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. 

Biting the Bullet

Something is happening here that needs to be documented. Thad is being potty trained! He will be 3 next month, and goodness knows he is quite intelligent, so I figured it was time. A month ago, without any real plan, we did a day in undies. 3 pairs of underwear later (one of them was thrown directly in the trash…no coming back from that fiasco), I quickly gave up. (Do I commit, or WHAT?) But, the next week, my conscience won over and we tried again. My technique this time was to set the timer for every 30 minutes on day one, and put him on the potty. He responded much better than I imagined, and by day 3, he wasn’t having any accidents. Now, 3 weeks later, he continues to do really well. No more timer, I do ask him frequently if he needs to go (he ALWAYS responds with a NO), but for the most part, he tells me when he needs to go. We have ventured out of the house in underwear a few times, but only when we were confident of our surroundings (going to a friend’s house, for example). No accidents outside the house so far, but I’m sure it will happen at some point. Last weekend we were all in the car on our way home from a friend’s when he said he had to poop. I told him we would be home in a few minutes, and that he needed to try and hold it, to which he responded “but Mom, I don’t know how to do that”. So, we had our first public restroom experience in Fred Meyer, and it worked just fine. But, the real challenge will be when I have them both myself in public. For some reason, I don’t see Thatcher hanging in a bathroom stall with us keeping his hands to himself. But, in the meantime, I am encouraged with what’s happening, and proud of Thad for doing such a great job!

Christmas….again

Seriously, when will this end? It’s practically February for goodness sake. I briefly considered just not posting anything else about Christmas, but then felt guilty that I wouldn’t be documenting the actual Christmas holiday (Thatcher’s first, after all). After a mile long post on my Christmas projects, it just didn’t seem like I have very good priorities if I didn’t so this….SO. Sorry. I will be brief.

Uh….I take it back. I just looked through the pictures, and there are approximately 230 that I would be remiss to not post. You’ll see why. MY KIDS ARE SO CUTE!

Justin’s parents came over the weekend prior to Christmas, through the day after Christmas. It was nice to have them here for a chunk of time, so we could do some Christmas STUFF rather than just a whirlwind of gifts. Decorating cookies was on my list of Christmas to-do, but I never got to it. As always, Janice comes through, and brought already made cookies, ready for some decorating. As per their usual, Thad was very meticulous in his decorating, and Thatcher drooled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thumbs up for Grandma’s pecan pie. Thad probably ate more treats at Christmastime than he has in his entire life, combined. Ah, the joys of growing up.

And how could I not post this! Thatcher started walking! He took his first solo steps, out of nowhere, the evening of the 22nd, barely 9 months old. No cameras present. The next day, I was prepared, and caught his second set of steps. Grandma and Grandpa got to see him take his first steps. Good timing, Thatcher!

And look at those sweet faces! Dressed in their Christmas Eve finest. I have about 20 versions of this picture, looking cute as all get out.

Which of course meant that by the time we tried to take a family picture, they were done. Thatcher absolutely refused to look anywhere besides the bricks.

Christmas Eve gift opening! They boys opened their Christmas Eve gift, so we could read their Christmas books and wear new jammies. The back-story of this picture is that Thad is trying to pick a booger out of Thatcher’s hair….

After the boys went to bed, we put out their gifts from “Santa”. We never did this in our family, but Justin wanted to leave some gifts unwrapped that Santa brought. Fine by me…less tedious wrapping to do. Thatcher got a cute Sesame Street set, and some new not-chewed-on-by-Thad cups. A lot of Thad’s gift ideas came from this link which I will keep using for ideas. Lots of fun stuff. Thad loves all things animals, so I got some beanie babies from a couple of different thrift stores (and washed them!). You can find them for under 2 bucks and they are perfect playing size. I have an obsession with oil bubble drippers, and I want to force that obsession on Thaddeus, so I got him 2 different versions of those. (Don’t ask me why, it’s just one of those toys that I remember thinking was awesome as a kid). Another big hit of Thad’s was a box that I filled with a couple of sets of Safari Toob animals. You can find those at Michaels, and with a coupon, they are under 5 bucks for a pack. (Sorry Amazon, you know how much I love you).

So, of course, the boys had fun getting into all their presents. And Thad tried on Grandpa’s reading glasses.

Thatcher got a multitude of adorable ornaments. Buying the kids a new ornament each year is Justin’s job, and he performed well….look at that sweet owl…just screams Thatcher to me. Love it. Baby’s First Christmas ornaments are actually kind of hard to come by, especially ones that are cute and not super expensive, but both Grandma and Justin pulled through. Grandma’s even came complete with a picture in it (thank goodness, because if that had been left up to me to put a picture in, it probably would not have gotten done till he graduated from high school….those little details are not my strong suit).

