A peace party and the inside of the tie dye cake..

The party is over---phew!  Now Red is off with her friend's family at a soccer game and Tom Thumb is tucked away with his blue blankie for a nap.  The party was a big hit with the kids, but I think it's the first and last time I'll do a party as the only adult.  It was rough having to do all the backyard clean up and cooking alone.  The Cobbler is working at an event right now and has been gone from 7AM until 9PM for the past few days.  That schedule is going to continue through Tuesday except now he's staying the night at a hotel too so he's not home at all.  It may not have been my most brilliant plan ever to throw a party while he's on that schedule.  I know better for next time.


So...we ate our lunch and then we ate our cake.

For those of you waiting to see the inside of the cake (I couldn't wait to see it myself!), I give you the big reveal ----

The kids were amazed by it!  Quite frankly, I was amazed by it!  So easy and yet so cool!  Everyone also enjoyed making the peace sign key chain clips, although I had to do a lot of the pipe cleaner twisting.  The best part of the whole party was watching the kids sitting in the grass playing with Red's presents wearing their peace sign hats and licking their rainbow lollipops as the party wound down.  


Now I'm off to have a huge glass of water (it's hot out there, man!) and taking a breather.  Who wants to have a beer with me later? ;-)

Peace Sign Birthday Cake

I have to admit that it feels kind of weird posting after all this time.  As an update, the Phoenician purple dye project was an epic fail in terms of actually producing a long lasting purple color on anything.  No purple fabric.  No purple pasta.  It pretty much ended up this odd lavender grey color that was anything but color fast.  Kind of disappointing, but the kids didn't care.


I've spent my blogging hiatus doing a lot of work at Red's school and not a lot of housekeeping.  Ha ha!  I can't even tell you how many loads are lurking in my Mt. Everest of laundry.  I'm just happy to have everyone in clean underwear still.  At some point, I might post a few things about what I've been up to (including painting over 20 posters with Egyptian art for Red's ancient Egypt cultural play that was performed at school on May 31st.  Oy!  I just can't say no!), but for now it's all about Red's birthday.  


Tomorrow is her 7th birthday party with her friends and she is having a peace sign themed party.  Who knows why this kid loves peace signs so much, but she is addicted!  She has peace sign decals on the walls of her room, a peace sign backpack and lunch box, and draws them on everything!  So it was decided she would do a peace sign party.  We ordered all the goods from Oriental Trading.  Here are the cute paper goods and favors.  The favor is a peace sign tote bag with a peace sign bucket hat, a peace necklace, and a rainbow lollipop.  

I found this awesome method online of making the inside of the birthday cake look tie dyed.  While the original recipe maker made the recipe fat free, I had no need to do that (my children are sticks as it is) so I just made up two boxes of white cake mix as Betty Crocker intended and then colored them.  Here are the results after coloring:

It pretty much ended up being a little over one cup per color.  Then I put them into the two cake pans in rainbow color order---red then orange then yellow in one pan, purple then blue then green in the other pan.

It baked up CRAZY tall  (I guess that's what happens when you put 2 boxes of cake mix in two pans that are only intended to hold one box) so I had to level them a bit before I stacked the layers.  

Red wanted the cake to look like a peace sign.  My solution ---> SKITTLES!  I frosted the cake with white buttercream frosting, divided the Skittles by color and then mosaic-ed them to the top of the cake.  Love the results!

The party plan for tomorrow is eating cheese pizza, veggies and dip, fruit salad, and tie dye peace cake.  Then, we're going to make these cute peace backpack clippies (another Oriental Trading find).  Here's the sample I made to show the kids:

Then, it's presents and PLAY!  Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny but hot so I'm hoping for the best.  Counting the days until school is out!

Hay, Hay and more HAY at the Annual Hayride!

For many years now, one of my high school friends Cherie and her husband Hass have hosted an annual hayride at a campground about an hour from our house.  They met there while camping with their parents during the summer when we were freshmen in high school---awwwwwww....  It has been an adults only affair in the past, but when they had to cancel last year because folks couldn't get a babysitter, they decided that this year they would include the kids.  The shelter they rented was close to the playground so the kids played until the pizza arrived.  Then after dinner, it was hayride time!

