Archive for May 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Seven! Oh My Heavens!

Vance turned 7 over the weekend. 

Seven! Can you believe it? I sure can't!

On the eve of the kid's birthdays we always sneak balloons into their room so that they wake up to them. Vance is old enough to expect them and was bummed the night before his birthday because we had been together the entire day and didn't stop to get balloons. He thought we had forgotten about them and was excited and surprised to find them in his room on his birthday. Silly boy, Mommy and Daddy are super sneaky! 


Baseball themed decorations were also waiting for him downstairs. 


As were mini cinni's.


From there on out he chose what we did for the rest of the day. First up? Bowling!


Then we headed to Chipotle for lunch, then back home to get ready to go to the pool. Sorry! No pictures of that!

He chose pizza for dinner (as he always does on his birthday)and chose Oreo brownies for dessert. (There's crushed Oreo's in the batter. I had every intention of decorating the brownies all fancy-like but ran out of time!) We then rounded out the evening with a movie.


What a great day! 

 Wonder what lucky number 7 will bring him this year?


More on this plus a birthday party wrap-up coming later!

Happy Wednesday everyone!




Friday, May 25, 2012

Intro to Summer!

The school bus came around the corner yesterday, horn-a-blazing. Everyone, including the bus driver, seemed to be excited about the last day of school. 

Vance brought home an awesome report card, Vaughn's teacher had nothing but great things to say about her during our parent-teacher conference, so I'm happy happy.

**Let's get this Summer started**

First up! Our Summer to-do List. This is the one from last summer. (This was an early picture of it - I think ended up crossing off everything except 5 or 6 of the activities listed. Pretty good!)


We've started our list for this summer, but don't have it done yet. It's looking pretty similar to this one so far.

Second up? Butter. As in, I was starting a batch of cookies this morning and realized that I'm all out. So me and my two associates will be making an unplanned and unwanted trip to the store this morning for butter.

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Anyone else working on a Summer List? Would love to hear about it! 

  

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Stinky Skirt

I was excited about his skirt when I bought it. 

It fit! It was comfortable! It had POCKETS!

(The pockets are the best part. Love em.)


I wore it once and noticed a funny smell. A funny chemical smell. 

It's not just me that noticed it. My mom and Justin could smell it too. I'm thinking this is my problem:


It was made in China. (I'm not saying all clothes made in China smell.) Obviously it's sprayed with something horrible. Maybe something about the dark denim wash? As I was Googling for answers that seemed to be a problem for many people. 

I have washed it twice, soaked it in vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice. When it gets hot the smell gets stronger. The smell as I was ironing it nearly knocked me over.

I'm clothes-poor and to finally find a skirt that fits and looks cute but I can't wear it is torture. 

Torture!

I'll keep trying to wash it, etc. but the smell is so strong and chemical-y, I don't think it's ever going to go away. Besides, I don't really think that having it next to my skin is a good idea.  

Let me know if you can sew - I'll send you my measurements. I want a skirt just like this without the smell!

(No, I never noticed it in the store. While shopping yesterday, you better believe I was smelled everything that I bought!)

Sheesh.

***************  
Wednesday's business: 

First of all, Happy Birthday to my mom and aunt today. Hope you ladies have a great day!

Second, I have a crazy long list of things to get done before the weekend hits. I don't think there's enough hours in the day, but we'll see. 

Here's to getting to it! Happy Wednesday!



Monday, May 21, 2012

Tiny Dancer

Nothing brings out Parental Fear like watching your kids on stage. Especially for the first time.  

This weekend Vaughn had her first ever dance recital.

Not knowing what she'd do or what she wouldn't do on stage was beyond nerve racking. There's a whopping 3 girls total in her class so there was no where to hide.

I'm proud to say that Vaughn did an amazing job! It was so much fun watching her. She knew the steps and did them so well! No stage fright or embarrassing moments, phew! 

*******

Here's our Tiny Dancer in her ballet outfit before the recital. On the car ride there she said, "I'm so excited!"



Here's one during her tap performance. Hard to see with all the bright lights, but there she is right in the middle, dancing her heart out to Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep us Together". Their ballet routine was to Barry Manilow's "I Don't Want to Walk Without You".   


Here she is afterwards with her well deserved medal and flowers. 


Great job Vaughnie Ballerina! Can't say it enough - we're so proud of you!

*******




Thursday, May 17, 2012

Current Project


This dresser is part of my current project. 

(I'm also working on the mirror that goes with it and a nightstand.) 

It was dark wood until I painted it black about 10 years ago and has been sitting in the basement for the past 4 years.

It's going to be for Vaughn's room but I can't decide what color to paint it. I'm leaning towards yellow.

(Her walls are white, bed is white, and her duvet is magenta-pink) 

Yesterday I hand sanded it. HAND sanded it because I discovered that our sander needed a new sanding pad and I didn't want to run to the store. 

How about it? Are you thinking yellow too?

Anyone? Anyone?

Today I'm priming everything and hopefully painting on Friday. If I can decide on a color.  

