Just Jen

Andie's Ice Cream Party

First of all, I can't believe my baby is already 2. Nope. Can't be.
That's all I have to say about that. :)

I knew that I wanted to do an ice cream party for Andie's 2nd birthday while I was still in the planning stages of her 1st birthday party. (I'm a little obsessive like that. I've even had some ideas about party #3, but she will probably have an opinion about it by then, so we will see.)

When I'm planning the kids' parties, I always start with the invite, since that usually determines the feel of the whole party. I knew I wanted to find a way to make it 3D or interactive in some way. I toyed with the idea of a pop up card of some sort, and after lots and lots of sketching and thinking - and thinking some more, I finally came up with a flat invite that could be rolled into an ice cream cone shape  by the recipient. 

It needed to fit into an envelope to mail flat, and had to be easy enough to assemble. I was really excited with the way they turned out! I even heard that a couple of Andie's sweet friends actually tried to lick/eat it. I love that. :) 

The party was mostly centered around a ridiculous spread of ice cream and sprinkles and toppings and sauces. I did make a big batch of plain ol' salty popcorn just to balance out the sugar overload. The ice cream was Blue Bell, of course, because we are in Texas, after all. God bless Blue Bell. And Texas. :)

There were cupcakes too, of course, because it is a birthday party, and there wasn't enough sugar already, you know?

This common saying is actually quite special to me. My grandmother used to always say this as she served us little cups of ice cream after a big family meal. It was my little way of including her in Andie's special day, though I am pretty sure she was looking on anyway. :)

I covered the kids' play table in some plain newsprint and set a bowl out with crayons. It was quite a piece of artwork by the end of the party!

I was inspired by this tutorial for making cute crayon wrappers, and followed it to make these. They turned out great! And Sparkle Mod Podge is now my new favorite thing.

Andie didn't really care for being sung to by a room full of people, so I handed her the cupcake (after I got plenty of good pics :), which immediately made it all better. 

Andie loves her "eh-bows", so I had to make her a special one for the day. It's made from felt with seed beads hand-stitched on. The cherry is a red pompom with a piece of red cotton yarn glued to the center. If I can find some time (someday...), I'll try to get together a little tutorial. :)

And her party shoes totally made the outfit. Just like Dorothy's, only better.

The letters behind us on the table were inspired by this project, but instead of using flowers, I glued in little pieces of tissue paper. 

The favors included a few of Andie's favorite things: ice cream shaped bubbles, ice cream shaped marshmallows, a sparkly bracelet (hot wheels for the boys), and a polka dotted hair bow. 

My niece handmade this card for Andie, and I loved it so much I wanted to share it here. It was such a fun day with family and friends!

I know it's the 6th, but HAPPY 4TH!!

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday besides Christmas. I love the hot dogs, the fireworks, the patriotism, the fireworks... :)

I am usually the one out there with a lighter right there in the middle of it, but this year, I had to sit with this little booger who wasn't much of a fan of the firecrackers.

Once it got dark, though and she could see them all lit up, she decided she didn't mind the noise so much. That's my girl. :)

I did make sure I fired off a few of these - well, only 1 of the 3 I bought actually worked, but that's why I buy 3... This little $1.50 firework makes my whole 4th of July. There's only one stand around that stocks them, so we hit them every year. It's just not the same without it... Watch this and you'll see why:

Visitor

Caught this guy hanging out on my butterfly bush this afternoon. Completely in awe of the beauty of God's creation and happy to know the bush actually lives up to it's name. :)

Welcome back anytime, friend!

I'm back.

I knew it had been a while since I had posted, but I didn't realize it had been almost 2 months. Yikes. I promise it's not a case of blog abandonment, but more a of "shove it to the back burner" type thing. We have been some busy little bees! This will be the first in a short series of "catch up" posts. I know we've all moved on from Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, but bear with me while I revisit it for a minute. Because the costumes were awesome and worth the look back - mostly because I worked so hard to make them, and I'm not willing to skip posting about it.

Meet Luke and his sister, Princess Leia.

Luke Skywalker
Jack had no idea who Luke was when we decided on their costumes, but he was a total Star Wars fan by the time Halloween arrived. I figure this is the last year I get to pick his costume, so I wanted to make it count. I sewed his shirt and glued torn strips of fabric to a cheap pair of Target khakis (while he was wearing them – he was SO nice and patient!) and also onto his shoes to make the boots (the shoes were disgusting from playing all summer and he was about to outgrow them anyway). I made his belt from upholstery vinyl and a silvery vinyl fabric. Light saber was from Toys R Us. FYI – this is the BEST fabric glue I have used EVER.