 It may look reasonably tame in the photos, but by the end I had a bra stuffed with hay just from Tom Thumb throwing it at me and it falling down my shirt!  I even found hay in my underwear when we got home!  Red said the hayride was "the most awesome time ever!"  

When we got back to the shelter, it was time for the Pass the Pumpkin (i.e. hot potato with a pumpkin) for kids and adults.  I won the women's round and the Cobbler was runner up for the men's round.  There was also a cupcake eating contest.  I participated, but had no hope of winning against the guys.  Hass actually wins every year (that man has some mad cupcake eating and whistling skills!), but since he's the host the runner up is always named the official winner.

Then, it was time for the pumpkin carving contest.  I thought Red and I rocked it with our entry above.  Unfortunately, we didn't have the lungs to be the winners (the winner was determined by cheering volume.  The winning family had a few more members than ours. :-), but we still had a great time!


Can't wait for next year!

And yes --- we made the toilet paper wedding dresses!

YES!  The bachelorette party and shower for my baby sister Christy are over!  As soon as I came home from vacation, I descended into the depths of bridal crazy land and have finally emerged mostly unscathed.  We launched into the weekend with the bachelorette party on Friday night.  Everyone agreed to keep it under control (heck, I had to keep it under control because I was blessed with being one of the designated drivers) since the shower was the next afternoon.  In case you needed anymore proof that doing shots is not a good idea:

Yep, that looks delicious!

We got to experience a girl on the dance floor attempting to use her date as a stripper pole (she literally jumped on him and wrapped her legs around his waist) --- prompting a woman to approach my sister and say, "Take notes.  If you do the exact opposite of what she's doing, you'll have a happy marriage."  Then, for who knows what reason, there were two guys at the bar dressed in animal costumes battling with glow sticks.  I'm not really sure what they are.  Perhaps a fox and a bear?

I guess I'm getting old because that was a new one for me.  Speaking of getting old...big sigh.  I didn't get carded.  I know it's ridiculous.  I am 35 and all, but when we approached the bouncer he said, "You two are fine (meaning me and my 40 something sister), but from the rest of you I need IDs."  My 30 year old sister gets carded and I don't?  WAH!!!!!  Maybe it's time to finally start coloring the greys.  Okay, I concede that maybe I don't look as young as my 21 year old cousin (left in the photo below) or my 26 year old sister (right in the photo below), but to not card me???  Heinous, I tell you.

The shower yesterday was a big success, but super hot and sweaty since it was held in an air conditioning free church basement.  There was way too much food (my mom and the groom's mom clearly had a communication problem on that), but my family and her future Macedonian relatives seemed to hit it off.  There was a brief moment of hesitation when I whipped out the toilet paper for the dress game (they don't play shower games at Macedonian wedding showers), but her fiance's foreign relatives ended up embracing it with gusto.  Here's them posing with their model Daniella:

In the end, we had some interesting dress designs ranging from my niece Hannah (which her team dubbed "the Hawaiian bride")

 to my sister's fiance's brother's girlfriend Brandy (her team called her look "risque Vegas"--- she's 2nd from the right in the group photo at the top of the page).  Red had a blast being a wedding dress model and assisting with gift delivery during the gift opening process.  I guess we bought my sister the right gift.  Who knew someone could be that excited about flatware?

All in all the shower took about 6 hours including set up, actual shower time, and tear down.  Wow--- I had some hurting feet last night.  I was pretty proud of our crafty/DIY showing for the event.  Since my sister's a daisy fan, I made the centerpieces out of a metal bucket bought at TJMaxx, a shasta daisy from the grocery store, and raffia.

My sister and her best friend tried their hand at a Martha Stewart candy bouquet (instructions are here):

 Overall, it went well, the families got along, and she got a lot of nice gifts.  

What more can you ask for?

Now---on to the wedding!!!