My mom and dad came a few days after Christmas, bringing a ridiculous amount of gifts. Thad got some sweet bug boots. But, the pinnacle of the gifts was a huge storage tote FILLED with crafting and art supplies for Thaddeus, put together by my mom. She has become a master garage-saler since having grandkids, and since last summer been compiling and INSANE amount of craft supplies for the 2 older grandkids. I don’t have a picture somehow, but I will do a whole post about it at some point. It needs to be documented. Unreal.

 

We are really, really lucky that our kids have grandparents who are so involved, and so in love with them. It brings me a lot of comfort to know that we have so many family members who care about us and are always there. It was an awesome Christmas. Awesome to have our little Crossland family complete now with Thatcher. Awesome to see Thad big enough now to enjoy all that Christmas has to offer. And with that, I will move on from Christmas. It is officially over. See you next year.

Christmas, Day 2

So I guess I am not doing this in chronological order, because technically we started doing Christmas projects as soon as we came home from Thanksgiving weekend. We did a lot of projects, most of them came from ideas on Pinterest. Some of the projects were gifts for people, some were Christmas decorations, and some were just things to do with Thad to keep him entertained. I really love making gifts for people whenever I can, but I always want it to be something they will actually LIKE and USE, not just something cute but non-functional. And I try to make sure that I am not making it for them because I think it is awesome, but because THEY will think it is awesome.  I will try and include the link that I used whenever a project idea came from the internet:

I am making this picture huge so you can appreciate the awesomeness. I found this idea here, and followed the instructions pretty closely. They were for my 3 year old niece, who is in love with all things princess. They actually took me quite a while to make because I had to do a couple of coats of paint to make the colors really bold. Also, careful painting is not really an activity you can do with the help of a baby and a two year old. (Thad, STOP BUMPING ME!) But, it was really fun, especially because I liked the end product. And really, I probably won’t have many opportunities to do princess projects with my own children (cross fingers!), so I have to get out any girly projects through my niece.

I adapted this idea from here, but I kind of did the ghetto version. They used pretty white paper for their birds and baby’s breath garland, and I used last year’s cut up Christmas cards and twine. Classy lady. I like their version better, at least the pretty garland part. I think the birds are cool using the Christmas cards, it gets some use out of them, but my “garland” and presentation is a bit lacking. One thing that you will notice throughout all my projects is that I try to do things that require little to no money, or trips to the store for materials. The more that I can do on the spot, with what I have on hand, the better. Anyway, the birds may have a new location next year rather than my kitchen box window where they really weren’t too noticeable.

 

These pics really represent 3 ideas. The first was found here, making your own wrapping paper. This one was fun! Did you know that you can get rolls of brown paper (pretty sizable rolls actually) at the Dollar Tree? Nice to have on hand for package sending, but also nice to have for lots of toddler projects! So technically this project cost me 2 bucks, for the roll of paper, and also for a pack of sponges, although we only used 1 of the 6 sponges. (I’m sure they will come in handy for something else). I covered the kitchen table with an old sheet and let Thad go to town. I did have to encourage him to NOT put every one of his trees in a straight line. Perhaps you have a less anal child. It certainly doesn’t look perfect, some of the trees came out a bit mushy, but I think the idea is cool, and come on, you know the grandparents got a kick out of their presents being wrapped in this. The second idea was here, getting your kids a “Christmas Eve” gift every year of Christmas PJ’s, a Christmas book, and a Christmas movie. I am all about Christmas traditions, and since the boys are so young, this is the perfect time to start. As kids we always got to open one present on Christmas Eve too, so I thought it was a cool idea. The last idea was just this; stamping the recipient’s name on the gift instead of using tags. (Again, ghetto version….I used Thad’s stamps). But I think it looks cute in combo with the brown paper. Wouldn’t really work on standard, glossy and printed wrapping paper. Next year I am thinking we will make the paper again, but then I  will go back and use a pencil eraser to stamp some red ornaments on the trees, and maybe a star on top. (Where does Thad get his anal retentiveness from? No idea).

Thad and I also made some salt-dough ornaments. I’m not including a link because I can’t remember which salt dough recipe we ended up using. They are all pretty much the same. He had a good time stamping things out, and ultimately just playing with the dough. The pic on the right is his “porcupine”, made by sticking uncooked noodles into a lump of dough. I did bake the shapes that he made and let him paint them, but really, they turned out mo ugly. Sorry son, not keepers. Most of his painting projects turn into piles of brown paint from all the paint being smooshed together.

