Birthday Boys!

Saturday was the big shindig for the boys’ 1st and 3rd birthdays. Everything came together pretty much as I had planned, with lots of help from Justin and my in-laws. And, it was fun! A bit chaotic and messy, but I suppose that’s all you can expect from a party for 2 little kids.

The theme was “construction”, which I promptly searched on Pinterest, and found all of my ideas. My goal was to make most of the decorations, and not spend much money on any of it, saving my birthday budget for their gifts. So, forgive me if stuff looks a bit “home-made”. It is.

The kids table, covered with a dollar tree black table cloth, and given road stripes with duct tape. I did spend $5 on a roll of caution tape, and used it various ways, including around the edge of the kid table.

The “punch bowl”

Birthday banner, printed onto construction paper and cut out

(thanks Justin, you are a straight cutter!)

The play area, turns out that this really wasn’t necessary. None of the kids really played here, and it just created more mess. The signs I made out of poster board.

The food. Again, tablecloth with road stripes. Balloons tied onto the dowel that usually holds one of my quilts. I guess I didn’t take a picture with all the food out on the table. We just had stuff like, a veggie tray, chips and salsa, a meat and cheese platter, candy, etc. The trucks were dispensers of food, which was really cute. (So the dump truck was ‘dumping’ chips into the chip bowl, a smaller truck was full of reses pieces…etc).

The silverware and napkins were in Justin’s grandpa’s old tool box

The cake…SUPER easy, and turned out really. A chocolate cake, with a chunk cut out and piled up to make a mound. I cut the hole, then frosted it, then dumped crushed Oreos into the hole and onto the mound. Chocolate covered “rocks” I found at winco in bulk, and I made safety cones out of orange spice drops and starbursts. Took about 5 minutes to decorate. My kind of cake.

For little gift bags for the kids, I got $0.77 tool belts from Home Depot, and put candy, a little measuring tape, and a construction pencil in the pockets.

Thatcher immediately crushed his cake his his fists, and then proceeded to eat 10% of the little pieces, and throw the remaining 90% on the floor

Thad ate his properly with a fork.

The aftermath. They both got a ridiculous amount of gifts. They got some really fun stuff though. Going to have to re-organize some closets.

Overall, the party was really fun. The only thing I regret, is no family picture. (Justin, are you reading this? Why do we NEVER remember to do that?) Maybe next time.

ONE!

It happened. Our sweet little boy turned one. This kid has such a special place in my heart. He has such a happy smile, a goofy walk, loves his bro, he is just an all-around good guy. He has eyelashes that won’t quit, and went a loooonnnng time with only one top tooth. We were starting to worry. I feel like I am really just starting to see his personality come out, and have an idea of the little boy he is going to be. Motor skill-wise, way ahead of the game. Language….maybe not so much. Does making growling noises count? He’ll get there.

Time for a photo montage:

In typical Shelton/Crossland fashion, we are celebrating birthdays two different times. Since the boys’ bdays are so close together (10 days), we will have a party (for both the boys) here on Saturday with JC’s side of the family, and then head North to celebrate with my side of the family. (My side of the family is a little heavy on March birthdays…4 of the 5 grandkids have birthdays between March 20th and March 30th). Technically, this will be the first time that I have been responsible for a child’s birthday party…for Thad’s first birthday, (and my niece’s 2nd…the only 2 grandkids at the time) we rented a house in Newport with my family and went to the aquarium. For Thad’s second birthday, my family graciously brought all the birthday party makings to our house, since I had just given birth a week before. Thanks, fam! I have probably invested an inappropriate amount of mental time on the party, but it should be fun. Details/pictures to come. Wear your Carharts.

Moral of this story is: I love me some Thatcher Reid. He is such a blessing and such a sweet boy. I am so thankful for him, and so excited to be his mom.

Rude Awakening

Yesterday morning I came out into the front room first thing in the morning. Justin had left for work. Boys were still asleep. Dark outside. And who do I see, lurking in the shadows?

Gloria. (Madagascar, anyone?). Sitting in her “pond”, where Thad put her, apparently since Saturday. I have to say, she gave me a bit of a heart attack. Gloria is currently in the beanie baby bin, back where she belongs.

Edible finger paint

In my perpetual quest of finding things to do, I came across this super intimidating I-am-clearly-a-terrible-mom-because-I-don’t-do-this-many-things-with-my-kids list. http://www.playcreateexplore.com/p/activites-for-ages-1-3.html. Thad does quite a few projects, but we almost always do them during Thatcher’s nap time, so I feel like he gets left out a lot. This one was easy enough, required very little set up, and entertained long enough to at least let me get lunch cleaned up. On the website, the lady made her paints, put them in containers and gifted them. I mixed food coloring with yogurt and dumped it on Thatcher’s high chair tray. I’m classy like that.

He got the hang of it right away. Definitely worth making the ‘paint’ out of food, because sticking his fingers in his mouth happened about 2 seconds into it. Most finger paints are ‘non-toxic’, but that’s not the same thing as saying, ‘please eat this by the handful’…

At some point he decided he had had enough with finger-painting and decided to go straight to face-painting

Thaddeus was simultaneously finger painting. Which for him means smearing the paint into one giant brown blob.

This project did require a bath of course. I often underestimate the amount of cleaning that something like this will require. I had to strip Thatcher down naked (at which time he decided he really needed to pee), and carried them both to the tub, one hanging from each arm. Fortunately, the middle of the day bath allowed me to redress Thatcher into this ridiculous get-up.

Nothing says ‘cool dude’ like head to toe stripes. Also, don’t let me fool you. We are not doing stuff like this every day. I often cannot handle this foolishness, it all depends on my emotional state of mind. Some days we can handle projects, some days all we can handle is a mid-day movie. You do what you can.

In yet another of my pre-children delusional dreams, I pictured my kids producing beautiful artwork that I would frame and hang up. I have yet to see anything of that caliber out of Thad. I mean really, what I am I going to do with this? Yikes.