Birthday Season is Rolling Around Again

Hello!

It's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to make sure to update you on this year's birthday themes!!

My boys are about to be 7 and 4! Can you believe it?!  It's amazing to me how fast time flies.  It feels like just yesterday we were bringing them back from the hospital.  Anyway...it's birthday time again and my boys have picked some really fun themes!  Of course, all the great birthday party pictures will come after the party, but I wanted to update you on the themes and a couple of things I've been working on.

M is into everything boy!  This includes all sports involving a ball, trains, cars and of course, SUPERHEROS.  And since the new THOR 2 movie just came out (a great one I might add) he's all into the AVENGERS and CAPTIAN AMERICA.  So, mommy is putting it into motion!!  I created this great subway art to display:

He loves it!  Do you love it too?!  You can get your own customize for your little Superhero on my Etsy Shop: Pvbs 31 Mom!  I'd love to create one for your party.

I also created a Happy Birthday Banner for him and some Food Tent Cards.  Some of the food items we will be having are:

Captain America's Shield - Fruit Tray
Thor's Hammers - Pretzels and Chunk Cheese
Arc Reactors - Bagel Bites with little Mozzarella circles in the center
Hawkeye's Arrows - Celery and Carrots in Ranch Dressing
Avengers Suit Up - Pigs in a Blanket
S.H.I.E.L.D Spinach Dip - You can probably figure this one out. :)
Hulk Punch - Your classic Sprite and Lime Sherbet wedding punch

His invitations are some of the cutest things I've ever seen.  Here's a sneak peek:

That's my little Superhero!!

For favors I'm thinking about making Superhero capes for everyone.  I found a great tutorial on Pinterest (the Holy Grail of party planning) and am contemplating it.  We are also saving frozen pizza cardboards, because M and I are going to paint them like Captain America Shields for everyone.  Seems great to me!  What do you think about our AVENGERS party?

Of course, since both my boys bookend the Christmas Holidays, I can't start thinking about M's party without planning G's party too.  They are after all only 3 weeks apart.  Funny thing, I never wanted a Christmas baby.  Always thought that would have been a bad idea.  God thought it would be funny to give me a Jan 9 baby for our first...then apparently He didn't think that was ironic and hilarious enough, so M was born December 21.  His due date was actually Christmas Eve, but we had a C-section scheduled a few days before.  Very funny, Lord. :)

So my precious G.  Some of you may remember his health complications and honestly, that's why I haven't posted much lately because we've been dealing with more kidney and heart stuff with him.  Also, once school started, all the teacher meetings and such have gotten in the way.  Regardless, G picked a PIRATE party theme this year.  This is great! Because I scooped up some pirate costumes for my hubby and G and some pirate accessories right after Halloween this year for cheap!  So here is G's subway art:

Of course, you can get this one customized for your little pirate on my Etsy Shop as well!  G's party is still in the early stages of planning, but of course there will be invites that look like a treasure map, and a treasure hunting game for gold coins.  The kids will "walk the plank" to enter the house and our house will be adorned with a big "X" to mark the spot of the party.  The favors for these little pirates will be some swords and eye patches and we will be making a "hook" craft for the kids to take home with them.  We will also read a book about pirates and eat some great pirate grub.

Some food items will be:
Fish & Chips - Goldfish and Potato Chips mixed together
Cannon Balls - Black Olives
Dead Man's Fingers - Hot Dogs
Pirate Jewels - Grapes
Pirate Ships - Orange Slices in Blue Jell-O
First Mates - Bananas Decorated like Pirates - I mean how cute is this?!

G's Cake will look either like a Pirate Ship or a Pirate Hat...I'm not sure which I will do yet.

Well, that's about it for now in as I continue to plan these amazing parties for my littles!

What do you think? Have a great idea I should incorporate for these parties? What amazing party themes have you thrown this year?! I can't wait to hear your comments!!

Want to see how the parties turned out?!  Check out the posts below!!

M's Avenger's Party

April Showers Mantle

April Showers bring May Flowers.  At least that's what they say.  I'm hoping so at least.  I planted some of said May Flowers and then the Showers began.  And they continue...and continue. It should be a beautiful May! Nonetheless, I had to celebrate this beauty of rain in my home so let me introduce my April Showers Mantle!

