A Gruffalo Party.

A Gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo?

A Gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?

He has knobbly knees and turned out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose...

Go get the book to hear the rest of this darling story by Julia Donaldson. It originated in England and Nana Judie brought it back for the boys after her trip there a couple of years ago. It's been a favorite ever since. I love doing parties based on children's books. So easy to come up with fun and unique ideas (and by come up with ideas, of course I mean search Pinterest).

The Invitation:

I used Picmonkey.com to create these. I have zero graphic design skills let alone any software to do it in. So this is my own way around that. Copy and paste images from google onto a white background, upload that to picmonkey and add whatever writing you want in one of their adorable fonts, then print it out onto cardstock. I know I'm reinventing the wheel here. I just have no clue how to do it any other way and this is pretty darn simple. (Please share if there's some kind of free site for this sort of thing!!)

Last year was the first year Bennett had a "friends" party and I asked you guys what in the world you do when you have lots of family in town and don't necessarily want to combine the two parties. Last year we did parties on two separate weekends but that was way too much work. This year I decided to have his friends over in the afternoon, leave an hour gap and then have our family over. It worked really well. I kept the first party to an hour and a half so we weren't totally burnt out by the end of the day.

We started the first party by letting them watch The Gruffalo on DVD. It's only about 35 min. so it was perfect and kept those crazies contained and quiet for a bit :) Have you had six 6 and 7 year old boys in your house at once before without their parents nearby? Holy cow. The volume was cranked and the potty jokes were rolling. I was thankful I only had to listen to them for an hour. (I used to think I would have made a great Elementary school teacher. This hour alone changed my mind on that. Ok...I'm mostly kidding. Mostly.)

This would all make a lot more sense to you if you've read the book, but nevertheless, Scrambled Snake cupcakes for the first party (made by Judie. That's a recurring theme here.) She and I did all the signs together.We got the fonts from picmonkey.com and then just copied and pasted everything in Microsoft Publisher and printed on cardstock. Email me if you want my ridiculous, figure-it-out-as-I-go-along step-by-step instructions. Or don't. 

 A bowl of poisonous warts on the left:

 Applesauce with granola on top for Gruffalo Crumble (similar idea here):

We kept it nice and simple for the first party. The Owl Ice Cream supplies were on the left. Birch tree background painted on brown kraft paper by Judie. Scrapbook paper bunting is my favorite party decoration. Super easy and so fun to customize for whatever the theme. Throw in some logs from our log pile and a little moss for the finishing touch:

By the look on Bennett's face, you'd think this was a Rolex watch. Nope. A spinbrush. Score.

The thought of running organized games at a party makes me want to cry for some reason. So we stuck with craft time instead. Surprisingly, they got really in to the Gruffalo puppet making. (Phew...that was a risky choice with this bunch.)

"His eyes are orange, his tongue is black, he's got purple prickles all over his back..."

 Crazytown.

For the second party, we switched out the cupcakes for this adorable tree log cake (again, made by Judie): 

We did dinner for the family party. In true British fashion, sausage rolls became our Scrambled Snake (idea from here):

We kept it super simple with hot dogs and potato chips and carrots and dip. I just did not have much prep time at all for this party (we were out of town the week before) and even though I always want to make homemade sides, time did not permit. I was very thankful I let it go and took the easy way out. It was a big weight lifted.

My adorable niece, Piper, showing off the Owl Ice Cream:

We didn't watch the movie at the second party so Nana read the story to this enraptured bunch. I always do story time at their parties. Again, its my copout so I don't have to plan any games. 

Aside from the candy (from here), it was a little difficult to come up with stuff for the goodie bags that fit the theme (at least that I could find at Target a couple days before...). So just go with it:

Again, goodie bag "labels" made with a combo of Picmonkey and Publisher, all just printed on cardstock and cut out and glued on:

My niece, Quinn:

A gigantic THANK-YOU to my mother-in-law, Judie, who put in so. much. work. for his party this year. She is such a blessing to me and never would I ever be able to pull off such cute parties without her!
For past parties I've done, start here.

summer storms, birthday disasters and other random happenings

This post is going to be a catch-all. The junk drawer, if you will. A compilation of several pictures over the last couple of months that have no other place to land but here. So here we go.

I'm not sure how I got these next two photos to happen but I absolutely adore them. I'm sure there was some bribing involved. There usually is if everyone is smiling at the camera. I know I'm their mom but I can't take the cuteness.

Bennett had been begging me to buy cherries for a while so I did. And then I took his picture because cherries are cute. He lost interest in them after a couple helpings. And turns out I'm allergic to them. Boo. (Along with raw apples, sugar snap peas, plums....so weird all of these adult allergies I keep gaining. Anyone else??) So we're over cherries.

