January 2012
I came up with the wintery rainbow theme for Leyna’s party after falling in love with all the beautiful rainbow parties I’ve seen online the last year. I loved the idea of brightening up a party in the middle of winter with lots of fun colors.
I hired Charlotte from The Paper Cupcake to design the invitations (which featured Leyna’s cake smash pictures that we took on her actual birthday, December 28th) and all the printables for the party. She really helped me set the tone from the beginning.
We had the party at our house, which made for some chaos the morning of and a huge mess to clean up after, but it actually wasn’t that bad having it here.
This front door sign was made with this wooden plaque I ordered from Etsy. I painted it with chalkboard paint and taped ribbon on to the back. Then my sister prettied it up with some chalk markers. Super easy, and now I can just take off the ribbon, wipe off the chalk and repurpose it.
The cupcake stand is one I’ve repurposed since I made it nearly 3 years ago for Kendall’s 1st birthday party. The wreath above the fireplace is our Christmas felt pomp wreath that I added rainbow ribbon to. The picture collage on the fireplace is made from a canvas that’s painted with chalkboard paint. The pictures are stuck on with adhesive photo corners, and we used chalk markers to draw snowflakes on it.
The giant Polaroid photo booth was a huge hit! The kids loved playing with all the funky accessories, and I think even the adults had a good time pretending to bundle up (even though it was nearly 60 outside and I had the AC blasting).
I got my inspiration for this after seeing a pin from this blog, but had no idea how they made the frame. With the help from some reader suggestions, I wound up getting a giant piece of foam insulation from Home Depot for $9, had Scott cut it with a box cutter, and we painted it white. The dimensions were 3.5 feet wide x 4.25 feet long. There is a .2 foot border on each side, a .25 foot border on top, and a .875 foot border on bottom.
Scott hung it from our ceiling with fishing line, a few feet away from the yellow chevron fabric backdrop I got at Hancock Fabrics.
For favors, the kids got Snow Day Survival Kits full of popcorn, hot chocolate, crayons, stickers and notepads. (The babies got packs of Boogie Wipes for those inevitable runny noses.)
We also handed out these beautiful and sooooo delicious rainbow snowflake sugar cookies, courtesy of Cookies By Becky . I don’t know how she got them to look so perfectly frosted and managed to ship them without a single one breaking, but I looked like a regular ol’ Martha Stewart handing them out… until I admitted I had nothing to do with their creation.
The party was 2 hours of total fun, and I’m so happy we had it here… even if it did take a whole day to clean up after it. OH! One more thing. I don’t have a picture of this, but we made the most kick-ass white hot chocolate and let the adults add rum to their cups. Magically delicious, y’all.
1.75 gallons milk
2 bags white chocolate chips
Melt in stock pot on the stove slowly, pour into coffee urn or keep on low on the stove to keep warm.
Optional- top with rum and/or whipped cream.
Serves- a shitton of people
(We have a ton left over, so we froze it in muffin tins and then put the cubes in freezer bags. Now we can pull a few out, pop them in the microwave and enjoy.)
That’s it! Thanks for stopping by to have a look. As much fun as I had doing this party for Leyna, I’m really thinking we might do a birthday outing over a party for Kendall’s 4th in May (OMG MY BABY IS GOING TO BE FOUR).
Becky is going to give a lucky one of you 2 dozen cookies, too! All you have to do is comment telling me your favorite design she has listed in her Etsy shop right now (though you’re not limited to those if you order from her since she does custom designs, too). U.S. shipping addresses only, please. I’ll draw the winner with Random.org in about a week.
The cookie giveaway is closed. Congrats to Emily, commenter #91, as chosen by Random.org!
Leyna’s birthday party is tomorrow! And we all know what that means… I’m about to LOSE MY MIND.
We’re having it at our house because, why not? Who DOESN’T want 20 something people in their not-exactly-large house that’s been in a constant state of renovation for the last year and isn’t quite completely finished?
“We’ll save money this way,” I told Scott.