Leia
I had seen a couple of versions of the crocheted hat with buns online and decided to make up my own. I LOVE the way it came out, and the fact that she did not mind it being on her head. I've decided it will be her winter hat since it has built in ear muffs and all. And I'd love to get some more use out if it! Her dress was a simple peasant dress pattern using a white knit. I lengthened the sleeves some, but wish I had lengthened them a bit more, along with increasing the overall length of the dress. But by the time I figured that out it was done, and I was over it. I made her belt following this awesome tutorial. Simple white tights and shoes, and she was complete.

It's sort of tradition that the kids come up for a visit to my office so I can show them off in their costumes. They drew quite a crowd - notice my zombie friends lurking behind the wall of the cube. They were so nice to keep their distance so as not to scare them. :)

Yip Yips

I work at a place where Halloween is a BIG deal and people really get into it. My group worked together to make 10 of these Yip Yip costumes. And we totally blew away the competition in the group costume contest. It almost wasn't fair. We followed this tutorial to make them but substituted 4 yds of regular fleece for the blanket and left an opening in the black mesh in the mouth so we could expose our heads without having to take the whole thing off. I will say the anonymity was the best part. We interrupted every meeting we came across that day! In case you are interested, I am the dark purple Yip. Self portrait, and current facebook profie pic, below:

Andie's Honey Bee Birthday

I can hardly believe my baby girl is already a year old! I had decided months ago to do a honey bee theme for her party, so I had plenty of time to work out the details in my head. I have to say, I was really happy with the way it turned out!

I designed her invitation and used this envelope from Paper-Source in a lovely shimmery gold - just like honey!

I made a paper mache beehive with a balloon then layered cut strips of tissue paper on the outside using double stick tape. It could have been a pinata, but since all our guests were such wee ones, we skipped that. I wanted to hang it above her cake, but it didn't make sense to just have it suspended in mid air. It really needed to be hanging from something...like a tree branch...just like on her invite. I should get extra credit for consistency, right? :)

So I made her a tree! "Andie's Birthday Tree" as Jack calls it. It took an entire 30 ft. roll of craft paper and a whole day, but it was definitely worth the effort! (I probably could have used another 10 ft. or so to beef up the trunk at the bottom, though). I had a lot of moral support during the process - Jack kept telling me what a great job I was doing. That and the Olympics kept me well entertained. I twisted and wrinkled the paper to look like branches and hot glued leaves cut from scrapbook paper. I hung the entire thing with fishing line tied to the railing around our loft above, so attaching it to the wall wasn't necessary. The bees were made from yarn and threaded with fishing line, swarming around the hive and flying all around the room above our guests' heads. At the last minute, I decided to attach her monthly chalkboard pics down the trunk with little clothespins.

Now, I have come to the realization that I am not a baker. But I wanted to decorate her cupcakes myself, so I had Market Street bake them plain with the icing on the side. I was inspired by these cupcakes on Pinterest, and with a little YouTube research, I figured out how to make petals with icing using Wilton decorating tip #103. So easy and fun with the oreo centers! The fondant bees were a little time consuming (I made 40 of them), but not difficult at all! It's kind of like working with really soft clay.

I wanted something special for Andie's cake, so I took a chance and baked it in my giant cupcake pan. I figured it it didn't come out perfect, it's not like she was going to tell anyone. :) I kind of over-filled the bottom so it would be taller. Once it cooled, I flipped it upside down and used the domed part of the cupcake on top, shaping it with a knife to create a beehive shape.

It was definitely an experiment, and I was a little nervous about how it was going to turn out. I was very happy with it, though and she was too! She made a pretty good dent in it and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down when we finally had to take it away. :)

I made her little queen bee headband along with matching bee headbands for all her little friends to wear. I honestly didn't expect them to be worn much as little ones tend to be fickle about having things on their heads, but they all kept them on for most of the party, and they were TOO CUTE.

Jack kept with the bee theme, but in the most manly way with his Transformers Bumblebee tee. Yes, that is cupcake icing on his shirt. :)

The other food consisted of lemonade and 2 snack mixes - one for the babies and one for the big people. The baby snack mix was made up of Multi Grain Cheerios, Gerber Graduates Puffs, and Gerber Graduates Yogurt Melts. The other mix was honey roasted peanuts, golden raisins, Butter Snaps Pretzels, and Honeycomb Cereal coated with white chocolate and peanut butter. Yummy!

The favors were honey sticks from Desert Creek Honey.

It was pouring rain the day of her party, but it was sunny and happy inside! I had so much fun putting it together for my sweet girl. Special thanks to my patient husband who I kind of maybe flipped out on about 15 minutes before the party was supposed to start because the carpet still needed to be vacuumed... He always saves the day. And thanks to my sister for staying over the night before to help me put the finishing touches in place (and distract the kids). And of course, thanks to all our special guests! We are so happy you came!!