One night, driving home from my in-law's, the clouds were the most breathtaking thing I'd ever seen in Iowa. I put the boys to bed when I got home and I kept running out of the house to snap more photos as the sun was setting. This was the sky from every angle. I am sort of obsessed with sky- the moon, clouds, sunsets, all of it. It just never ceases to amaze  me. I'm thankful that even in the most un-scenic flatlands of Iowa, we still get to enjoy jaw-dropping beauty from our creator in the sky. (P.S. I just realized the East and South are mixed up. But I'm up too late and not going to go back and edit. Just had to point that out before my husband did ;)

Of course the boys weren't staying in bed and followed me outside. I promise you I did not tell them to reach their hands longingly toward the heavens. That dynamite pose was all them. You're welcome. I should slap some Bible verse on there and it could make big bucks in the art department of a Christian bookstore.

 I also didn't tell them to hug. Goodness gracious, they can be so sweet.

And then Bennett went ahead and turned six on me. Serious heartbreaker, that one. In my mind, that's the official "kid" age. We've left all the adorable baby, preschooler and kindergartner ages behind and now he's just a kid. A wild and crazy kid who thinks potty humor is the most compelling dinner conversation and who now officially has a "crush" on a girl. I remember walking past the big boy clothing department in Von Maur a few years ago. It made me so sad and I thought to myself, "I don't ever want to have a boy who fits into those clothes". Welp, like it or not we have outgrown every size that Baby Gap carries. We were hanging on by a thread with their shoes but no more. Big boy department for life. (I'm not ever actually going to have a son that shops in the men's department, am I? Please don't tell me that's actually going to happen.) 

Birthday week started out with the anticipated trip to the grocery store for the cereal of his choice. I love this tradition since it just stretches the whole celebration out longer. 

His actual birthday was on Thursday. I had visions of last year's perfect day in my mind. I love to do stuff to make that day feel special, since his party wasn't until Saturday. Well, real life intervened and it ended up being a total bomb. It started the night before when I was up til 2am. (Dawson had a horrible cough and couldn't sleep until I finally drugged him up out of sleep-deprived desperation.) I let the boys watch TV that morning so I could sleep in a little bit. I was already behind on sleep and knew I couldn't function on 5 hours (I know...I'm a wuss about my sleep.) So at 9am I came down to this: 

Dawson threw half a bag of Craisins around the room (birthday confetti??) and dumped the remains of Bennett's cereal bowl on the table and rubbed that around for good measure. (me: "Why did you have your bowl of cereal in the living room???" Bennett: "Because it's my birthday and I wanted to eat it on the couch!" me: .... Whatever.) Oh, and Dawson ate about a dozen hershey kisses and half a container of that store bought cotton candy. Why the H - E - double hockey sticks we still had that in our pantry is beyond me.

So literally our entire morning was spent cleaning that up. I suppose I could have quickly cleaned the entire mess up myself and just marked another tally in the "parenting fail" category (what's one more, really??) but in the moment I thought it was more important to have Dawson clean up the mess he made. And if you've never had a strong-willed child, then you probably won't be able to fathom the fun that was.

My mother-in-law had agreed to come watch the little ones while I took Bennett out for something fun, just the two of us. We got off to a late start and only had a couple hours. He really wanted pizza and I was wracking my brain to come up with a fun activity to do together and decided to take him to an arcade. Well, I drove out to my favorite pizza place near our huge mall and it was out of business. I drove him to a restaurant nearby and tried to talk him into something different but he insisted on pizza. Ok, Plan C....mall food court. At least I can eat Chick-fil-A. He got a meal deal with mac & cheese on the side and blue Gatorade. I gritted my teeth and said, "sure! Eat all the crap you want! Its your birthday!". (I didn't really say that.) He was thrilled :) Side note, Bennett's had a dairy allergy for a long time (used to give him terrible eczema and now usually gives him diarrhea if he has too much at once). I let him splurge occasionally and we just go with the flow. Sorry. That was gross.

So we hit the arcade after lunch. Genius mom didn't think about the fact that you need cash for an arcade. I had none. I also don't know the pin number to my debit card. We had to drive all the way to the nearest Target and make a purchase so I could take cash out.

Then back to the arcade we went, with about 15 minutes left to spare. The first game we tried was a two player game but one of the guns wasn't working. Bennett was yelling at me to shoot something and I was trying to tell him my gun wasn't working and then the machine was asking for more money and I put more in and then Bennett was yelling at me again and crying and I was trying to calm him down and it was madness. First born son is a bit competitive and was NOT happy he couldn't shoot the skeleton in the pirate ship. So 30 seconds and $2 later, we moved on to a couple more games. Well, Bennett was already so upset, I'm pretty sure those other two games ended in tears too. I'm not sure what he expected but it wasn't THAT. So in order to rectify a disastrous birthday date, we ran to Cold Stone for ice cream, asked a random teenage girl to take our picture and then sped home to relieve Judie. We should have just gone mini golfing. I could have at least let him beat me.