This is what I used the salt dough for. I traced they boys’ hands onto a piece of paper, cut it out, and then used it to cut their hand from rolled out dough. Some LUCKY relatives got these gems in their stockings. Unfortunately, before the tree came down, Thatcher managed to knock Santa onto the floor and break off Thad’s middle finger. Justin repaired him, but he is still a little worse for wear.

Some other ornaments that we made, the snowman handprint of Thatcher that I did last year with Thad, and a reindeer fingerprint one with Thad. Not super exciting.

I kept eyeing Christmas throw pillows, and ended up deciding just to make some new cases for our normal throw pillows. (Free!!) I have a bunch of fabric left over from various projects, so I just looked through one of my quilting books to find some 12x12 blocks that I thought would look Christmasy with the right fabric.

I can’t get the link to work on this one, but It’s pretty self explanatory. First, I hung some ball ornaments around our dining room light using fishing line, then used floral wire to tie braches that Justin to saved me from trimming the lower branches off the Christmas tree. Free! 

Next up, a stocking for Thatcher. I used the same pattern that I used for Thad’s and found some cute moose and bear fabric that seemed like Thatcher’s style. I only have 3 stocking hangers, and we are up to 5 stockings with ours and Amber’s, so I hung a curtain rod on the stocking hangers, and then put the stockings on the curtain rod. It worked fine, but seemed a little on the precarious side.

I discovered the fun of free printables, and filled some already hanging frames with Christmas prints. The “subway” prints seem to be the new hotness, but my personal favorite is the one on the left. The possibilities here are endless, and obviously you could opt to do your own, but I prefer to benefit from the work of others. The three shown can be found here and here.

Some more fun Thad projects requiring nothing more than construction paper and some paint. Here, here, and here. Again, pretty simple and self-explanatory, but I can’t say how much I have appreciated Pinterest. It is so useful to find endless projects that are a great way to keep Thad entertained and occupied. It’s a good way for us to spend time together doing something that keeps him engaged and interested.

Another fun one. Well, fun idea. Thad actually pouted and complained through this whole one for some reason. But it still turned out cute. Painters tape that you paint over then peel off.

I did a lot of baking this year, but I also made some food items that were done specifically as gifts. My mom loves orange marmalade, so I attempted that for the first time. We just got a canner this summer, so we have tried a lot of things, some coming out better than others. I made some homemade vanilla extract using vodka infused with a sliced open vanilla bean. I put the bean in the vodka back in September, it was supposed to sit for 3 months, but I still feel like it wasn’t ready by Christmas. It either needs to sit longer, or I may add a second bean. Theoretically, you can gradually add more vodka as you use up the vanilla and keep it going for years. For some friends we put together packages of various canned goods we made this year. I printed labels for the jars and just double-side-taped them onto the jar lids.

Another project that needs to be relocated next year; Thad and I hot-glued and painted popsicle sticks into snowflakes. These are big, about 2 1/2 feet wide, so they need a big area to be displayed, but they are too hard to see on my barn door.

This project was probably my favorite for some reason. I really like nativity scenes, but I wanted one that wasn’t fragile so Thad could play with it. I saw this idea a couple places, here and here. Most of them used stickers on wood and then modge podged over, but I didn’t find a nativity sticker set that I loved. So, I ended up googling “nativity printable”, and finding tons of options. Again, one of those things that you can make a bunch of different ways. I told Justin the dimensions that I wanted, and he cut up a piece of oak that he had left from some other project. I am keeping this one in mind for a possible gift idea for nieces and nephews next year. Found another printable that is pretty cute. When I searched for that one, it linked me up to someone’s whole “nativity” board on Pinterest. GOLD MINE! Fun.

Well I think that just about wraps it up. We did a few more ornaments here and there, but nothing too exciting. I also made some new recipes that were really good, including egg nog bread and sugared pecans in the crockpot. Justin and I also made some bomb chex mix, a paremsan/dill/ranch batch in addition to the classic chex mix. Nothing like some good munchies.

We had lots of fun with our Christmas projects this year. I really tried not to get too wrapped up in gift buying (more on Christmas gifts later) and really try to focus on spending quality time together. And of course, I have more projects to come; I bought some Christmas fabric the week after Christmas on clearance to make this zig-zag quilt. Should be a fun non-Christmastime project. I also want to make a master cookbook of all my go-to recipes in one spot, and have it printed. Possibly using createmycookbook.com (thanks, Shana!). Plus many more projects in there too…I do have 2 boys’ birthdays coming up, after all. Thad will probably get this toy bag for playing with his animals or cars. So many possibilities…..