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It happened …….

March 25, 2012 By Kim Filed Under Party, inspiration, joys of motherhood

2 weeks - and born with the BEST expressions!

…… my baby turned 4. I’ve always said that she is my child that keeps my young yet makes me feel so old! She is currently sitting in the middle of the living room floor playing with her loot and actually sharing without bossing anyone around – miracle!

Yesterday morning, Carson come running into my room and asked me, “Why didn’t Emme turn 4 today??”

“She did. Today is her birthday.”

“Then why does she still look 3?”

I was asleep so I just stared at him. I couldn’t come up with an answer quick enough for his curious mind. It kills me when they come to you with such “deep” questions and you don’t know how to answer without 97 “huhs?” and “whys?” and “whats?” and that really blank stare I get that definitely tells me I don’t understand a thing you just said, but if I keep looking at you this way, you will most positively try to explain it a different way look. As mothers/parents, I know you get this look all the time so you know what I mean. Most times I get it and re-explain, but not at 5:30 in the morning! And I have no idea why I had kids up at 5:30.

The party went great – and fortunately for you picture lovers I took 119 photographs!! Oh yes, I did!! Unfortunately, I won’t post any of the “party” pictures because I don’t know who will be okay with their kid on the internet. Or I should say I don’t know who will NOT be okay with it – because I’m sure of a few that wouldn’t mind!

The biggest thing is how we made my ideas and Em’s work as far as color and decorations. Like I said, if it were up to Emme, this party would have looked like a 50th wedding anniversary because “golden” is her fav-O-rite color! But she will settle for blue and turquoise. And she “can handle purple, pink and maybe just a little green.” That is a quote.

The first thing started with the invitations. I have seen these in the store for a really long time and I loved them! But they were the fill in kind. Nothing is wrong with the fill in kind. But my hand gets tired after about the second one and then they start looking more like chicken scratch. Or I write the wrong thing in the wrong spot, then I have to throw that one away and start fresh with a new one. I can easily waste over half of the box by hand writing the info in. But this box of cuteness was half off. And there were a few boxes. So, I folded ….

I only cheated {thank you photo shop} and ran them through the printer once I had it all aligned up correctly. It only took about 3 tries and it fell into place – where it was suppose to be! And I only wasted white paper. I messed up zero cards! But I only used 2 boxes. I still have a third box {of 10} – anyone need some really cute birthday invites?? I thought these would be perfect with all the colors, but this was before we had agreed on all the colors. Miss Sassy was upset these came with hot pink envelopes! She is so used to me saying get over it.

I also found the Thank You’s {on sale,} too!

Since the party was at a pottery place and I have never been to a party there, I didn’t know how well we would do with cake and ice cream . I tried to make it as mess free as possible! We did petit fours and cups of ice cream – easy. And really there wasn’t much mess! We also did juice BOXES. Seems the BOXES are easier to drink from without the accidental squirt you get from the pouches. Especially if you pull the ears out. Not that they can’t still squeeze it out, but you really don’t have the “accident” part.

A while back, I found cupcake liners in the dollar bin at Michael’s. I bought a ton of cute ones. Since we were doing the petit fours, I thought they would look cute in a hodge podge of them {sorta like the invite!}

Yes, a dollar for each. You are looking at 3 bucks total.

Turquoise was the main color – but we threw in all the other colors, too.

Square plates because the are cool. And cute.

The petit fours came from Publix. I love these little guys. For one I love the way the taste and how they are cold! I serve mine right out of the fridge. I also bought 50 something for under $35. Totally worth it for the mess free! The only thing is I was going to just stake little flags made out of scrapbook paper, but I let the ladies behind the counter talk me into the “E” you see on top. The “E” would be great …. if it was a cute “E.” That is ugly! And these are the better looking ones. Truthfully, I looked at them and thought those are ugly, but that was it. I swear I didn’t stress over the ugly “E’s” – I just thought I would point out that I know they are ugly since I’m positive there will be a few of you out there thinking the same thing! But hey, at least the color is right! I think that would have been much worse! hah!

All together, it was a cute spread.

Really, this was hysterical. The cross-eyes got worse the second I took the picture!