Then I proceeded to order half of Etsy and Amazon, and have a shopping list for 2 baskets full of food at Sams Club.
“Just relax. It’s not a big deal. She won’t remember it anyway,” people tell me. Uhm, this party? Not really for the birthday girl so much. I only have 2, maybe 3 years to have any say whatsoever in how this goes down, before she’s begging for Chuck E Cheese and licensed characters. Let’s call it like it is. It’s for me.
I‘m bracing myself for Disney Princesses, but let me be clear- I will CUT anyone who introduces her to Barbie. Give her a Bratz doll? Prepare to die.
Assuming we pull it all off AND I managed to take pictures while running the show, I’ll show it all off to you on Monday. But now, I must go. CLEAN! CRAFT! CLEAN! CRAFT! SPEND MORE MONEY!!!
I think I should stretch first.
Leyna is 13 months old, and we’re having her party one month late since December 28th is sort of a rotten day for a party.
“Where did so-and-so move?” I asked my hip, single sister who lives in a posh little apartment near the heart of Austin.
“Oh, you know, those McMansions in the suburbs,” she joked with that undertone of distaste that I distinctly remember having myself not too many years ago…
Ugh. The tragedy of having to move to the “cookie cutter” homes in the expansive suburbs. What a sorry and uncultured existence those people with children must lead. They can’t even walk to a coffee shop, they’re surrounded by strip malls, and those poor people must always be in their cars since they’re so far away from anything fun. ~ Me, Age 25
Flash forward five years…
“Hey, those McMansions in the suburbs aren’t that bad!” I teased.
“I’m too old to care about living anywhere ‘trendy’ or close to the city. They have underperforming school districts, and we can’t afford private school, ESPECIALLY with how much a house half the size of my ‘McMansion’ costs there. And even then, that house would be, like 50 years old and probably have gold velvet wallpaper. I will take my ‘cookie cutter’ brick home on a quiet street, my HOA fees, and my strip malls. Plus, I don’t have to drive more than 10 minutes to get anywhere. Target is only 5 minutes from here, and that’s all I need,” I continued.
And then I realized I’ve fully become immersed in Suburban Culture. I am now one of them. Oh, how my 25 year old self weeps.
Oh, how my 30 year old self doesn’t care.
Life in the suburbs is good. We are blessed to live in a spacious, safe, beautiful home. We may not be able to walk to a coffee shop, but we can walk to the elementary school (an excellent one) that Kendall will attend (too soon!), a pool and 3 parks. They are luxuries I try hard not to take for granted.
Would I love to live in a downtown loft and take public transportation everywhere? Sure! Except, well, I’m not even sure that’s a reality in Dallas, and that’s just not the most practical situation for a family with young children and large dogs. Not to say people don’t do it, and don’t love it, but *for us* it’s not worth the trouble and the expense.
Scott and I often talk about what we’ll do when the kids all move out. How we’ll sell half our stuff and move into that hip downtown loft we dreamed of before we had kids. We’ll get our fun, urban existence eventually, but we’re okay with giving it up for now.
Basically, I’m living my worst nightmare from my 20s. I fought it hard, but it turns out kids really do change you and the way you live. I can think of worse fates than moving into a “boring McMansion in the cookie cutter burbs.”
Now, I realize not everyone with kids feels this way about the ‘burbs. What about you? Have you changed your views on how you live since having kids?
Kendall is 3 years and nearly 9 months and Leyna is 13 months old
Remember how I asked you all for your advice on making the big leap to give up cable? I couldn’t believe how many of you already had, how many of you had lived without it for years. I felt a little bad for those of you without it. You poor, deprived souls, living without your Bravo and HGTV. Oh, I didn’t want to have to suffer through like you had.
But, we would save $65 a month, nearly $800 a year. *sigh* So I stood idly by while my husband unplugged the cable box and drove it back to the Verizon store. And then I had a moment of silence for the loss of Teen Mom and Real Housewives of the OC.
