Plastic Bag Kites - A Windy Day Activity

We've had some SUPER windy days this April with beautiful blue skies and cool weather. The perfect setting for getting outside. While looking for "windy day outdoor activities" for the girls I stumbled upon plastic bag kites. This simple, quick activity provided literally hours of fun for the girls.

All you need is a plastic shopping bag and yarn.

Resurrection Garden

Spring! New life. Fresh beginnings.

We created a Resurrection Garden as a reminder of these gifts.

Waiting for Easter and waiting for this to sprout. 

Reverse Easter Egg Hunting

Today we tried Reverse Easter Egg Hunting. The idea is that instead of searching for treat filled eggs, you send the kids out to search to goodies to fill their eggs with. I chose colors as our theme today and added a slip of paper to each egg with instructions to "Fill with something (insert color name here)." I gave each girl five eggs.

Logistically it was better to have the eggs inside the house in a bowl marked with their initials. They chose one egg at a time and went out to fill it. Once complete, they came in for another egg until they had a bucket filled with eggs containing colorful pieces of nature.

This was a great activity for Marin and Adalyn. Coralee wasn't interested in specific instructions, but had a great time opening and closing her eggs and following her sisters around attempting to fill her eggs with treasures from our yard.

This is something we'll do again. I think I'll try other attributes too! "Fill with something heavy," or "fill with something cold." Even "fill with live bugs" could be fun! Watch out rolly pollies.

Toilet Paper Roll Bunnies

This girl house can churn out empty toilet paper rolls, so I'm always on the look out for ways to turn them into fun activities. These bunnies were a big hit and simple to create.

What you need to make one bunny:

1 and 1/2 toilet paper rolls

A pair of googly eyes

Paint

Black marker

Hot glue gun

A cotton ball

I started by letting the girls paint their rolls. You'll need one single roll for the body, and then we cut another roll into fourths to create the ears for two bunnies.

Once the paint has dried. Attach the eyes and cotton ball tail using hot glue. You'll fold the other half roll in half and cut into two pieces to create the ears. We hot glued these into place and then reenacted Beatrix Potters' "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies" but any good bunny story will do.

Happy Spring!

Schedule > Set Date and Time

Schedule > Set Date and Time. That's what did it.

Did you know you could post date blog posts? Well, you can; and when I learned that, PROCRASTINATION reared it's ugly head and eight months later....

Okay, let's not focus on the negative. Instead, let's talk about spring and sunshine and sweet little girls, all good reasons to start blogging again.

Old Truck for an Old Truck

 See that black GMC truck? That was our first purchase as an engaged couple. We loved that truck. It's the vehicle that everyone decorated when we left for our honeymoon. It was what I drove back and forth to work the years before we had children, and when Marin was born I could fit her car seat right next to me and sing songs. We've outgrown the truck and it was time to either invest money into it or...

trade the truck in for a new older truck. We made the swap and are excited about the memories that we'll make with this red beauty. I see Christmas parades, pumpkin parties, senior pictures and weekend trips to Brenham in our future.

Welcome to the World Baby Shower {The Event}

 I worked with a lovely group of girls to host a baby shower for my sister-n-law. The event was not only beautiful but so much fun! The theme was Welcome to the World and the colors were earth green and blue with pops of orange (my sister-n-laws favorite color).

The invitation design might give you an even better feel for the event. 

A close friend of mine has a collection of globes, which were perfect for depicting the theme. 

We had globe cake pops made at a bakery in Houston. Guests took them home as party favors. The orange chevron paper straws were from Hobby Lobby. We added little tags to each one. The flags said "Welcome to the World and had the GPS coordinate for the baby's home.

I made round stickers with the free globe graphic from The Graphic Fairy and we stuck them to clear plastic cups. The napkins are George Stanley cocktail napkins.

I'm in love with the true round 3 foot balloons. Seems I can't host a party without them. 

I found orange luggage tags on sale at World Market and used them to label items on the welcome table. The tag above encouraged guests to share advice on a sticky note that was then placed on a globe.

We wanted to incorporate carrots into the party because Sarah loves to sit around an snack on carrots, plus they are orange. I think this arrangement of green and blue hydrangeas wrapped in carrots turned out BEAUTIFUL and so unique.

I designed thank you post cards that matched the invitations and guests wrote their mailing address on one as they arrived. This was to save the mommy to be time when sending her thank you postcards.

Instead of a guests book I created this orange world map. I found the frame at Garden Ridge and moved the glass behind the paper. Guests wrote a message to the baby and when the shower was over we put the glass back on the front, creating a beautiful memento from the shower.

And, no party post is complete without my sketches.

Welcome to the World Baby Shower {The Invitation}

My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby and I was thrilled to help a wonderful group of girls host a baby shower in their honor. Because Joshua and Sarah love to travel, we thought a welcome to the world theme was appropriate for their baby. Sarah's favorite color is orange so that was a nice neutral color since the gender of the baby is unknown. These invitations were mailed in orange envelopes with these free vintage parcel post labels from World Label in blue. The map inside the heart was also a free download from The Graphics Fairy. She had so many beautiful maps to choose from!

Maternity Pictures

 My brother is going to be a father. Seems like just yesterday I was taking their engagement pictures. Four years later I'm so excited to be capturing this new, exciting stage of their life together.

Family Room {Beadboard Ceiling}

Half the ceiling is hung! This might not look like much work, but...it is.

Each sheet of beadboard has to be primed and painted before we hang it. Steven built this super big easels for us to prop the boards onto. We put the girls to bed and paint most every evening.

Fun times...

Pumpkin Carving Party 2013 {The Invitation}

We are celebrating 10 years of pumpkin carving this year. Above is the invitation design. The painting was done by my brother-in-law Kevin. I love the painting because it reminds me of the very first year when we had a pumpkin pinata. The colors in the sky are so inviting with the contrasting, spooky black silhouette in the foreground.

In honor of celebrating 10 years we wanted to do something different, so we asked guests to help us GIVE to friends of ours who are adopting a baby. This year instead of asking guests to bring their pumpkins we bought 50 pumpkins (at wholesale) and asked guests to buy them from us for $10 each. We called it Pumpkins with Purpose and it was a big hit. By doing this we were able to give more and were able to bless our friends with a generous financial blessing. That made celebrating 10 years so much sweeter.

Pumpkins With Purpose

Psalm 68:5–6

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God,

whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families;

he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.”

Tropical Honeymoon Shower {The Main Event}

I was asked to coordinate a shower for a couple at our church. The couple was blending two households and had more than enough "stuff." What they really wanted was money to go towards their honeymoon. So I created a tropical Honeymoon Shower. To help guest understand the concept the invitations read: "give the gift of memories made, not just things that will fade." 

Here is my initial sketch for the party. I think the final layout was just what I had in my head.

The menu included finger food type desserts that included Sand (or Beach) Cups, Fruit Skewers, White Powdered and Coconut Flaked Donuts skewered with paper straws resting in crushed graham crackers (sand) and the cake.

The cake was my design, but was created by Barbara Watts. I thought it turned out beautiful and made me smile to look at it. The origami money clothes were the same ones used to create the invitation. I just stuck a candy stick into the bottom of each one and Barbara added them to the top of the cake.

I created a "Money Palm Tree" out of toilet paper rolls, black paper and mini clothes pins. Guests could clip their money to the tree along with a slip of paper that offered wishes or advice. The couple loved the tree so much they asked to use it at the wedding reception as well.