Just a taste of the fun to come!

Im a party planner, I love parties, I would literally throw a party everyday if I knew my husband wouldnt leave me for it ;) So when I got pregnant with our fourth child, my little Danger, I was informed it was 'selfish' to throw a baby shower for my bump (IM just going to toss it out there I think it was just because my SIL was pregnant at the time with triplets and my MIL thought she should have the whole lime light... and the lemon light if I must stew) but anyways back to my story. I was shattered when she said this, and it may have been the hormones or it could have been that I had been planning in my head a super baby shower since we knew for sure this was going to be our last one... so I sat back, not even invited to help her throw my SIL a baby shower (by a woman who HATES parties) My BFF wanted to throw me a secret shower but never got around to it so I feel like Carson got jipped. Now im not being selfish or greedy, its not about gifts it about getting together with your friends one last time before you pop out another one and cant leave the house for 6 months ;) My other showers, the ones I planned were not about gifts, with my daughter we asked everyone to bring their favorite childhood book with a note in the cover for her, with my Coco we had a scrapbook party and it was a diapers only shower and it really caught me up on my lack of scrapping since the 3rd one. But my glory was going to be this last shower, this last celebrate a baby glory, was going to be a blanket shower where I was going to ask everyone to bring a blanket to donate to the local children's hosp. I was going to be have "sung as a bug" theme. (With hungry little caterpillar as my scape) so needless to say because I was told that a 4th baby shower was selfish, poor Carson has a blank spot in his baby book, empty pages where a baby shower was suppose to go... poor poor Carson... HOWEVER I am super mom, i figure fine he didnt get a baby shower he sure is going to get the biggest 1st birthday bash I can come up with so here is the invite, the first glimpse into the grandness that will be Carsons first birthday bash!

The art of giving gifts

There is an art to giving gifts... I should know im a very good gift giver but alas not so much of a reciever. I dont mean to be a bad reciever, I do say thank you and smile and write a fancy thank you card but sometimes its my own way of showing people how its done. (please tell me im not the only one who does this) When picking out a gift for someone you have to let go of who you are, not forever just for the deration of the shopping. If you see something cute that you love buy it... for yourself. You can not change someone with a gift. A gift is something you are giving some one to make THEM happy. So when you buy someone who lives in white tshirts and carheart pants (my husband) a bright red golfing polo (MIL) in hopes that they will put down their wrenches and car parts.. your really just trying to change them on a public platform where they have to smile and say thank you, its a waste of money and thought. I dont mean to have to write a blog about it but its my blog and ill vent if I want to (insert me sticking my tounge out here) So in responce we made a really cute flower pot thank you card that pops up and has a seed packet, why you ask, because she is a advid gardener. She loves planting, pruning, basketing (yes pictures that one house in the neighborhood that looks like a pretty little jungle covered in plants, thats her) I on the other hand can not even keep my weeds alive, I dont buy flowers, I dont water flowers and I dont get sad that my husband has never brought me home roses, im not a flowerer person. See what im getting at? A gift is a gift to make someone happy, to let them know you know them, you love them for them. So when I went to make a baby gift for my buddy who just had her first baby girl (she already has two boys, well 3 if you count her child husband ;) ) I didnt bat an eye and went stright for the black and pink and skulls. Thats who they are they are not I love Mommy pink bunny people they are punky funky black and pink and skulls kinda people. And I was just amazed how many people were offended that a baby gift could include anything other then pink and flowery and soft. But a gift is a gift to a person I love... and she is the going to be the cutest little punker baby at the play park ;) So remember when picking out a gift, its not for you its for them so pick something you know they will truely love, because its YOU showing THEM that You love THEM for being THEM.!

Ben 10 birthday pictures

I still can not beleive my cute fat sweet ball of baby turned into an independed carring skinny 7 year old on monday. He started life out like this
A cute hamalious NEVER EVER cried brown eyes love bug. And we have been so blessed with watching all of that turn into this.
I know I said it before but I can not beleive he is 7... its like not even kid anymore, its like big kid, its like the roll his eyes when I think im being funny, to old to kiss me at school, nose stuck in the DS old.... im not gunna lie make me a little teary :( BUT its not im into girls yet old so im good :)
So for this big kids birthday party (althought we invited the whole class and no one showed up... but thats another blog on its way!!) It turned out pretty great concidering I could not even come up with lame ideas in the weeks before because its hard to do aleins, and we are not talking little green men we are talkin HUMUNGASAUR..Echo Echo...Swampfire... those aleins are to complicated, so I failed in the creative show themed way but generic junk turned out better then I hoped!




The goody bags were kinda fun we made coloring books (i tutorualed about it) a pin on Ben 10 patch, a key chain (I got a bunch from OTC and they are an awesome fall back, and Justin made book marks.. which turned out cute. The bags doubled as a pinata bag, which I made out of cardboard and tissue paper!


