Sixth Birthday Penguin Party

Jeff thinks I was the mastermind behind the theme, but Christopher LOVES his "Flippers" penguin and came up with the theme. I just HAPPENED to have seen Janet make a reference to Paper Capers where the mom put on an absolutely fabulous, over-the-top penguin party. So we borrowed most of her ideas and came up with one or two of our own:)



First up in the photo above is Flippers himself, the inspiration behind the party. The one and only time I've ever caved in at checkout at the grocery store:) You can see the stuffed animal section of the florist area from checkout... Then of course is Christopher with his igloo cake. He chose Pillsbury Funfetti cake and we filled the center with vanilla ice cream and frosted with marshmallow frosting (otherwise known as 7-minute frosting). The little penguins are made from black olives (tutorial on Paper Capers site linked above). Then there's me patting William to sleep in his "I'm grumpy and no other position will do" pose:) This photo is included to show you that I have penguin pajama pants a la JCPenneys and I WORE THEM to both parties, lol!:)



First up here we have the gorgeous paper snowflakes Mom made for us to hang on the front room window and living room window for decoration at the party. I'm leaving them up through March, I think:) Not that I don't want spring, but they look awfully cool from the street! Mom also lent us the large penguin in the next picture, the (antique) sugar bowl in which we put goldfish crackers (penguins eat fish you know) and also all the snowflake and penguin tablecloths. 3rd photo is the cake

Next row Christopher and Jeff begin assembling one of a few Lego sets received, next two are Michael leaping IN THE AIR in Jeff's photos. The boys at Christopher's classmate party (mostly not posted b/c don't have parents' permission) spent the last 20 minutes or so playing Wii b/c one boy noticed it and asked and we were out of games, lol. Michael is pretending/confused that he is actually playing, not just watching and holding a spare controller. He kept yelling, "I won, I won!" :)

3rd row: Cream cheese igloo...DIVINE! Love it on the Pepperidge Farms Harvest Wheat crackers (OMG the crackers are delicious alone, too!). Recipe also on Paper Capers blog...I used goat, not Feta, though I like it also. Next is our friend's silly son/alien;) And last are some of the many boys playing at the party.

Whew!

Cold, Wet, Rainy Friday

In addition to a bunch of errands, I spent part of my day making a double batch of chili for the PTO fall social at Christopher's school this evening. We had a good time trying some different soups, the kids enjoyed the hot dogs and lemonade, and of course Christopher ended up with a couple too many desserts:)

I did have a minute to put the finishing touches on my latest layout:


This one was fun! Yin has some great sketches (for paper scrappers) and .psd layered templates of her sketches (for digi scrappers)...some are free, others are in her related blog store.
I like them for the pages that I want to include TONS of photos:)

I rarely purchase specific birthday related scrapbooking supplies, paper or digi. Christopher's pirate-themed party lended itself more to pirate/Halloween items than birthday...but for this generic party at preschool I really had to dig and was glad I had all my digi supplies organized in ACDSee Photo Manager (also great for photo managing and organizing, obviously). The only new thing I had to buy was the candle flames...what's a birthday candle without the flame?!

Journaling: Birthdays are a big deal at a Waldorf preschool, and rightly so. Parents and siblings are invited to come for the day and enjoy all the usual and special activities. I helped the children make yarn fiber tied balls, Christopher played with everyone, especially Daniel, Michael played with the kitchen, the gnomes, and checked out the “vacuumie”, and Jeff took lots of pictures.
Yin template
Sarah Batdorf Birthday Wishes circle/target
Valerie Randall Assemble Your Own Birthday Candles (5 candle and all the flames)
Thao Cosgrove Beautiful Distress Brush Set (white brushwork behind title), rectangle words from her Friendship and Merry Mine collections
Brandy Hackman brads
Sara Carling brad and leather circle tags (Aero collection)
Mary Ann Wise 2 peas Party Hat freebie collection candle paper (recolored)
Dani Mogstad Cabana Boy "play" tag
Cari Lopez "Exotic Bag" candles
Chatterbox Fingerpaint font
Miss Mint "play time" tag

TFL,
Cheri

Birthday Fireball aka. "what NOT to do!"

