess of a messed up shirt

Once I had the correct supplies it was easy peasy, just use fabric paint, iron on the freezer paper and paint.  Be sure to paint from outside in so your paint doesn't run up under the paper. 

Front of the shirt

Back of the shirt

Of course I had to make her some adorable tutu leggings to wear under her pink skirt sinces it's still a little chilly here. 

My monkey all dolled up in her St Patty's Day gear complete with made to match Ultimate Bow.

And here's my beautiful niece wearing her St Patrick's Day bow all ready for dance class, isn't she the most precious little ballerina!!!

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone!!

Party Link Love