Party Decorations

Here are some of the decorations I made for the party:

Pompoms:

I got this sign at Celebrate Express:

It says Happy Birthday Gianna and Elia!

Then, there was the "crowning" achievement, the Minnie Mouse Ears. I still have blisters from the hot glue! I followed this tutorial online, and they turned out super cute.

Here is the balloon room. We (chris) basically filled our playroom up with tons of balloons. It was a freaking blast.

So those are all the extras I did for the party!

Minnie Mouse Cupcakes

I had a really grand vision for the minnie mouse cupcakes, but they didn't turn out quite as I wanted. But thats ok! I baked me some cupcakes, lightly frosted them, and dipped them in crushed oreos.

I had a little helper. :)

Then I baked some cookies in the shape of bows:

Then I sprayed them pink with some food color spray:

Then I assembled them with Famous Chocolate Wafers as the ears and used the pink cookies as bows. The wafers sort of got soft and some of them bent in half etc, but you get the idea:

Minnie Mouse Pinata

My favorite Minnie Mouse thing I did for the party was the pinata. I had a lot of people who were really surprised and impressed that this wasn't store-bought (score for me!:) but really, it was sooooo easy to make!

At first I was going to make something simple, like this, but then Chris suggested we add some ears to make it look like a mouse. Ingenious, I tell you. So first I blew up a regular old balloon and papermached it. I let it dry, and poked 2 holes on the top. I blew up 2 more balloons, and stuck them through the 2 holes. Here is a progress pic for you to get the idea.

So after I attached the ears, I papermached them onto the head. Then I cut out a flap on the bottom and filled it with goodies. Then I poked more holes in one side of the pinata and threaded twine through the holes and tied a washer on to keep it secure to the inside. I made 14 of these washer strings and then duct taped the flap shut. Chris spray painted the whole thing black in case the tissue paper wouldn't cover the really ugly newspaper. After it was all dry, I cut out as many tear drop shaped tissue paper pieces I could- probably about 4 inches long. Then I just started gluing them on going around and around until I got to the top. Then I slapped a pink gift bow on and woolah! The hit of the party!

Helping all the kiddos get a pull string:

All the loot:

The aftermath:

More Cousin Love!

Meg and Craig came in town this weekend. They flew in with Colin and Austin on Wednesday night and left Sunday afternoon. We had so much fun playing around, and of course everyone helped prepare for the big partay. Here are some non-party cousin pics.

Lots of eating outside, less mess!

Playing with balloons in preparation for the birthday balloon room.

Definitely some dancing in the mud.

I love this one. Colin is making Gianna laugh hysterically.

Look at these handsome devils!

When I took them to the airport, I left the girls at home with Chris. Gianna had a really hard time when we all left! She was so sad to see Colin go. Can't wait to see you guys again in June!

Happy Birthday Giannna!

I can't believe I have a 4 year old. Chris and I are constantly asking ourselves where she comes up with all of her sayings and ideas. Its been raining a lot lately and every time it does, she puts out bowls and cups all over the house in case the ceiling leaks. She absolutely loves Elia, but sometimes too much. Last week while at the grocery store, I caught her trying to give Elia an Indian Burn (ya know, when you grab an arm with both hands and twist). I asked her why she was doing that to her sister and she said mom, I just wanted to squeeze all the softness out of her. Sigh.

But back to the big day! We started her birthday out with a pancake party, to carry on the tradition of last year. I changed it up a bit by having different colored pancakes. The girls helped prepare the batter the night before.

Then she opened a few presents and we went about our day. Princess boots that light up when you walk:

She looks so old here!

I called her birthday girl all day and she thought that was the coolest. Once dad got home we opened more presents, went out to dinner to her fave, Fuzzys, and hid in the closet from tornadoes for a while. Her best present I think was her new bike.

We are going to put the training wheels on tomorrow and hopefully get out and ride! She was a very happy girl, and she is getting so excited for the party this weekend!

Here are some pics from the year. You can see the previous 3 years here.

Just turned 3!

Eating Stromboli at her cooking class. 3 yrs, 3 mos.

Licking the batter for our xmas cookies! 3 yrs, 6 mos

Building a snow man after the freak snow storm in Feb. 3 yrs, 9 mos.

4 years old!

Happy Birthday to my sweetie!

Elia's Birthday

My baby is 2! I just can't believe it. She is sleeping in a big girl bed now and her sentences are really coming together. My current favorite is I sityourwap which means can I sit in your lap? Love it. Right now she is obsessed with puzzles and gets really excited when one of us does it with her. Her hair is getting so long and she gets really cute little curls in the back.

We made cupcakes the night before her birthday so she could bring some to daycare. I made cupcake picks out of some Minnie stickers Aunt Col sent. Thanks Col!

For her birthday she got some good stuff!

She opened some when we got home from work (my last day! yippee!) and then we headed out to dinner. The restaurant we went to is right across a tiny airport, and as we were leaving there was a plane taxi-ing. That was really cool to see.

Then we headed over to Petsmart to get the best present ever- fish.

They were so stinking excited. The fish are now in a little bowl at home. Gianna named hers Sienna and Elia named hers Fishy. More birthday updates are coming up- big plans for G on Tuesday and our big bash next weekend! Take a peek at my timeline from last year. Here are a few more from this year!

Just turned 1 year!

15 months. Killer ponytail.

18 months. Waiting on Christmas cookies.

21 months: obsessed with drawing! She calls it jaw.

The Birthday girl!

Happy birthday sweetie!

I'm So Lucky

Grandma Rowles was here until Tuesday afternoon. I went to work on Monday and came home to her folding my laundry. Awesome, right? Well it gets better! I went into the kitchen to find this:

She made 5 meals for me! 5! And they are all yummy, classic Mary dishes. I started crying as soon as I realized what she had done for me. This was a pretty stressful week with it being my last week and trying to wrap everything up etc that it was just perfect that I didn't have to worry about dinner.

Thursday, my parents gave me a goodbye party. They had all my students sign a Fancy Nancy book and put that and an $85 american express gift card in this really cute tote bag that is monogrammed with Rowles on it. They served M&M cookies and lemonade, because they know it was my favorite. I was close to tears again!

I could go on and on about how wonderful my experience was at this school. It seriously put my faith back into public education, and teaching for that matter. I was officially asked by one of the second grade teachers to do her maternity leave (she is due in November) so I will be back!

Rowles-Alba Visit

Gianna told me tonight that she misses Phoebe and Gabby. It was so sad. We really had a great weekend!

The engaged couple graduated!

We pretty much loved on that sweet baby all weekend.

Chris put up a tire swing, and it was a huge hit. Phoebe didn't want to get off!

Till we told her it was bath time:

Half of Grandma's kids were in town in one weekend! Don't know when thats going to happen again.

Grandma is coming back next weekend for a conference. Megan and family will be here too so it will be a full house again!