Scott, being the frugal and handy man he is, built us a digital antenna that is now in our attic, and we get THIRTY THREE channels for free. Granted, half of them are Spanish and a third of them are religious programming and weather channels, but STILL. Free.
Among those, though, are actually some pretty decent channels. Did you know PBS plays kid’s shows Monday through Friday from 6 am through 5 pm? Not gonna lie, most days our TV just hangs on out PBS during the day. Well, that is after I get done drinking my coffee and watching Kathy Lee & Hoda (a sick addiction, I tell you).
We also get a channel called Qubo, which is kid’s programming all day, although it’s sorta like b-list, low grade animation programming, but it doesn’t seem to bother the children.
And here in Dallas, I’ve discovered NBC Nonstop, which, while not an HD channel (we can pick up the basic channels in HD with our digital antenna), it fills the void of not having HGTV and the Food Network just a little bit. You know, it’s just one of those channels that’s nice to have on while you’re folding laundry and not too invested in what’s on. They have programming about local food places, and home decorating shows.
If that’s not enough to satisfy my home decorating and cooking cravings for knowledge and ideas, I just turn to the internet. Pinterest is my new muse for both of these things.
Really, we’ve found things like the internet and digital magazines on the iPad, and, *gasp* books and toys to fill the time we used to spend watching crap TV on cable.
We still get to see all our favorite shows in some form or another. We can watch prime time shows on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in HD on our TV still. We have Netfilx hooked up through our Wii, and hopefully we’ll add Hulu Plus to that soon, too, whenever they release it for the Wii. We can hook our iPad up to the TV to watch shows we can find online.
The only thing we’re really missing at this point is a DVR, but Scott says he can make us one out of our old computer. Oh, and sports. I guess sometimes it can suck that we don’t get ESPN or TBS, but we don’t watch it enough to justify $65 a month, especially when you can still see plenty of games on the basic channels.
Honestly, seriously, we one hundred percent do not miss it. Sure, there was a bit of an adjustment period. I’d say it took a couple weeks to get used to it, but now I just can’t believe we went that long paying that much money for that much crap.
So there’s my update. We’ve been without it for 3ish months now. If you’re on the fence, I say pull the plug and give it a couple weeks. I really don’t think you’ll miss it.
Last Friday I thought it would be fun to have a couple kids over for a play date (sisters) and have a little photo shoot. I’m at the point in my photography journey that I feel I have enough of a grasp of the technical stuff to exercise a little creativity, and I’m at a place where I’m really excited to exercise that creativity whenever I can.
Unfortunately, my kids are over it. Well, that, and also I’m their mom so there’s that whole, “Really, mom? REALLY?” ‘tude they have going on. Other people’s children, however, find my camera novel and listen like little sweethearts when I tell them to stand there and look here… but DON’T say “cheese!”
So I commandeered my friend’s children and made it sound like she’d be getting a great deal by letting me take their pictures, when really, I was the one who was having all the fun.
Aren’t they the sweetest?!
I was inspired to do (okay, basically stole the idea of) the baking themed shoot from the amazing Ariana from Becoming Mom (who was inspired by Sandy Wagerman of Lucky Ladybug Photography).
I got all the supplies I needed at Target (but of course). The baking supplies and “LOVE” wooden blocks were all found in their dollar section, and the colorful heart backdrop is a vinyl tablecloth from a Valentines end cap in housewares. We didn’t have time to find or make aprons, so we just folded a hand towel (also found in the dollar section) in half and ran a ribbon through it, then tied it around the child’s waist. Though, you really can’t see the apron much in these pictures.
I was glad I got some great pictures of my friend’s children with this set up because I knew mine wouldn’t cooperate with the idea. All is not lost, though. I managed to score this beauty of Kendall, which I turned into a wallet sized card for him to exchange at school.
Fitting, what with his love for all things sports.
Leyna did manage to model her pretty Tea Collection dress.
Have you entered to win that $100 shopping spree yet?
And, overall, she just had a grand time licking and chewing all the new photo props and hanging out with her little bestie.