Red's 6th Birthday Beach Party

The last week has been INSANE---thus, why I have been missing in action on my blog.  First up, Red turned 6!  Yay!  I lucked out because she wanted a backyard beach party for her birthday.  Last Saturday we had a bunch of little girls and Tom Thumb on hand for playing in the sand,

swinging on the rope swing,

eating cake,

and running in the sprinklers!

Everybody got flower leis, hibiscus garland crowns, and a bubbles with a balloon attached as favors.  Tom Thumb had a pool cake made of Jello for his 1st birthday a few years back and Red wanted the same thing for her cake except a beach instead of a pool.  Here is a close up of the finished product complete with brown sugar sand, the Jello ocean, a Fruit Roll up and pretzels volleyball net, Fruit Roll up towels, gummy Lifesaver life preservers for my multi cultural Teddy Graham people, and gumball beach balls.  The only problem I didn't foresee was a gaggle of girls yelling at me as I cut the cake --- "I WANT THE VOLLEYBALL NET!  GIMME A GUMBALL!"  Oy!  The Cobbler said next time I should have back ups of all the novelty decorations on the cake.

Thanks to all of Red's friends who made it a great time!

Red's birthday present from the Cobbler and I was getting her ears pierced.  I wasn't allowed to get mine done as a kid until I was 10, but I always thought that was a little bit unnecessarily strict.  It's not like it's a tattoo or anything!  Here she is before:

And here's the after shot:

She looked a bit choked up for a minute and said, "I'm fine.  I'm NOT going to cry."  Once the girl who pierced her ears cleaned them and gave her the mirror, Red did a little happy dance, and then said they felt great.  She's told everyone since then that they felt like a shot in the ear at the time but feel fine now.

After making breakfast for my parents and the Cobbler on Father's Day, my mom, the kids and I hit the road and made the 4 1/2 hour trip up to my parents' cottage in northern Michigan.  Even though the weather was a little unpredictable and rainy most of the time we were there, the kids loved it as usual.  Red and Tom Thumb read some books together up in their room in the attic---

and my older sister Lisa came over with my nieces and nephew one night.  Lots of Tinkertoy/Magnatile fun was had by all.

Since we returned yesterday we've been busy making a mummy as part of our Story of the World study!  Watch for a post on that soon. :-)

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

Red had a spring party yesterday which I coordinated with my friend the fabulous Maureen, who helped me back when we did the crazy gingerbread houses for the winter party.  We decided to go with a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme and it actually went pretty fantastic.

We started out by reading the kids the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which by the end they were all chanting together, "But he was still hungry!"

Then they had the three options to choose from---eat a snack, make a butterfly magnet or play the Feed the Hungry Caterpillar bean bag game that the Red, Tom Thumb, and I made together.

Maureen was in charge of making the snack which was Caterpillar Kabobs (skewers with green grapes and a strawberry head), cheese and crackers, and these darling caterpillar cupcakes she made.  Each of those little green segments is an individual cupcake.  I love it!  If you zoom in you can even see the little fuzzy caterpillar hairs (i.e. chocolate sprinkles) she put on the edge of each cupcake---just like the illustration from the book.

For the butterfly magnet craft we used glue, a clothespin, 1/2" pom poms, pipecleaners, a magnet, and tissue paper.  First, we had the kids take 1/3 of a pipecleaner, make it into the shape of a V, and glue it to the "head" (the top part of the clothespin that opens) for the butterfly's antennae.  Then they ran a bead of glue down the rest of that side of the clothespin and covered it with pom poms.  Then, they flipped it over and glued on the magnet.  Finally, we had them take precut pieces of tissue paper (about 4" x 6") and squish them in the center of the pincher part to be the wings.  Here are the colorful results---a whole flock of butterflies!

Finally, the kids and I made fruit beanbags out of felt before school this morning for the Feed the Hungry Caterpillar game. Here are Red and Tom Thumb stuffing them with navy beans.

Here's the caterpillar head I made out of red foam board and construction paper for them to feed the fruit.  

The game was a big hit!

So that was the last party of the school year.  Maureen and I had some good times, but I guarantee there will be no gingerbread houses for 1st grade...but maybe a butterfly or two.