blown away

two and five.

gah. look how little she was!

WW: Zip line fun

from her party on the 7th.
want more from her party (and/or bday)? click here, here, here, or hey why not here!


linking up with Parenting By Dummies

Party recap

Lovie's 2nd birthday party was Saturday and it was a blast. Better than anticipated, really. Absolutely no regrets for doing this. Sure she's still very young and won't remember this party, but she'll have pictures and some video to help remind her. And she had the time of her young life (and we had very little set up and clean up to do!).

Look at that smile!

When we first arrived, she didn't really think much of it. We were just at Gymnastics (as she calls it). But then her first little friend from school came and she started getting super excited as she wanted to show her friend around.

notice her shirt? it's a big 2 with Team Umizoomi characters on it- matching her invite

They jumped on the trampoline. They dove into the ball pit. The ran around squealing and giggling.

After a bunch more people started to arrive, the teachers gathered everyone around a large circle and sang Happy Birthday to my Lovie who sat with a big grin on her face. Then they brought out a huge parachute and laid it down for everyone to grab a hold of and start to shake. And sing Happy Birthday. Then Lovie laid down on top of the parachute and everybody shook her back and forth. Then others joined in.

They played with puppets. One of the teachers hid a bunch of small toys around the place so they had to run around and collect them and bring them back. They brought out a buttload of pom poms for the kids to play with.

They hooked up a huge swing that all the kids were able to sit on and ride. (This was funny to watch because all the parents grabbed their cameras to take photos.)

They built a fort and played hide and seek (Lovie hid by covering her eyes with her hands- *cutest thing ever*) for a couple of minutes before hiding Lovie in the back room for everyone to find.  After a minute, they directed everyone to the front of the gym to wait as they brought Lovie out in a car.

And it was the cutest 30 seconds of her life. I swear to god. She was smiling from ear to ear as one of the teachers wheeled her out in circles while everyone clapped and the Beatles Birthday song played in the background.

Then the teacher got her out of the car and brought her to the cake (Team Umizoomified with little toppers I DIY'd), lit the candles, we all sang and she blew out her candles.

The kids ate pizza and cake and went back out to play for another 10-15 minutes.

The party ended with another sock puppet show followed by bubbles. Lots of bubbles (they brought out a fan and huge thing of bubbles they placed in front of the fan causing all these little kids to try to pop all the bubbles).

After the last bubble was popped, the teachers announced that all the kids needed to get their socks and shoes on so they could get a goodie bag. The party was over but hopefully not forgotten for a while.

Nearly two hours of smiles, giggles, laughter erupting from all corners of the room. It was pure fun, fun, fun.

I'm pretty darn sure we'll be doing this again in another year, too. Yahoo for winter birthdays keeping us indoors!

everybody craaaazy shake!

Tomorrow. Her party is finally tomorrow! : )

I designed the invites myself. Not too shabby, eh? Well I don't think they are (I mean did you see I got a photo of Lovie inside of Bot's belly-screen?!??). I think they're damn cute, tyvm!

Because I blurred it all out, the party is going to be (for little kids) at a little kid gym place...The place Lovie's been going to since October for her "Gymnastics." She loves this place. Loves it. So it was really fitting to have the party here. And the price really couldn't be beat- especially considering we don't have to worry about doing any kind of set up, clean up, entertaining, etc. Nope. We just show up with a cake. Play. Pizza will be delivered at 3:30 (party starts at 3). We'll eat pizza and have cake- after singing Happy Birthday to my girl, of course. Then it's back to play play play!

My header at the top of the blog? That's from the last time we were at Gymnastics. They have a ball pit which Lovie adores. Ack, she's going to have SO much fun. She always does but once she realizes that everyone is there for HER... eek! :) I can't wait to see her reaction.

I'm a bit nervous because every single person RSVP'd that the were coming except for a small handful of people so we're going to be at the max the place allows! And then there's the chance that some additional child(ren) will show up as my husband's family kind of does their own thing.

I can't worry about any of that, though; we'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

My main focus is Lovie having a blast... and somehow, someway getting some pictures of it all to help us remember. We can only do what we can do and the H and I have already discussed that we would swap taking pictures and playing whenever we could.  So fingers crossed we get some decent photos (I'd love to have a group shot of *all* kids but not sure how/if that could work with 20 kids.)

Eek, this is gonna be so much fun!!

• After work today, I pick up the cake (just a generic one from Costco... I made Millie, Geo, and Bot characters to stick into the cake. Was hoping to keep the cake in the car overnight but our temps are supposed to be in the 50s today!).
• Bottled water and juice boxes are in the hallway at home.
• Little goody bags assembled and ready to go (with a Team Umizoomi sticker- that I made- on them)!
• Pizza to be delivered at 3:30.
• Paper plates, napkins, plastic forks, candles all in a bag ready to go, too.
• Team Umizoomi "2" shirt ready to be worn by the birthday girl.

This is gonna be soooo much fun.

And then on Sunday, we get to go to a 1 year old's pizza party! So it's definitely going to be a busy weekend. How about you?

