1/11 - A Woodland Birthday

Happy New Year!  Hope you all had great holidays and 2015 is bringing you love and other good things.  Would you believe that my little twins are almost nine?  It's true.

We celebrated with their friends this past weekend at the Sulphur Creek Nature Center, which is a great place.  The party deal offered the kids a chance to meet and feed the animal(s) of their choice, from a list of friendly residents, and do a project or go on a nature hike.  Our naturalist was super friendly and gave great customer service (but did not allow rides in the birthday cart).

You know me.  I had to bust out some decorations and goodies for the party, even if it was just in a rented space.  I leveraged heavily the woodland theme ideas from The Ellie Blog.  First of all, how cute are these printables?

Next up, some cupcakes.  I really like gel food coloring for tinting the frosting.  (Yes, I still had my Christmas tree up.)

  

I ordered some rainbow-colored goodie bags and the kids decorated them with the printable stickers.  We tossed in a camo-colored bracelet and owl stickers from the party store, some candy, and one of these little animal figures (except the ones the twins wanted to keep at home):

The kids and I trimmed down brown paper lunch sacks and used more stickers to pretty them up.  We offered popcorn, "twigs," (stick pretzels), crunchy carrots, and bear graham crackers.

We decorated the room with the super cute birthday banner and offered animal ears (fox, bear (or mouse), and bunny).  I wasn't sure if the kids were too old or cool for that sort of thing, and was delighted when they all put them on!

The kids enjoyed roaming around the center, checking out the animals in the displays and putting on puppet shows.  Then it was time to meet some animals!  Lil' Gal had selected a guinea pig, and Strawberry was a sweetie.

Lil' Guy wanted to meet a rabbit, and Scarlett was very nice, although not really into crowds.

Then it was time for the nature hike.  We howled at the coyotes that live at the center (our naturalist encouraged us to do it, and, while the coyotes didn't howl back, we were thrilled to see them scamper around and wag their tails just like dogs.  We also saw a family of wild turkey vultures and a deer family, including a mom deer with triplets.

After that, we needed some cupcakes and ice cream.  Poor Lil' Gal has never been a fan of the singing...

It was a really special day, and I was so happy the kids had a good time.

Happy birthday, my sweeties.  I hope this is a wonderful year for you -- the best yet, with many more to come.

Love, Mommy

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Note:  Other neat woodland-themed ideas I found are on my Pinterest Board.

4/01 - Oh, no! I lost Goldie!!

I thought she was in my bag, but now I think I left her at one of my errands!  I am soooo sorry!

APRIL FOOL!!

Goldie’s fine.    She was with me all along.  :)

Poor Peggy is not fine, though.  She sprained her ankle and has to wear a boot that looks just like mine did.

2/17 - To the hip hip hop, a you don't stop

The kids didn't have school and I didn't have work, so we hopped on over to the zoo.

And then we came to a stop...  Or a slow crawl, perhaps.

Hoppy President's Day!

1/19 - PAW Patrol party

It happened again.  I'm not quite sure how, but those little twins of mine have grown one year older (and cuter!)  I now have eight year olds on my hands.  Oh my.

We decided on a PAW Patrol theme, a show we enjoy watching (and re-enacting), about action rescue dogs with excellent vehicles and gadgets.

We started the festivities with the traditional "please bring a healthy treat" request from the teacher.  I'm not sure that I'd call these healthy per se, but they were not sweet, delicious cupcakes.  No.  I sent "pupcakes" instead.

Next up, one "pawty," which Lil' Guy kept hearing as "potty."  (He was not amused.  He lobbied for a "ruff ruff" party, but I am too juvenile to pull that off appropriately.)  We used printables from Nick Jr. for the invites and to decorate the house.  Thanks to Mama for her balloon and streamer wrangling!

"Pupcorn" holders:

I got dog bowls from the dollar store and used them to serve meatballs, little smokies, Scooby Snacks (graham crackers), Whoppers, etc.

And how cute are these lollipups?

We stationed every dog stuffie we could find (there were lots!) around the house as decorations.  For the goodie bags and prizes, I got stickers, dog collar bracelets, paw print stampers, some little plastic dogs, and Scooby Doo sour candies.

We played a few very fun games.  Lil' Gal set up a Fetch station for the kids to play while everyone arrived.

Our first game was Pin the Badge on Marshall.

Then we played Doughnut on a String, where the kids got to eat like dogs, with no hands.

We played Dogcatcher, where the kids took turns being the dogcatcher.  When they tagged someone, that kid had to go to the doghouse (predesignated area) until another kid tagged them out.  If the dogcatcher caught all the "puppies," s/he won.  (I just gave the kids that wanted to be the dogcatcher two minutes to catch as many as they could, then switched to another dogcatcher.)

We finished up with everyone's favorite canine version of Hot Potato.

Then, it was time for cake!!  I tried a technique I found on Pinterest for making the PAW Patrol characters in frosting.  Aside from having to make 11 different colors of buttercream frosting (which all tasted delicious!), and forgetting to reverse the image, it went pretty well.  The kids loved it.

Happy birthday, my sweeties.  I hope your 8th year brings you all kinds of joy.  You are my joy.

Love, Mommy 

1/15 - Mario tries to jump higher than a tree

These were smallish trees in an indoor courtyard that time forgot, as there were still poinsettias and holiday decorations up!

We wanted to try the deli there, so Mario jumped around from bench to bench and tree to tree while we waited for my sandwich.  (No, not really, Lil' Guy!  But I’m sure he was thinking about it.)

1/07 - Jake and the Nevereaten Fruit Cake

Jake said, “I won’t eat it! Not even if I were stranded on a deserted island!”

Fun fact:  One of my family's holiday traditions growing up involved the Norwegian version of fruitcake called julekaga.  My grandmother would make it every year and mail us a loaf, along with a variety of Christmas cookies.  We'd inhale the cookies, but the julekaga...  notsomuch.  If visitors came along, we'd try to fob it off on them:  "Try it!  It's Norwegian!"  They'd take a polite bite or two, but you really could not get rid of that stuff.

1/01 - Happy New Year!!

Wishing you and yours a very happy 2014.  May your days be full of laughter and your nights full of restful sleep.

May your blessings be many and your heart be full of joy and gratitude.

  

May you have enough and maybe even a little extra.

Hope your holidays were filled with wonder and family in all the best ways.

12/23 - Max and the field of cookies

Max helped me get cookies ready to give to my new work friends.  He was a good helper, except when he tried to eat all the cookies!  (I can’t blame him.)

Don’t worry – there are still plenty left for us to enjoy!

12/20 - Eeyore did not win the ugly sweater contest

He didn't have an ugly sweater.  But it didn't matter anyway.

These ladies did!

Peggy tried to play reindeer games with Eeyore, but he said, "No thank you.  I'd probably lose anyway."