The kids played Ben Ben alien (but just because they say they know how to play duck duck goose DOES NOT mean they really do) I stuffed 75 ballons with candy and charater cards and blew them up... they had to find ben, whoever found him started the next game. Then we had a sock war, which I think was the high light of the party, the kids loved it and it was so funny to watch they played a bunch of rounds of that then went for the junk food table ;)



So happy birthday to my big fat 7 year old...you will always be my baby.. my cute fat giggly bundle of blue...tear ;( being a parent is hard.

note card color book tutorial

For teacher week we made our wonderful teachers From the desk of Stationary it was so cheap easy and fast I decided to use the concept and make color books for Justin's up coming party goody bags. He was totally into Ben 10 this last year, was Ben 10 for Halloween and totally set on a Ben 10 7th birthday party... only now Ben 10 isn't as 'in' as Mario and bay blades but he still keeps saying he wants the Ben 10 party so a Ben 10 party he shall get! (Ps I love Ben 10.. I even watch it when the kids are not around..its a great boy cartoon) The only issues is apparently not many party planning moms post about their awesome Ben 10 parties because all my searches turned up lame. And other then napkins they dint really have much 'party related paraphernalia' out. So here is how I made my own Ben 10 coloring books.

Material:
Blank note cards (mine were 4x6 I couldn't find 5x7)
clamps
rubber cement

Step one get online and find printable color pages, they are EVERYWHERE. Print off some cute ones, I even made a cute cover page.


Clamp them together, I clamped 10 together at once and it worked out easier then a book at a time. We made 100 page stationary for our teachers and I think the more you do together the better they turn out.


After you stack and clamp them all together apply a few coats thru out the day of rubber cement. I did 7 layers through out the day not always letting them dry all the way in between. It evens itself out so it pretty foul proof.


After it drys it was
still a little sticky to touch so I sprinkled baby powder on it, problem fixed.

Tare apart into separated books and there ya have it!



Stay tunes for more Ben 10 goodness coming up!


I linked my funness up to these parties: cheack them out for some awesome inspiration!

Day early teacher gifts, note pads

Wednesday was a dumb day the sun was shining and it was almost warm but my looser husband had to pull a sick day on his day off (ok ok he isnt a looser but him being sick was dumb) I shoveled and racked up dirt for 6 hours, in between taking and picking kids up from school and not sleeping well because Im a procrastinator. (ur neighbors dog jumped the fence and attacked our dog so we had to build a bigger fence which ruined our yard two weeks before we throw a huge party...) So im tied and cranky but i didn't have time to get the gift cards for justins teachers gifts so we had to make Fridays gift early... which i didnt plan well.. so it was another late night, but they turned out cute. I will have a tutorial this weekend

Teacher Appreciation Wednesday

So we have been making and bringing our teacher some really fun stuff all week. Monday it was jazzy scissors, Tuesday it was these yummy choco dipped 'so fortune it to have you' cookies in (Easter take out containers I found at target for .25 cents and just covered with a printable I found online) Today was my favorite thing we have made so far. I found a printable (I promise I will find it and link to you once I find out twhere I got it) anyways I found this cute printable that said thank you for helping (insert name here) bloom. I had originally pictured my kids taking in bright Gerber daisy's but then it occur ed to me this weekend that 1. maybe the teachers are like me and kill every outside living thing or 2. Every kid in the class decides to thank them that way and they end up with 30 plans (since I know most of them live in apartment I figured this wasn't Ideal) at that exact moment I was visualizing an over run jungle apartment my daughter bounced in needing help with her head band... her very cute flower head band...her i snatched it off her head because i got an aww haaa moment flower head band and very quickly came up with these (PS no daughters were hurt in the making of this blog ;) )
I got my supplies: Fake flowers, clothing pins, scrappy paper, modge podge and magnetic paper.


I traced and cut out paper (green for the steam) and modpodged them on (side note, seems i ran out of white glue) then I cut and super glued magnetic paper strips to the back of the clip. like this:


Next i realized it wouldn't work... sad face... I couldn't figure out how to get these really cute Gerber daisy flowers to stick, I tried hot glue, they looked bulky and lopsided... i tried bonding stuff from my husbands tool box, still a no go... i cried.. i ate half a bag of chocolate chip... i then remembered some straws my cousin picked up at the dollar store and ran for my office. (I was so excited I forgot to take picture of the straws before I took them apart.

I had my kids cute out 'flower pots' and we glues them together like a card:
My daughter loves to modge podge, like sees the bottle and gets excited.. so cute ;)


We made a cut to clip the clips to so the looked like they were in the pot like so:
And after I had my little panic attack and then my aww ha moment here is what we have

Cute then magnetic flower clips for the fridge or files. (those flowers were pop out honey combed flowers that were taped to straws, $1 at the dollar tree for a pack of 18)

Justin has two teachers, and Brooklyn has 3 AND a student teacher.. so we looked a little like that over grown jungle house I mentioned earlier..



Just in case my Tuesday treat discription wants enough for you here is a picture of our chocolate yummyness

How are you? #40

These make mothers day happy times ;)

I feel bad that I have been advoiding my blog... latly I have been unmotovated to share.. and unmotovated to do anything... I think I really just need some sun..
So head on over to Night Owl Crafting and play along, I love reading about everyone else..., people can be fasinating ;)







1. Are you a mom and if so how many kids do you have?
I am a mom. I have 4 kids, Justin, Brooklyn, Colton, and Carson.
2. List 3 qualities that you love about your mom!
Dependable, energetic and crafty ;)
3. What is your favorite thing your mother cooks?
she use to make me pigs in a blanket... my favorite childhood food for sure!
4. What do you love about being a mom?
Being the boss ;) jk I love watcching these kids turn into great people
5. What are your plans for Mother's day?
I plan on making the kids a HUGE swing set in the back yard, might sound like work to most people but im so excited I can hardly sleep ;)