Waking up to balloons

December 29, 2011

I still haven't recapped our Christmas and that makes me sad- because it was AWESOME- but I couldn't really touch on it until after Lovie's birthday.

My girl turned TWO yesterday.

My big girl.

My sunshine. My love. My life.

Originally I wanted to do something special with her but because she loves going to school, we decided to just let her go to school and then celebrate there and after school. So yesterday was damn busy for me.

It actually started on the 28th when I spent nearly 2 hours blowing up balloons to cover the floor of Lovie's bedroom so when she woke she'd see something- a room full of balloons- she hadn't seen before. Something to make her day more special, you know? After the balloons were done, I spent another several hours on the computer trying to finalize her 2nd year video- which still isn't finished.

When we woke on the 29th, Lovie was surprised by the balloons (I do have some pictures just no time to get them off my camera) but pretty much over it as soon as we left. Then it was all about donuts because I told her we would stop to bring in donuts to school- for her birthday. So the entire car ride in to school on slick roads consisted of singing about Donuts! Dough-nuts! Dough-nuts! It's time to get the dough-nuts! Over and over again. We sang about these donuts so much that by the time we were driving home after a busy day at school, she still remembered the song and started singing it! =D

I left work early to pick up the cupcakes I was bringing in to her school for their afternoon snack.

Check out the cupcake toppers I made- by hand- for $1.99 (cost of lollipop sticks):

One side with Ni Hao Kai-Lan character, other side with Lovie's 2

Then I met my mom at her school at 3 where Lovie and some of the others were just waking up or still sleeping. She woke up quickly once she saw us but was a bit whiny (she likes to snuggle after waking from a nap until she's ready to get going) and stuck to me like velcro until everyone woke up and it was time to get the chairs for snack. Then I told her that she needed to help out with the chairs and sit down for her snack so that we could all sing Happy Birthday to her.

At first she was really happy and excited about the cupcakes and the Kai-Lan characters (it's one of her favorite shows- she even says Hello, Bye, and Thank You in Chinese). But then we started singing to her after lighting a little 2 candle and she was like, WTF:

hehe she cracks me up!

Once we got done singing to her, she blew out her candle like she'd done it a hundred times. Then she spent about half an hour sticking her finger in the frosting and then licking her finger.

She's never been much of a sweets person, but I'm glad she at least enjoyed the frosting.

After she was done, we left daycare and went home. Lovie watched a little TV while I tried getting most of the balloons out of her bedroom and into the front of the house and her playroom. I ended up taping a good dozen to the walls just to get them off the floor.

When daddy got home, he brought her a hot dog and fries of which she chowed down on. Then we lit a candle on a small piece of cake I picked up when I got the cupcakes, sang happy birthday to her, and she, once again, blew out her candle like a pro. She opened all her presents and played for a bit then got her PJ's on, drank some milk while watching a little TV before heading to her bedroom for some stories and bed.

She was asleep by 8 (Mama was asleep by 815) and today she's home with daddy while Mama "works."

And there you have it. A run down of Lovie's 2nd birthday. I'll probably post pictures from our little party at home at another time, but until then, just know it went really, really well.

And we still have her kid party coming up next Saturday, January 7th! I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Calling all Umi Friends!!

I need help and I'm calling out to all my "Umi Friends" for some guidance... PLEASE?!

So Lovie's birthday is in 6 weeks and 6 days. Her birthday party, which will be for other littles, will be at her "imnastics" (the kid gym place we go to on Saturday which is referred to as "gymnastics) place in a little more than 7 weeks (because the place is closed- wah!- the weekend after her birthday).

I need to narrow down which date to have it on and which package to choose... do we have up to 12 kids come or up to 20? I think we should go with up to 12, the H thinks up to 20. Problem is, we don't know 20 kids- unless we invite every one of her classmates (I think there are 15). But the problem with that is that I'm certain some of those classmates have siblings and what if they bring them? Then there would be more than 20 kids because we do have about 8 kids that would absolutely need to be invited (most would come, I think) in addition to her classmates. So if you take the 8 kids and the 15 from school, that's way more than 20. Even my math-hating ass knows that!

That means, we pick and choose who to invite from school since that's the route we clearly have to take- regardless of which package we go with.

So my question is... How do I invite her classmates?

I know that sounds like a stupid question with an obvious answer but really, how do I do it?  We cannot invite them all so how do I invite a select few? I don't know their home addresses like I do all the other kids that would be invited. Will the school give me the addresses? Doubtful. Ugh.

I can personally hand deliver a couple of the invites to the moms- two for sure I see every single morning; another mom I sometimes see and sometimes don't; and there are couple more that I have never seen.

Do I ask the teachers to give them to the parents upon pick up one day? But then that's asking them to take on that responsibility. Ugh. Plus, I feel like an ass asking them to give only X, Y, and Z's parents an invite. You know? Annnd, one of the teachers of her class has a kid in the class who I wasn't PLANNING on inviting (though I most definitely would if we go with the larger package).

So how do I do this? HELP!

