We're Back!

We rolled into Dallas last night around 8:30pm. Details of the StL trip will come soon! BUt in the meantime, this is what we are up to:

Potty Training!! I put the portable DVD player in the bathroom cabinet and made Elia drink and drink and drink and in the last hour she has gone 2 times on the potty! She thinks she is pretty cool in her sweet new Minnie Mouse panties. I'll keep you all updated!

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:

Minnie Minnie Mow

I want to post about Elia's new words before she comes up with a few hundred more. The best so far in my opinion, is saying her sister's name. About 2 weeks ago, she started saying just "G." She would run around after her and say geeeee geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Hilarious. Then about a week ago I caught her saying Geee-ana a few times. Now finally this past weekend she started saying Gianna. If she says it too fast it sounds like john-a. SO cute. G likes it too.

Another word is "mon." It means come on. I am constantly saying this to Gianna at the grocery store or when we are out walking and she is lagging. I always say come on Gianna! When we are about to go outside, she always turns to G and says 'mon!!

She was (and still is) obsessed with Elmo, partly because I think it was so fun for her to say. But she has semi-moved on to Minnie and Mickey mouse. I have a stuffed animal of each that she loves to carry around. Whenever she see one of them, or sees one on her diaper(huggies), or even better, if a friend has a minnie or mickey item, she can't stop saying minnie minnie mow. Especially when a friend has a minnie or mickey related item, she goes crazy and says minnie minnie minnie mow. So cute.