Emme chose a piggy bank to paint. I canNOT wait to see this after it is fired up! All though the kids got to paint a piece of pottery, they couldn’t take it home yet. I will have to do the deliveries in about a week. But I couldn’t stand the little people going home empty handed. Rock candy just seemed perfect in this type of situation.

They could choose turquoise, green, white and pink. Each were in a cello bag with different widths and colors of grosgrain ribbons. And because the candy wasn’t enough – why not a balloon, too. One is edible and the other is disposable – very important.

Now I’m off to start the Thank You cards!

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For Emsley’s past parties ………

Emme’s first birthday, a few more pictures of the first birthday

Emme’s second birthday

Emme’s third birthday

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Coming off the Party High . . .

March 27, 2011 By Kim Filed Under Party, joys of motherhood

Another fun party is now over {time to start thinking about Hudson’s now!} After every party, I crash. I’m barely moving this morning – and I started off this morning with a freakin’ cupcake {and when you see the picture of the cupcake, you’re going to wonder how the heck I’m not bouncing off the walls!}

We love balloons – so we try to buy a bunch {like 40+} and just turn them loose in the house. They decorate the room and it really is fun to walk through all the strings dangling. Then we send the kids home with them. Much easier than treat bags. Much easier.

I also gave suckers. I found the lollipops in the wedding section at Michael’s Craft Store. They came with the stickers that were easily stuck on. I did add the ribbon. I found the flower pots {half off} at Hobby Lobby. I finally got to buy that 12×12 {or so} square of crazy grass {half off} from Hobby Lobby that they have every year in the Easter section! Every year I try desperately to think of some how to use that crazy piece of grass and this year I did!!!! And then I have a piece of floral foam underneath that made the lollipops stand so pretty.

The house was full of people. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating and we were all stuck in the house. But no one complained. Most of the kids disappeared upstairs and us adults stayed down – really it worked out great!

As you know, Em wanted a “Pink Party.” I asked her about the balloons, “Pink balloons and what other color because the boys might not want to take home a pink balloon?!?”

“Dark pink. The boys would want dark pink.”

Okie dokie. I can sorta see the logic behind that . . . although they are still pink. {Sorry Boys.}

And obviously – Krista was a guest! So you have real pictures to look at! Which reminds me that there are more pictures on my camera that I’ve not even looked at – because you know . . . I’ve been in a sugar coma because I’ve eaten these JOKERS . . . . . . .

I probably should apologize to all the parents – but I’m not going to. HA! It was totally worth it! There is a story about these {Sorry Rachel!} My friend Rachel makes all our cakes! Well, there was a year ago that she didn’t because she had a baby – and I wouldn’t let her! But she always does a fabulous job. Remember this one? Or this one? Or my favorite one ever – because Hudson totally designed this – she read his mind! He seriously wanted a “Universal Cake!” And yes that was our Seuss party. That is always what you see at the beginning of all the Seuss movies – so that is Seussical to him. And Rachel has made so many other fabulous cakes for us!!!

I normally just tell her to make whatever she wants too – I give her some kind of theme {except for the Universal one – we were very specific on that one.} But this party I said just whatever just make it PINK!

Unfortunately, 5 minutes from the house, someone decided to run a redlight. Thankfully she wasn’t in a wreck – but the cake was! I couldn’t stop laughing after she called me. All I kept thinking was how she had to slam on her brakes and the cake went flying! Haha!! God Bless Rachel! She turned around and found the closest bakery and bought a ton of these. The funny part is when she walked in with what was left of her cake - in a bag! hahah!! Poor Rachel. I owe her big.

I know you all want to know about the food – I kept it simple. I served Drip Beef again – I combined both of PW’s recipes. I did this last year and had several people request it this year. I also made my Potato Salad That Is So Good That if You Were to Put It on Top of Your Head, Your Tongue Would Smack Your Face Silly to Get to It, Potato Salad. We had chips, a dip, PB & J {for the kids} and other sweets. And that really sums up the foods. {Such a slacker!}

But if I left it up to Em, she only wanted to serve Popsicles and ice water. When I told her that I didn’t think the guests would really like only popsicles and ice water, she responded with the classic line, “It’s my party.”

Even the decorations were kept simple. Where Lonnie was out of town till the night before, I just didn’t have the energy to really go crazy.