That night before bed he threw up. Happy, birthday, son. Your mom tried. 

We made up for it the next day. Jon took the day off work, Nana had the little boys and we went to our local amusement park, just the three of us. There were no tears and no barfing, so it was a success. 

Bennett rode his very first upside-down roller coaster! My heart swelled with pride :) I'm a roller coaster junkie but didn't even do an upside-down one til I was 11 or 12!

 This looks like more fun than it actually was:  
 Doing some kind of jig over the bridge:

 Free arcade games that didn't involve skeletons in pirate ships:

 Boys and their guns. Seriously serious business:

And that's a wrap. Party post coming soon.

TN/FL

Sorry for my absence around here lately. When the blog is quiet, that usually means life is loud. And boy has it ever been. I really wanted to get a post in before we left on a week long trip last week but that didn't happen. Jon was out of town the two days before we left so...yeah. Things were a bit stressful leading up to it. We got back this past Thursday night and then I left Friday afternoon for a quick girl's night away with a couple good friends. (Somehow I managed to get a vacation after the vacation. Lucked out with that one.) So anyway, I'm just way behind on life right now. You should see my house. Its ugly. And it makes me want to cry. And we have a birthday party this weekend. I'm going to change the subject now. 

We left Channing with my parents in Memphis and took the big boys to Orlando. We had a free 3 night stay in a pretty nice resort and since my uncle works at Disney and gets us in free (I know, I know. Don't hate.), it was a relatively cheap vacay. And holy cow....it was SOOO nice traveling with just the two of them. I started a 640 page book after we left Channing (I can't read anything of substance when he's in the car) and finished the entire thing before we were home. It was like this giant sigh of relief, like, ok, life is going to get easier again in about two more years. I'm just going to say it. Traveling with a one year old just kinda sucks. My kids somehow defy the laws of universe and do not sleep in the car. Channing literally had one 20 minute nap on the 10 hour drive home. The only reason he slept a little more than that on the way down was because of a raging fever. I literally made Jon stop the car and trade places with me at one point because I was LOSING MY MIND. It was pretty horrible. But I love to travel and am willing to take the bad with the good. And duh, who can pass up free Disney??

We skipped out on Magic Kingdom this time and just did the other three parks. These next two pictures were after a ride in Epcot called Test Track and it was basically a giant photo booth set up (sponsored by Chevrolet, obvs) and we had a ton of fun with it. It made the hour and a half wait with an exhausted 3 year old *almost* bearable.

So back to traveling with just the big boys, I think we were just so darn giddy about how free we felt, not weighed down by a stroller and diaper bag and fill-in-the-blank with ten more things, we didn't even want to lug our fancy camera around. So honestly, this is kind of a pitiful post with only pictures from my sad not-an-iPhone camera. I only picked up my nice camera twice the entire time. I'm only a little sorry about it.
We drove to Clearwater beach on Memorial Day. We figured that was the better option than doing Disney that day. It was a toss-up. Let's just say we had a much better time the last time we were on that beach. But hey, better there than stuck in the Midwest during the week long deluge they were getting. I will take a crowded beach over wet and cold and dreary any day. Unless we had our one year old at the beach... Ok, moving on.

Oh, and side note. Have you ever been to Sweet Tomatoes?? Oh. My. Word. That was my absolute favorite casual dining experience I've ever had. An unlimited buffet but with healthy, made from scratch food?? I died. And Jon laughed at me because he doesn't care about food. A sad sad life to live. 

1. early morning quiet on our screened in porch 2. undivided daddy time 3. Lambert's "throwed rolls" Cafe in Missouri. Such a strange and hilarious experience. 4. our cute chauffeur who drove all 44+ hours (minus 45 min. when I lost my mind and made him trade)

Reunited with my babe when we got back to Tennessee. He was such a good boy while we were gone and spent a lot of time in their pool:

We stayed two nights there to break up the trip on the way home and to have extra time with my parents. We took the boys to the zoo since Jon hadn't been to that one yet. It was hot and fun.

He had a blast. Just took him a lot longer than Bennett to get over the fact that all the other kid's parents knew to pack their bathing suits. The fun eventually outweighed his humiliation. 

And I don't know why but I just love this next picture :) 

And here are the two times I grabbed my real camera. By the time I got it out and took the picture, his nap was over ;)

We stopped in Atlanta on the way home from Orlando and met up with Jon's best friend for lunch. We stumbled upon this gorgeous park in the city. It was the perfect spot for the boys to run around for an hour (and terrorize the local geese). I just couldn't stop saying how gorgeous it was. The trees!

Such a fun trip for all of us. I'm beyond thankful for the opportunities we have for travel and adventure. And we can't bear to put it off for a few more years when it'll be much easier. Its worth it now, to endure a few hours of torture in the van ;) Call me crazy. I'm strongly considering some children's Benedryl for our next trip though...