You can find my entire party inspiration board on Pinterest here. There's a lot of great stuff there that I didn't get to use!

A masterpiece for the garden

Yesterday Jack painted this lovely pot for my garden. He was almost as proud of it as I was. And I'm pretty sure he got almost as much paint on himself as he did on the pot.

I'm thinking of putting him to work painting pots during the upcoming holiday rush. I should have time to refine his lettering skills by then, no? :)

May Day - Favorite things

One of the girls at work was recently talking about how her family always celebrated May Day back home. This was a foreign concept to the rest of us native southerners, but if it involves gifts, treats, or gives us an excuse to go out to lunch together, we're up for it. So we decided to draw names (secret Santa style) and fill a basket with our favorite things ($15 limit) to drop off at each recipient's desk while they are not there (tricky!). Who had who would be revealed over lunch on May 1.

I decided (because making things is one of my favorite things) to make my basket. I used this tutorial on Design Sponge, since I had some newsprint on hand that would be perfect for it. It was a great tutorial - very easy to follow - and I love the way the basket turned out. Definitely give it a try!

Now, for the fun part - the contents:

1. Peanut M&M's - favorite candy of all time. ever.

2. OPI "You Don't Know Jacques!" - favorite nail polish color

3. Sharpies in fun colors - LOVE Sharpies!

4. Morning Glory seeds in Heavenly Blue - my favorite vine and SO easy to grow!

5. Yarn + crochet hook + washcloth pattern - favorite hobby (and my recipient happens to already know how to crochet!)

 

Here's what I received:

Adorable watering can and felt flower, fruit slice candies (mmm!!!), and these lovely gift enclosure cards from betweenthesheetsco.

And this is the collective loot. Do we know how to celebrate or what? :)

So addicted...

Whoa, Nelly. Just bothered to read the calorie content per serving for these. Good thing I didn't count how many I ate, or I might have to feel guilty! ;)

Thank you, Sephora!

I just picked up my free birthday gift from Sephora today, and I'm so excited because I've been wanting to try these out for a while. Sign up for an account, and you'll get a treat for your birthday too!

Birthday weekend - mine this time!

Friday was my birthday. I'm suddenly reaching those years when someone asks you how old you are and you can't remember for sure, so you actually have to do some math. I hate math. But I have to say, I'm starting off good at 34. I've lost 10 lbs. of baby weight - and counting - since the beginning of the year, though I may have to re-lose a couple of those pounds after all the red velvet cake I consumed this weekend. (More details on that shortly.) I can hold my own in Turbo Kick Boxing class next to all the wafer thin college girls. I feel pretty good, but most of all, I feel blessed. I don't wish I was younger, because that would take me back to a time before I had my Jack and Andie. These days are better - more full. God has been good, indeed!

I got to take Friday off from work, so we all loaded up and headed to Sherman. We dropped the kiddos off at mom & dad's and headed off for my lunch date with Bret and his buddy Shawn. They took me to this hole-in-the-wall place where I enjoyed a BBQ bacon cheeseburger and tots. Obviously, I wasn't counting points. :) They talked me into trying a bite of frog leg. I'll try almost anything once. And I have to say, this was my first - and last - bite of frog leg. It tasted like pond.

From there we headed over to the DMV so I could renew my license. Now, I know that's about the LAST place on earth you'd want to go on your birthday, but the wait there is less than 30 min. compared to the 2-3 hrs. minimum it would have been back home. I would have had to take time off of work, so this just made sense. There were only 5 people in line in front of me - practically painless.

After that, we stopped at an estate sale. I spotted these lovelies. (People really collect this kind of stuff?!)

I'll admit, I was somewhat tempted by the bath tub lamps. I ended up walking away with some cute floral pillow cases for $.50.

I've been needing new running shoes, so afterwards, a trip to the shoe store. I scored these with these shoelaces on the way.

I lusted after these, but they're not much good for kick boxing, so I went with the running shoes instead. If anybody wants to give me $250, I'll happily pick up the boots too.

Later I had BBQ (yes, again) and went to see my Grandpa in the hospital. We were supposed to celebrate that night with my grandparents since my grandmother, Jack and I all have birthdays close together, but Grandpa has had a rough week to say the least. He's getting released tomorrow, though. He's a tough one, that man!

When we got back to my parents', we finally cut into the thing I had been thinking of all day long - my awesome red velvet cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes. I am allowing myself to indulge in the leftovers until tomorrow. Then it's back to Lean Cuisines and Skinny Cows. 11-ish pounds to go.

When I got home later that night, I had one last surprise - this little pretty was waiting on my doorstep. My sweet sis had it sent to me. I LOVE IT so much - thanks, Sarah!!

It's the best birthday I can remember in recent history, filled with all my favorite people. And food. Who could ask for more? Here's to 34 more just like it...