Charlie's Nautical Birthday Party

I realize that Charlie's first birthday was waay back in November, but with the holidays and a million other crazy things going on around here (more on that later), I'm just now getting around to posting the details.

Surprising that I should be late for something, no?
Umm...no.

Moving on -

I'm a big fan of birthdays.
Big.
Huge.
In fact, it's one of the many things that I seriously enjoy obsessing over.
The planning, dreaming, and  creating... oh...
It's so much fun.
Sure it's CRAZY stressful, but I really love knowing that I am creating special memories for my kids on their special day.

Typically, I try to find a party theme that reflects my kiddo's favorite things during the previous year.

The thing is, a one-year-old's main interests are pretty much sleeping, eating, and pooping.
Talk about a seriously un-fun party theme.

So - I had to dig a little harder to come up with Charlie's party theme.

Before Charlie was born, my aunt sent Charlie a sweet little Skippit the Sailor Dog. It quickly became his favorite little snuggle blanket.

(photo: Bunnies By the Bay)

The more he loved on that little guy, the more my party-freak wheels started turnin'.

I searched a bazillion different ideas on the internet and found some fun starting points...and with a lot of help from some very sweet and creative friends, things started coming together.

At the last minute, of course.

We decided to have Charlie's party at our church playground because our teeny tiny house isn't big enough for our family, much less 20 + party guests.

Since our only option was an outdoor party, we prayed really, really hard for a pretty day.

Y'all - we didn't just have a pretty day - we had beautiful, unusually warm, fantastic, amazing, day.

Birthday Miracle in the howse...

As the guests entered the playground, I had a table set up with a sign that read:

"Say Ahoy to our Very Good Boy!"

Guests were invited to write a note to Charlie and place it in a bucket for him to read when he gets older.

Sadly, I don't have a fancy photographer-created photo of the bucket, but I managed to use my janky camera to show you what it looks like.

Ugh. Back to the pretty pictures, please.

Past the playground area was an open space where I put three large round tables for my guests to sit and a large rectangular table for the food.

Each round guest table had center-pieces created with toy boats in galvanized buckets.

I made the boats from $1 wooden kits from Michael's. David and I spent approximately one meellion hours the night before the party painting and putting them together.

Not David's idea of a fun night.

He really loves me.

Originally, I wanted to put real water in the buckets, but it turns out that $1 boats don't so-much like to float. So - I had to use blue craft paper instead.

You do whatcha' gotta do.

For the food table, I bagged up some tasty fishies for snacks

and served "fish and chips" for lunch.
Not real fish and chips- but the kid/picnic friendly version of fish and chips: chicken tenders and french fries from Abner's.

I served them in the most adorable red plastic baskets I borrowed from my friend Maribeth and found red polka-dotted napkins at Michael's.
Score.

I made my first fabric banner (!) by hot-gluing scraps of a white t-shirt, some pretty Michael Miller fabric, and some blue seersucker on some burlap twine.

For the party favors, I fashioned scrapbook paper into paper cones, and attached natural string for handles. Inside the cones were swedish fish, gummy worms, and a beach themed bath toy.

I tied burlap twine to the fence and clipped the favors to the string to double as party decor.

For the craft, I had the guests decorate newspaper sailor hats.

The kids had fun choosing their "flair" for their hats.

Charlie enjoyed watching the big kids create their hats.

He wore a hat I bought from an internet store called Grammie's Attic (how do you like that name?).

I embroidered his name on it to match Skippit's sailor hat.

After crafts, we enjoyed some delicious birthday cupcakes made by my amazing and generous friend Breanne.

Charlie seriously enjoyed his cupcake.

And his second one.

And yes, he had a wardrobe change for his cake-eating. 'Cause that's how I do.

Obnoxious?

Maybe.

Ok. Definitely.

After cake, we opened gifts...

Look at Charlie's face in this picture:

David helped me create a sailboat out of a cardboard box for the kiddos to play in.

I don't have a picture for this, but I also had fishing poles made out of dowel rods and string for them to pretend to fish with.

Charlie was happy to just crawl around and explore.

Ok - so this next picture is Maribeth and I taking off the packing tape that held the boat together, and then hot-gluing it together again.

Why?

Why do I have a hot-glue gun at a birthday party?

Why am I re-creating a boat when I should be cleaning up?

Why?

I wish I knew...

Actually, we did it so that we could get this picture:

Oh It's good to have equally freakish, perfectionistic friends!


p.s. 
Thanks again to Josh Malahy, our talented photographer and friend for the great photos!

Charlie's 1st birthday: a little peek

Oh my goodness... you have to see the photos that our friend Josh took at Charlie's birthday party.
Oh. my. goodness.

Click here to be amazed.
And while you're there, check out the other beeeautiful work he does.

How lucky are we to have a super-talented photographer friend? Wow.

Hopefully, I can convince him to give me a few of the photos so that I can share the party details with you later.
Thank you, thank you, Josh!

almost wordless wednesday

Last weekend, we were listening to Christmas music while decorating the Christmas tree. (Specifically, Chris Tomlin's Christmas CD. So good, FYI)

I turned around to grab some ornaments, and when I looked over at Avery this is what I saw:

Are you kidding me with that?

Somebody's Daddy is a worship pastor.

Oh, my heart...it just hurts with love for her sometimes...

really?

This is what happens when you leave your camera around my brothers and sister for a few days.

...And this post is what happens when crazy pictures end up on a blogging mom's camera.