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mini Princess Cakes









I have this cake pan:

Source
I lack any cake decorating skills so mine never look like this:
Source
Funny thing, there's not much you can do with these cakes if you don't have mad decorating skills. I've tried icing around the tiers, but they end up looking like blobs. 

So the cake pan just sits and sits and sits. 

Until one day I had a brilliant idea.

***Mini Princess Cakes!***

The tiered cakes are the perfect size to become dresses for the mini princess dolls that my daughter loves to play with and kudos to me for figuring this all out with just enough time to execute them for her 4th birthday. Phew! Here goes! 

First, bake the cakes.


Second, ice the cakes. 


Tip! I started with white pre-made icing and used gel food coloring. Since I didn't know how much I'd need for each "dress" and I didn't want to waste icing, I started with one color, in this case, blue. After icing the blue dress, I added more white icing to the bowl, then added red coloring. Blue and red make purple. When I was done with the purple I added more white icing which made a lighter purple for another dress. After that one I added more blue to make the darker blue of Ariel's dress. By doing this I didn't waste any icing and all my colors coordinated. Except poor Belle.

My technique, if you can call it that, was to pile on too much icing to the top, then using a small offset spatula, pull down until everything was covered.

Third, stick the dolls in. 
(Of course you will pre-wash them and tie Rapunzel's hair up.) Just push them straight down and through the center. 

Fourth, decorate to your hearts content.

Here's each of mine:

Ariel

 Tiana

 Rapunzel (rockin' a beehive up-do)

 Cinderella

 Belle. Belle suffered a few injuries when I accidentally dropped her when transferring onto the cake plate. Oops.


 Because I couldn't find any of the other princess dolls around the house, Pascal worked perfectly. When it was time to sing I moved him to the side to look as if he was climbing up and put a candle on top. Perfect!

The Happy Birthday Girl: At first confused to what I had done with her dolls, then after I explained the dresses were cake she was all for it. 

These were easier than I thought they'd be. I'm happy to have found another use for this cake pan. Hopefully one day I'll have the skills to decorate these little cakes the way they should. Until then, I'll have to keep coming up with new ideas! Ant hills? Volcanoes?....


Thursday, May 10, 2012

MacGuyver Squirrels

Do your squirrels dismantle bird feeders? 

Ours do. They MacGyver'd it completely apart to get the food. 


Sadly, we had to throw it away and now the birds are surly.

The cardinals have been giving me the stink eye and I won't even mention what the finch's have done. 

********************
Vaughn had her 4 year old check-up yesterday and it's confirmed that The Big Lady is still The Big Lady.

She's measuring into the 90th percentile for weight and height, dropping a few percentage points from her last check-up. I think she was around 94% last time. Everything else looks great and unfortunately, no, there is no shot or pill to cure the unfortunately-sometimes-less-than-pleasing-behavior of a 4 year old. 

Darn. 

But you know what? Today is Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday, so that's good. 

Happy Thursday everyone!

Today's agenda? I'll be assembling favor boxes for Vance's friend birthday party that's going down on Friday night. They're not as fancy as last year's Super Mario party, but still fun.

What are you up to today? 


Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Respectable Parent Costume

Today I'm putting on my Respectable Parent costume and helping out with part of Teacher Appreciation week in Vance's classroom. My youngest associate will be shadowing me, let's hope she doesn't do anything...well, un-respectable. 


After that we'll be heading to Vaughn's 4 year old check-up with her doctor where I'll be demanding to know where in the world the Terrible Four's are coming from. We've experienced the Terrible Two's. We're also quite fluent in the Terrible Three's. I thought we had paid our dues. I'm sure there's a shot or a pill that makes this questionable behavior all go away. 

*************** 

Today my Birthday Bubbles post is being featured over at Daily Buzz Moms. Head on over to see that as well as some other Birthday Fun ideas!

It's Wednesday! Have a great day!

Monday, May 07, 2012

Birthday Bubbles!


I usually send in cupcakes or cookies to school when it's one of the kid's birthdays. This year I changed it up because of all the different food allergies and eating habits of the kids in Vaughn's class. I wanted everyone to be able to join in the fun of celebrating her birthday. 

Vaughn loves bubbles and at the dollar store they can be bought 3 for $1. Score!

I decided to "fancy" them up by making new labels.


Print and cut them out, making sure to measure the bottle so they'll fit. 


I took the old labels off and used a glue stick to adhere the new labels. Vaughn, being a fancy girl, wanted to make them a little more, well...fancy! 


Butterflies!

Vaughn loves butterflies and before we talked to her teachers and were planning on going the cupcake route, she wanted butterflies to be on top. So, after deciding to not bring in food I figured there still has to be way to incorporate butterflies. We found 3-D butterfly stickers at a craft store, in the scrapbooking aisle. Perfect!


Beautiful, butterfly, bubbles from the birthday girl. 

They were a hit with the kids in class, her teachers, and were cheaper than sending in cupcakes. A win-win-win! 



Linking up to these great parties this week!
Oh, and Guess What? Daily Buzz Mom's included this in their Birthday Fun 9x9! Click HERE to take a look!



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