We went to my aunt's surprise 60th birthday party at
my cousin's home a few weeks ago.
Aunt Diane had NO freaking clue until she saw
a couple cars in the driveway that looked familiar
(they told her to expect the neighbors' cars in the
driveway), but still had no idea how many of us would
be there hiding in the basement to jump out at her!

Btw, don't put 60 candles all to one side of the
cake...it becomes an enormous fireball, sets off the
smoke detectors, makes the kids all run for the exits
screaming WE GOTTA GET OUTA HERE, and you ruin a
perfectly good glass of beer extinguishing the
candles, not to mention melting another plastic cup.
Yikes! Then you freeze b/c you gotta open the windows
for awhile to let the smoke out.

Actually that just made the party all the more fun. I had
to poke a little fun at Dad. He just stood back watching
the events play out with the fire. I guess when he retired
from volunteer firefighting, he really retired! My guess is
he'd have whipped out his cell and been the first to dial 911
if it had truly gotten out of hand.

The kids had a fun time too, including a dip in the hot tub
and I got to catch up with my two younger cousins who are at the
University of Iowa (where I went) and have taken
several of the same classes I did.

All photos taken by DH:)

Have a great day!

Pirate Party (scrapbooked already)

LivE designs: 9-piece template
SweetShoppe_hroselli Yo Ho Ho collection
R Young skull and crossbones paper (free from her blog)
Gunhild Storeide folded frame (freebie)
Arrr Matey font
Katie Pertiet paper curl
invitation made by me using the Yo Ho Ho collection above
I burned the edges of the journaling blocks inside the folded frame
I used the pen tool to extract the pirate sword and the photo of my son to pop it forward out of the frame. I also made the sword into a custom shape and applied the silver style to it. TFL!

Pirate Party

Christopher is a big five years old today! We had his party a week ago on the weekend as I had/have to work last weekend and this. He is "in" to pirates right now, mostly thanks to Scooby Doo Pirates Ahoy. He has also loved a few pirate books from the library, including How I Became a Pirate It was fun doing a "real" theme party:) Michael's party was loosely based on Scooby, but we went all-out for the pirate thing.

Christopher has a pirate coloring book, so we taped up pictures he had colored. We hung black netting from some picture frames in our living room for the nautical theme. I ordered a paper pirate treasure chest and filled it with chocolate and plastic gold & silver coins, pirate eye patches, pirate hats, candy, and geodes for the party favors. C got his own special fabric pirate hat, two plastic pirate swords (which he is sporting in his mouth, true pirate style) He also has a "hook" hand, and wears one rainboot for his peg leg.

Food included an awesome, awesome 3-layer pirate ship birthday cake (from Hy-Vee), carrot "doubloons", pineapple and cheddar "gold chunks", Pirate Booty brand (yes there really is such a thing) air puffs in both white cheddar and mango flavors, other assorted fruits, and fried chicken (pirates love to gnaw on chicken legs you know...that was in the aforementioned book).

And some of the gifts were quite apropos as well. Jeff found an older LEGO pirate ship on Ebay (I'll see if he has a link to a pic, otherwise I can upload my pics of C's). It was a very piraty sort of day:)

Make a Wish

It's week 2 over at Now We're Rocking with Photoshop over at www.jessicasprague.com:


Suppklies: KPertiet: red Cotton Easter (recolored orange), King Me (stripes), Graph Notes Paper, Stick Pin Round Tag, & GraphicSunPrintsOV-4a (screened to omit black sections we recolored)
JSprague grunge mask and circular template with journaling area
Asman, Selfish, and Century Gothic fonts

I am learning so many cool things in this class! Whee!! This might be the fastest I've ever scrapbooked a set of birthday photos too:)

Somebody Just Turned Two!

Michael's 2nd birthday was Saturday! We celebrated with a Scooby-themed party (he loves dogs and since he has an older brother, catches just enough TV that he has become enamored with Scooby Doo). All Michael's favorite people were there (well, except Santa, lol). The party was at 3:00 so some friends of ours could come, and we found out how long Michael can go without a nap. And hey, he was in remarkably good spirits for being tired. He finally sacked out in my lap right in the middle of the party, around 5:30. Luckily he'd already done cake, ice cream, and presents, so the only thing he missed was the pizza:)