Oh yeah. They're on the blog. 
That's right.
Yes, that's you.
Running across the pool cover.
Looking cool on the blog.

FYI: There approximately 55 photos like that on my camera.

20 of them are of my mom sleeping.

Poor Mom.

The thing that really kills me is about these pictures is the props they used.

They actually spent time looking for props.
Time that might be spent doing more... constructive things.

And yes, those two goofballs dress up like that for every holiday.

                              

Don't think I won't be grabbing a camera or two at Christmas this year.

counting the days

This Christmas, I decided to make an Advent Calendar.

If I'm really honest, I'm more crafty than I am creative.
There is a distinct - and very important - difference between the two.

Creative people come up with brand spankin' new ideas.
Crafty people copy Creative people's stuff.

I'm definitely not creative.
But I am a pretty good copy cat.

And thanks to Al Gore's super-cool invention, I can be inspired by Creative people all over the world.

So without further adieu, I bring you a few souvenirs from my cyber trip around the globe:

I found a few made out of round tins.
Nice.
And some made to open like drawers
Cute. 
Then there was the banner kind.
Nice and cute...
And of course the pie tins
super nice and cute.

I saw about a zillion-and-two cute ways to create an Advent out of fabric too, but I didn't even entertain the thought that I could copy any of them.
I just lovingly gazed at them and stashed the ideas in my mental files for another day.
A day when I learn how to sew... without someone standing over my shoulder telling me EXACTLY what to do.

It took me awhile to make a decision, but here's what I finally settled on:

Instead of the traditional round tins, I chose square ones that I bought from a store on Etsy named Lilian Olive.

The process went something like this:
I painted a 16 x 20 canvas.
I used Cosmo Cricket's line of Christmas papers named Jolly By Golly to cover the tins.
I found a few odds and ends to embellish the tins with and then put velcro on the back of the tins to adhere them to the canvas.
I added a little ribbon to hang the canvas with and... we were ready to roll.

Each box has an activity that we will do during the nights before Christmas. Most of the activities are free, (local parades, making cookies, looking at lights, watching Christmas movies) but some are things we will do around town (storytime with Santa, a living nativity, etc). All the activities are things that we will do together as a family.

I'm soooo excited about it.
Way more excited than anyone else in the family is.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that Charlie would be happy if I let him play with the toilet paper for 25 nights straight.

So - anyone else make an advent this year?

Dear Santa...

Yes, Avery, there is a Santa Clause.

And if you really want

www.amazon.com

a mommy crocodile
a baby crocodile
a room full of birds
and

you may just get it.

Maybe.

Well - maybe not the birds or crocodiles, but definitely the corn.

And possibly the obnoxious Barbie guitar... Because it's better than a room full of birds.

Santa's Day Job

We took Charlie and Avery to their first college basketball game last night.

Charlie was mesmerized by the sights and sounds.

I was mesmerized by this man:

You can't see him super well because I was trying to be sneaky about taking his picture, but I'm pretty sure it's Santa. With a rockin' braided rat tail.
Oh yeah.
That's niiiice.

(Hmmm...I hope my Paparazzi skills don't land me with a giant lump of coal in my stocking this year...)

12 months

He's one.
Officially.
I can't believe it.
12 months old...

It seems like yesterday that I was heading to the hospital to have him... (Running late for my C-section - of course. Because I can't be on time. Ever. Ugh.)

From the first moment I saw him, my heart melted into a big puddle in the floor.
He was beautiful and perfect.
It took exactly one look into those sweet blue eyes for me to fall completely and hopelessly in love.

He was a little part of me, a little part of David, and an amazing gift from our Heavenly Father. I felt like the luckiest girl on earth.

(November 2008)

His sweet, laid-back disposition has always made caring for him so easy. Even the nurses in the hospital mentioned his easy-going nature.

(November 2008)

The sleepless early days quickly turned into routine-filled months. And - in nothing short of light speed - those precious, live-changing months became our first year with the sweetest little boy I know.

(May 2009)

Watching him grow and change has been such a blessing.

His little blue eyes are constantly taking in the world around him. There's nothing sweeter than watching my little guy experience life's simple moments for the first time.

(September 2009)

(August 2009)

And you can't deny the incredible sweetness of those smooshy toes.

(September 2009)

He loves to cuddle, loves to play, and reaaally loves to eat.

(September 2009)

And there's just no one on earth can make him giggle and smile like his big sister.

(May 2009)

His quick smile makes my heart jump.

(August 2009)

I just plain adore him.

 

(October 2009)

Happy Birthday, Little Man.
You are a joy.
How thankful I am for you!

I can't wait to see what God has in store for you!

(November 2009)

Bossy McBossersson

Avery's newest obsession is Max and Ruby.

We've watched Max and Ruby's Halloween precisely one meeellion times now. And we'll probably be watching it all the way through Christmas, Valentines Day, and Easter.
'Cause that's how we do things around here.

I've gotta tell you, on a scale of 1-10, Max and Ruby is like a 8.5 on the annoying scale for me.
Not as annoying as Dragon Tales (because not many things in the universe are more annoying than Dragon Tales), but considerably more annoying than Diego.

Every time I am forced to watch Max and Ruby, I think,
"Poor Max.
Why can't Ruby just leave him alone?
Micro-Manage much, Ruby?"

Then something happened.
The other night, I came across this video from August.


It's looking like I may have a little Ruby on my hands.

It's funny how one 58 second video can have the power to change a simple children's cartoon into a stunning documentary on life with a three-year-old.