Oh, and these pictures were taken in front of the floor to ceiling window in our newly enclosed home office. I never realized what beautiful light comes in there most of the day until we put a wall in front of it. Scott doesn’t know this yet, but I’m brainstorming ways to turn it into a home office SLASH mini studio. He’s going to rue the day he ever bought me that camera.
Kendall is 3.5 and Leyna is 1… annnnd they already get annoyed at the sight of my camera.
Present #1:
Little miss Leyna, baking up some love and smiles at our fun at-home Valentines photo shoot this morning. The new office we built (pics to come!) is the most amazing little natural light studio space. I’ll show off more of the pictures from the shoot next week, but I adore this dress from Tea Collection that she’s rocking here and wanted to share it now. Also? Look at her all standing up and stuff. And yes, that is a very big bow on her head, and I like it that way.
Now, for present number 2!
Tea Collection is giving a lucky one of you $100 to spend on some of their fabulous clothes! I have never seen clothes like this for babies and little kids before. The quality is outstanding. More expensive than your average baby clothes, for sure, but definitely pieces that will be worn and passed down for many years to come. We bought the kid’s Christmas outfits from them, too (Leyna is wearing her’s here), and received so many compliments on how nicely they coordinated without being matchy, matchy, and how unique they were.
They also have women’s clothes , which are really beautiful. I love me a pretty tunic.
If you’d like to win yourself a little Tea Collection shopping spree, all you have to do is comment below telling me what your favorite piece from their website is.
You can get an extra entry if you like Baby Rabies on Facebook
And another if you like Tea Collection on Facebook
Please leave a separate comment for each entry. I’ll use Random.org to draw a winner at the end of next week.
**Disclosure- I was not paid for this review, but I did receive clothing samples from Tea Collection at no cost. All opinions and pictures are my own.
Contest closed. Congrats to Laura, commenter #145, as chosen by Random.org!
My name is Jill, and I’m addicted to sugar cookies. Frosted sugar cookies.
It started at Christmas time with dough from a tube, but then one day I really wanted cookies and didn’t want to get dressed and go buy a tube of dough, so I figured it would be less work to actually make them… from scratch.
And you know what? It was totally, crazy easy. And they were SO good.
So then I thought, hm… what if I make my own frosting? And I did. And it was GOOOOOOD, and also less work than getting dressed to buy some at the store.
Listen, I am NOT in love with anything that happens in the kitchen. I don’t really enjoy cooking or baking, and, of course, I despise doing dishes. I take the easy way out whenever I can. So when Kendall asked me if we could use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out the cookies, I told him that would take so, so long, and he wouldn’t get to eat any cookies until the next day.
I mean, just look at my favorite sugar cookie recipe by Alton Brown. Two hours and twenty four minutes? No bueno. But if you just make the dough, roll it up into balls and smash them on the cookie sheet, it only takes 24 minutes, which is much more my speed, not to mention I don’t want to deal with throwing flour all over my counters and rolling dough out.
Being the not-horrible mom that I am, though, I still wanted to come up with some heart shaped cookies for Kendall, and I remembered this old play-doh trick.
Pull off enough dough to make one cookie, then divide it in half and roll into two balls.
This is me French kissing my 50 1.4 lens for making my dirty kitchen look all blurry and… not dirty.
Now roll the balls into tear drop shapes, with one end coming to a soft point.
Then line the other tear drop up with it, matching the points, and smoosh it.
Be sure you really smoosh the two pieces together and seal the seam, or you’ll end up with a broken heart.
You can have them in the oven MUCH faster than 2 whole hours later this way.
Those odd shaped ones are “mittens” that Kendall made all by himself.
Oh sure, they aren’t prefect, but who has a perfect heart anyway?
We frosted these with cinnamon cream cheese buttercream (this recipe with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon added).
Voila! Valentine’s cookies for the super lazy! And, of course, I’m sure you could achieve this with dough from a tube for the ultimate in lazy cookie making.