a very merry mermaid party

We celebrated Charlotte Gray's third birthday last weekend in merry mermaid style!  This is the first time that she actually knew that her birthday was coming and what all came with your big day. Charlotte is the one that chose the theme and after I had tapped out all of my creativity and craftiness (pinterest), I asked her what she wanted at her birthday and she replied in a very Charlotte way with her hands in her clasped in her lap, "just a wot of bawoons and cake."  Man, all my decorations and what was the one thing that I did not have, balloons.  So needless to say, that morning we picked up some balloons!  Her special day was made even more special because her favorite family, The Smiths, drove all the way from Virginia to come to her birthday party.  It was a great weekend that I think any three year old mermaid would have loved, and ours sure did!

Here are some shots from the day!

Decorations: we kept with the beach mermaid theme with shells and all of our favorite sea creatures.

Food: our mermaid and mermen guests dined on an assortment of nautical treats!  Complete with crab sandwiches, sea weed grapes, driftwood, sea shells and cheese, sea snails, goldfish and gold coins and some fishy sweets like marshmallow starfish grahams, sand dollar cookies and clam cookies.

Fun Activities: I always feel the teacher in me over plans everything, but with a good group of active kids with a crazy ring leader mermaid the activities were just right!  As always, Jay read a book, we chose Three Little Mermaids, everyone decorated a cookie or two to take home (I loved the google eyes I ordered) and the kids enjoyed painting fish sun catchers and receiving fishy temporary tattoos from my crazy tattooing aunties! (thanks Paula and Teresa!)

Of course we had all the fun activities that all birthday bashes include like cake and gifts.  I think it came to a big shock to both Jay and I how she reacted to her group of loved ones singing happy birthday to her.... we sing happy birthday to at least five things a day (everything from clouds and bugs to brooms and dustpans to people she met in the grocery store) so when it was her time for the birthday song and her smile turned to a nervous cry we were a little surprised.  Thanks to a willing crowd that sang to her not once, or twice but a lucky three times and a loving Auntie Dee that helped her get through her big moment.  She blew all her candles out with shockingly no singed hair and enjoyed some cake and presents!

Happy Birthday to our favorite little "worm maid" we hope you had as much day on your big day as we did planning for it!  We love you!

-melissa

Brown Bear Birthday Party

Last weekend Oliver James turned one year old!  To celebrate the occasion we had a Brown Bear, Brown Bear Birthday Bash!  The whole family got to celebrate with daddy Bear, mommy bear and sister bear shirts....and of course the birthday boy himself got a new shirt for the occasion.

Jay made the shirts just by using iron on transfer.  They were great, quick, and easy no-sew shirts!

This picture says it all!  Two proud parents who have survived another year of parenting, a happy birthday boy and a jealous sister who wishes to show you her belly!

We had a yummy dinner with brown bear burgers and some colorful sides!

No Hess Birthday Bash would be a party without story time with daddy bear and craft time with myself.  Jay read Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle to the birthday goers and then we all made animal masks and took pictures in the photo booth!

You can not properly celebrate a birthday without cake for a baby boy and cake for his friends and family!

Happy Birthday sweet Ollie James. We love you so and hope you enjoyed your big day!

balentines crafts

It has been really really cold here in Ohio, for a really, really long time.

So we as parents have had to be a bit creative.  A bit of that creativity has lead to a strong creative bug in Charlotte. One of her new favorite words is "deco-ate" and she wants to decorate everything! With Valentines Day coming up I knew that we had hit a "deco-ading" goldmine!  So we have been busy working on simple pillows, even more simple wreaths for the front door and fun valentines for friends and teachers!

Charlotte picked out little valentines monsters from the craft store to make for two of her favorite girls and then let out an actual squeal when she discovered sparkle puff paint. I honestly wish I had it on camera when she gave it the first squeeze...who knew all a two year old really needs is sparkle puff paint to get through our first long winter in Ohio!

Charlotte spent so much time at the table "deco-ating" that her brother was feeling pretty neglected and let it show with a little melt down, look at that poor boy!

Mommy of course had to get into the valentine action and so of course I quickly scanned pinterest and found some cute ideas. This is what I have for some of our favs this valentines day. I made a couple and of course paired them with a much needed starbucks gift card inside. I think we have all needed at least one starbucks hit a week to get through this chilly chilly winter! Found the idea on pinterest, printed the words on a piece of brown card stock, quickly sketched the cute coffee mug and of course added some sparkle puff paint!

Well, we hope you are staying warm this winter and you and your family is getting into the valentines day spirit.  In the words of Charlotte, Happy Balentines Day!

a simple christmas morning, presents and of course...a quilt

We have been pretty deliberate over the past couple of years to do Christmas in a simplified fashion since we have had Charlotte and especially now with Charlotte and Oliver. We know that nothing can damper the spirit of Christmas like shopping with a toddler in tow (realistically O is a such an easy baby, let's be honest, C is the tough one...sorry Charlotte when you read this in a couple of years.)

I always love to make Christmas gifts and would deem every Christmas gift a homemade one if Jay would allow me.  This year my homemade creation was a quilt.  Back in July we threw Jay's dad a birthday party and when I throw a party that means that some fabric purchases are required.  I had to buy some fabrics for table runners and a good deal of one fabric for the photo booth.  While we were standing in line at the fabric store and Jay was questioning the amount of fabric I needed I came up with the genius realization that I would use all the fabric I purchased to make the birthday boy a quilt for Christmas.

Well, our move in date came and went to get into the house and soon the whole month of October had disappeared and I still had not started a Birthday-Christmas quilt, can we call it a Birthmas Quilt?

I know that I wanted to use my simple go-to pattern of a nine patch and do some variations to the pattern.  So as the kids played one Saturday in the playroom I created and sketched and sewed.  The kids had a great time together (the playroom was trashed!) and I had such a lovely day sewing and still being with the kids.  I started with a simple nine patch block and then went with two borders, followed with some more nine patch blocks and some corner pieces and then a topper of nine patch blocks and some trim bordering pieces on the sides and bottom.  It all went together so smoothly and it was almost relaxing just designing as I went and watching the quilt grow.  This is what I ended up with!

Of course, I had to add his initials...

and some simple embroidery...

The back of the quilt was made almost entirely of the fabric from the photo booth with a penny strip down the middle.

Grandpa received his quilt on Christmas Eve and quickly put it to good use cuddling with his granddaughters!

Both kids have been sleeping in to around 6:30 to 7:00 each morning lately so we thankfully did not have a Christmas morning that started too early.  Both kids woke up around the same time and enjoyed a good look at their bounty before they started!

For three straight Christmases in a row C has had no interest in unwrapping her presents and has to be coaxed to unwrap just about anything...where did this kid come from?

Oliver was a little easier to get to open his presents, he will do anything to cuddle with his da da da!  Jay made this present for Oliver, it is much like the puzzle we made for C for her first Christmas.  He has already chewed up corners and decided it is a great drum!

We hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas. We really enjoyed our first Christmas holiday with no traveling, packing up presents and waking up in our own house!  A simple type of Christmas is the right type of holiday for us!