She really wanted “real alive flowers.” Thankfully Rachel brought these ’cause I forgot!

I had so many people asking about the invitations – I actually bought these a few years ago from Hobby Lobby! AND they still have them! I bought several from this Anna Griffin line. So you will see more of them in the future. They easily went through my printer and tied up easily. They only thing is they are more expensive to mail because of the knot that the ribbon makes. And the envelopes are really thin. For the type of invite, they should have splurged and used a more expensive envelope – I would have paid the extra money. But overall, they were so cute.

And let’s just take a walk down memory lane . . . .

Birthday 2008

First Birthday 2009- and fav-O-rite photo evah!

Second Birthday 2010

Third Birthday 2011 {Moments before her hair caught on fire and after our 3rd shirt change due to food/drips} ha!

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More Halloween Decorations . . .

October 26, 2010 By Kim Filed Under Party, something like decorating

Unfortunately, I just realized that I didn’t get many pictures from the party {before, after or during} on the day of. It’s been so hectic that I literally just picked up my camera and went through the ones that were on there {pitiful, I know – the party was over a week ago!} I did take a few that were decent, but nothing where you could see anything. And then there were quite a few that were blurry {?} – I don’t know how that happened. This also means I got absolutely NONE of the food! Let me know and I can post recipes for the food. I did take some of the decorations days before {thankfully}. So, I’m going to cram the last bit in this post!

Spiders were everywhere – the fake kind. Up until this year, I really have not had a bunch of Halloween “stuff.” It’s funny how you change things up after kids – such as “fall decor” goes to “Halloween decor.” I remember thinking “back in the day” that fall stuff would last so much longer during the season. Pshh – and then I had kids and realized after Halloween, you go straight into Christmas!

Poor Thanksgiving. I feel so sorry for that holiday and its decorations. It gets sooo cheated.

These are still my favorite – and my first real Halloween decorations I bought. I never bought anymore – but I think I will now!

My kitchen dresser ended up having more stuff on it. But originally it looked like this. The apothecary jars had tags hanging from them telling what the contents of each jar was – “mummy wraps,” “feathers of crow” and “spider legs.”

Mr. Jack Happy came from my previous place of employment! {haha!} I got my teeth cleaned and a filling replaced a couple of weeks ago. This guy was sitting on the counter and asked if I could buy him. And – obviously – they said yes! OR I just grabbed him and took off running. I’ll let you figure it out! {Sad when you are buying/stealing Halloween decor from your dental office!} Honestly, it was the Ed Grimley pose that got me.

I found several of these ornaments at Pier 1. Total crack ups! I got the Pirate, Frankenstein, Devil & Mummy. Click on the links QUICK! I don’t know how long they will last since they are seasonal!

I found the paper mache pumpkin person at Cracker Barrel several years ago. It is scary in a funny way. The cloche bell jar came from Hobby Lobby last year – in the 80% clearance isle! I think I got it and the base for $2.89 or something ridiculous like that! it has some moose moss, a pumpkin and more of those spiders! I had the creepy books already. {I have a lot of creepy books!}

Originally, I was going to take all the stuff out of my hurricanes on the mantel, but changed my mind and just wrapped them with the webbing and added spiders {of course!}

These spiders came from Michaels and have clips! I also found some great {and tiny} furry ones at Pier 1.

No lie, I’m dreading removing all the web stuff! I plan on cutting it all off!

Then there were the LEGS! I love the legs! I would love to tell you they were my original idea – but they were NOT. I did see a picture in a Better Homes & Gardens special edition magazine. I already had the urn. The Spanish moss was cheap AND incredibly messy {Who actually uses this stuff in their home!?} The tights were a $2 find at Kroger {yeah, I said Kroger.} The shoes are loaners from a friend of mine’s mother!! Quite certain these are “classics.” The legs . . . oh, the legs – took forever for me to find!!! I kept finding them, but they were too expensive or the shipping was ridiculous! I finally found these on EBay – they are hosiery legs, so the shoes fit wonky. After squeezing the feet, we made them fit. Kinda awkward but they’re on. {At this angle, you can’t see the awkwardness!} We also decorated with spider webs and witches’ brooms.

Time ran out to get all the decorating completed, but I do have more, but how much of it do you really want to see?!?

AND I have art I need to blog about!

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