It's hard to see, but there are little "raindrops" falling from the clouds and ceiling. Here are a few more photos to get the idea of the whole thing: 

The clouds are made from polyfill and fishing line. I just tied the fishing line around a small portion of the polyfill taped it to the ceiling.  The drops of water are glass beads from the Dollar Tree.  I hot glued the fishing line to the back of them and then attached with tape as well to the ceiling. 

This is a creamer and pitcher set that we got for our wedding.  I totally forgot I had it.  We never use it, so décor it becomes! 

I hope you enjoy and stay dry!

Easter Mantle

Today is Palm Sunday! Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest! We had another snow storm overnight, so this morning I had some time to switch my mantle to celebrate Easter!  Here it is!

The little egg things are candles. I've had them for years.

This is a really great wreath that my husband found for FREE on Craigslist! I love it!  I added the cross by painting a piece of cardboard and writing on it with Sharpie. 

These are my boys' Easter baskets.  I put them on the mantle not only because they are cute, but because that way I don't have to remember where they are when the Easter Bunny comes.  

Everything is cuter with little stuffed animals. :) 

I printed this from eighteen25's blog here!  She's got lots of great FREE pintables for the entire year!

Remember these from this post?! They are so versatile!!

I don't know where these came from, but I found them in a box in our basement and thought they were perfect for this project. 

 

So what do you think?!

 

Last year I saw this pin for Easter Egg Garland on Pinterest and just HAD to do it myself.  I wanted to make a few more eggs, but ran out of time.  Instead I put them together and used them as a centerpiece.  I added a little bunny...as if pastel eggs didn't scream Easter enough for you...and some Easter grass to my pastel yellow basket.  It makes my table look so very festive. :)

 

Wipe Off Writing Worksheet

So G is working on writing at school and the teacher keeps sending home already completed worksheets.  I really wanted to work on this at home with him, so I decided to make some reusable worksheets of our own!

Thus the Dry Erase Dot to Dot sheet was born!

 

Supplies:

Clear Contact Paper

Printer/Copy Paper

Sharpie

 

How To:

Take your plain, printer/copy paper and sharpie and dot your letters.  I made 2 sheets, one with upper case and one with lower case.

I drew some lines on it first so that I knew it would be straight.

I also added some numbers for them to trace as well.  In the blank lines I finished the worksheet with G's and M's names and some other sight words.

Then take your contact paper and cut a length twice the size of your paper so you can cover both sides.  Take off the paper on half of the contact paper and lay your completed sheet face down.

Then take the paper off the other half and gently smooth it onto the back of your sheet.  Make sure there are no bubbles.  Sometimes it helps to take off the paper AS you are smoothing it onto the back.  That technique worked the best for me anyway. :) Trim around the edges and you are done!

You can write on it with any dry erase marker and it wipes clean very easily! The boys love writing on their sheets and now we can work on it at home!!

 

Breakfast Gift Basket

Hello!  We recently attended a wedding and needed a gift last minute.  Well, I decided to get creative.  We didn't know the couple very well as the bride is a coworker of P, but we still wanted to get something nice for them.  They also didn't give us any registry information so it's not like we could have just gone to Target or Macy's and pick something out.  Thus, the following was created.

A Breakfast Gift Basket! Most of these items came from the Dollar Tree or Wall mart and the total gift cost around $12 when finished!

Inside, we put some pancake mix, syrup, Folgers Breakfast Blend ground coffee, Earl Grey Tea and some Coffee Creamer (no refrigeration needed).  We also put in some cute Coffee Mugs!

To make it all fit in the basket, and not fall I added some wadded up paper to the bottom of the basket.  The things I needed to be taller I just added more paper under them.  Just keep adding till it al fits and looks nice!  To cover the paper underneath, just add a little bit of shredded tinsel or paper.

Poke that tinsel around in all the spaces to make it look professional.

These are Dollar Tree Mugs that I wrote on with a sharpie and then baked in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Pinterest says it works, so here's hoping! :)

I also shrink wrapped it, added some cute tulle tied around it and a fun gift tag.

The basket came from the Dollar Tree too!

Well, there you have it! I hope they liked it and can get some use out of it.