Oh and... on the invites... do I mention where the party is being held (obviously) and that at least one parent needs to be there? Because they do. They can't just drop off the kid. They have to take off their shoes while their kid takes off their shoes and socks and follow their kid around at times. Am I supposed to mention that or will it be a given by the type of place it's at? This is a serious question because had I been invited to one of these parties prior to going myself, I wouldn't even guess that I'd have to take off my shoes (ew!!).

And whose name is on the invite?? Just "Kid'sName" or "Kid'sName + Parent" or what?!

Why is this so difficult?!

Man, do I envy those of you with lots of friends with kids and those of you who can celebrate the kid's birthday in a warmer climate or time of year... (not that I envy the warmer temps because I don't and you can keep those, tyvm!)

Thinking ahead

For Lovie's first birthday, we kinda went big- spending more than we wanted and having everyone (family only- like 50 people) out for pizza in a private room of a pizza joint. I have no regrets because it was the first time several family members were meeting Lovie and it was important to me that we give them that opportunity.

But it wasn't cheap.

I mean, despite only getting a couple packages of balloons we blew up ourselves and some other random, cheap decorations as well as an inexpensive sheet cake, every penny went to the pizza joint for pizza and pop.

We spent what we spent agreeing that from that point forward, her birthday parties would be much smaller. Fine.

But the closer we get to her birthday, the more I'm hoping to do something more than just us and maybe her grandparents.

Enter one of those kid gym places.

A friend of mine, a SAHM, has been taking her kid there for well over a year and kept telling me to take Lovie. Hello! We spend a LOT of money sending her to daycare during the week - where she gets plenty of play time! But now that she's older and even more active, I decided to look into it for when the weather gets to be too cold or wet for us to get out to the park. They had a two week free trial so went for the first time last weekend.

It's AWESOME.

We spent an hour on the floor with Lovie, playing with her, encouraging her, spotting her. She did well with the teachers and the other kids, all older (she's the youngest in the class going up to 3.5 yo). We ended up signing her up after the class for another 8 weeks of classes starting in November so that the membership fee was waived.

I then "liked" them on Facebook and noticed they were having a contest for a FREE birthday party. So I slapped Lovie's pic on their wall and asked people to like. The contest ends in two weeks. So far (KNOCK ON EVERY PIECE OF WOOD), things look promising.

If we could win this party, it would really be ideal.

Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I need to figure out what she's gonna wear for her birthday (and any time next year) so I found some images from google images and farted around on paint and came up with two designs:

She LOVES Team Umizoomi. Like, LOVES them. And I think I'm certain she would be beyond ecstatic to wear a shirt with the characters from the show... but I'm not sure I can find a place to make the design for me because of licensing issues. That's my guess anyway. Whereas the shirt with her name (her real name would appear, of course) can easily be made.

Keeping in mind I used Paint to create these so colors and style won't be the same, of course, what do you think??

Conundrum

(today is the first day in about four that i feel sort of normal- please, please, please, let this be an all day thing!)

Monday, a certain little someone turned 20 months old.

this pic is from when she was still 19 months old. for shame, mama!

I know, right? When did this happen?!?

So now I need to start cracking on what to do for her birthday, which will be small and family-oriented as opposed to the huge pizza party we did last year for 50 family members! But I still want to do something cool for my Lovie. I want her to wake up that morning and know that that day is the most wonderful day in the world for her and for us.

I started collecting some ideas on Pinterest that you can see by clicking HERE. (if you want to start Pinning yourself and need an invite, feel free to comment or email me your email addy)

At first I thought I'd just go simple again like last year and just do balloons... but because this will be a smaller venue (our home), I thought why not do more?!?

So in addition to waking up with a room full of balloons (really, how freaking neat would that be?!?), I figured I'd do more.

Then I thought about what things could match balloons and really, anything can. Fortunately most kid- things involve bright colors and so then I found some cute Yo Gabba Gabba ideas.  (OK so my pins aren't organized all that great.)

via google images

no, the red thing is not a dildo.

this show... is crazy. at first i was kind of dumbfounded as i watched the dildo dance around but then when i started paying attention, i grew to really really like it! it's really a great show that actually tries teaches kids! really.

The thing is, Lovie LOVES YGG, she really does. Almost as much as the Wiggles, I think... but I think her absolute favorite - even beyond the Wiggles (dare I say it out loud) is

via google images

i've always been a fan of this show since day one.

it's super cute and really tries to teach the kids about math (which i hate and suck at).

TEAM UMIZOOMI

So now I'm trying to find some inexpensive ways to incorporate some Milly, Geo and Bot into the mix (she especially loves Bot).

I've never been a "theme" person outside of "birthday" but I think that's cuz I didn't really get any birthday parties as a kid (I'm the youngest of three) and I'm not a big fan of Disney stuff (yet, I'm sure). I mean, sure, we had cake with family but that was really the extent. And that's fine and pretty much what we're doing this year- but I still want the decor to be special and over the top for her. No, she probably won't remember, but there will be pictures for her to look back on one day.

So my conundrum: What do I do for her birthday? A shitton of balloons or should I add some YGG or TU in the mix, too?

Ack, decisions!!

Feel free to vote in the comments or in the poll over there on the right side of the screen.