Ella's Birthday Cont'd

This is the last of Ella's birthday celebration pictures. Between her birthday, school class celebration and her party, there were a lot of pictures. These pictures of from her classroom birthday celebration. The kids in her class made her this birthday banner which we had up in our house for awhile.



And these are the treats I took to share with Ella's class. I printed up the brown paper bags and altered this design to fit Ella's birthday. Simple donut holes with sprinkles are always a winner! And how easy too!

Activity Days: Daughters of God

For Activity Days last week. I had the girls trace their body on a big roll of butcher paper. Than each girl decorated their bodies with yarn for hair, draw their faces and clothes. Then we used magazines to cut out things that represent each girl as they see themselves and also how Heavenly Father sees them. The important traits they possess as daughters of God. They put those items on their clothes like patches or t-shirt designs.

You could also bring gems and sequins to have the girls use as bracelets, necklaces and earrings. To "bling" things up a bit :-)

I talked to the girls about how in Primary they learn all about what it means to be a Child of God. But that as they get older and enter Young Women's they will learn what it means to be a Daughter of God. And we discussed those important traits.

The girls had fun decorating themselves and I hope their "bodies' are hanging up in the room to remind them of the importance of being a Daughter of God.

Flamingo Birthday Party: The Details

Here are the details to the party.

I decided to make the water bottles cute (like every other birthday party out there in blog land). I loved the flamingo straws I found. I found these "giant" marshmellows at Winco and thought I better dip them in chocolate and pink sprinkles. I made these easy ham and cheese sandwiches (without the poppyseeds) and the rest of the lunch consisted of: chips, cheese stick, grapes, carrots and half a frozen go-gurt. I figured a nice variety of food would cover all the different kids tastes.

We played "Pin the Feather on the Flamingo". I made the big flamingo and then made feathers with each kids name on them. One kid hit the mark exactly!


I found cute inflatable flamingo drink holders and put cute flamingo cups in them filled with candy and a little flamingo sucker. Can you tell our life was all about flamingos for a few weeks?


Here is the kitchen. I love the tissue pom-poms. They are easy, cheap and soo darn cute! That was about half of them. I had a bunch more when you walked into the house.

I made bags for the kids to hold all there candy in for the pinata.


I got these aprons and fancied them up a bit. I painted glitter flamingos on them and then added pink bows for the girls and blue buttons for the boys.


Like I already mentioned in my previous post, the big activity was each kid got to paint a ceramic hotrod bank for the boys and a heart box for the girls. This was a really fun activity for the kids and they did pretty well... thanks to all the parents that helped and stuck around :-)

Lastly, in case you missed it, here were the invitations I sent out.

Ella's 4th Birthday

I think I mentioned before that when I asked Ella what kind of party she wanted for her birthday, she answered "Flamingo!" I wasn't sure what we were going to do, but Flamingos it was. After months of thinking about it, here is what we did for her party.

Here was her cake. It was my first attempt at a double layer cake. I am definitely not a cake person. I am surprised the thing held up to be honest with you. But luckily it did! I used a glittery gel which kept running until I put the cake outside to firm up a bit.

We played lots of games and one of them was Flamingo Toss. The kids loved this game! It is the game they kept going back to whenever we were between activities.

Because it was a flamingo party, we had a one-legged standing contest to see who could stand on their one leg the longest. They really liked this game too.

The big activity was having the kids paint their own ceramic pieces. I have a friend that could get me supplies at cost, which made the activity very doable. I picked out car banks for the boys and Ella wanted heart boxes for the girls. The kids painted their own pieces and had a blast doing it. (I am getting the pieces fired up and will return them to the kids with their thank you cards.)

These are just a few pictures of the kids painting their pieces.



Jake enjoying some birthday cookie.

A few other things: we had a flamingo pinata that the kids tried to destroy, but since we had to do it inside and we didn't use a hard bat, we ended up just throwing the candy. But like the kids cared, they were just excited about flying candy.

Overall, it was a great party. The kids had fun. Ella loved having all her friends in the house and I was happy with how it all turned out. Pictures of all the details are coming soon.

Birthday Dessert!

What a week! It started out with Valentine's Day and ended with Ella's 4th birthday. We had a little family celebration on her actual birthday with presents and a new family tradition.... sprinkle pancakes.

I came across this idea and recipe and fell in love with it. I love it because I don't really need two cakes around the house (there was one for her birthday party), so this is a great idea to have a fun birthday dessert without another cake. And besides who doesn't love cake, pancakes and sprinkles. This is all in one!

I also thought it was perfect because one of the few foods Ella eats are pancakes. So, I knew she would eat it. But believe it or not, she didn't because of the sprinkles. Who is this kid? But that is a whole other story.

She loved finally turning four years old. She has been waiting for months to finally say "I am four." And now she finally can. You could tell she was so pleased to have the whole day be about her!

More to come about her flamingo birthday party!

Teacher's Valentine's

This year I saw this idea floating around the blog world. It was so cute and simple, yet fun... I thought that is what we are going to give to teachers this year and we did! It is great because the kids can help dip the fortune cookies. It is a fun activity to do together and I think the teachers liked it too.

Here is a link to my labels for download.
Enjoy!

Our Valentine's Day

A day late, but I wanted to post about our valentine's day. Mostly so it is documented and I will know where to find it next year when I am trying to remember what I did.

Valentine's morning, we had placed a small gift (I had purchased during the holidays for super cheap and thought why not give it to them now) at the table. Along with love notes, Chris and I wrote to the girls. We put them in their mailboxes with a little treat. The girls loved coming down for breakfast and seeing their valentine's day surprise.

The best part was that Hannah was more excited about the love notes than the present. It was the first thing she went for and I loved watching her read her letters to herself and then look up and with a big smile and an "ahhh" give us a hug. I know how much she loves to be loved and these letters definitely made her feel loved. Which made me so happy!

Ella might have cared a bit more about the present than the letters, but come on what 3 year and 352 day old wouldn't.

Later that night, for dinner we had an all heart valentine's dinner. I got the idea here! It was perfect for the age of our kids and especially for my picky eater. We had smoothies, heart shaped pancakes, strawberry syrup, strawberries cut like hearts and crescent-stuffed hearts. I also made Glass Stained Jello Hearts. My picture doesn't look that appealing, but they are fun and yummy.

Since it was Monday night, for Family Home Evening, we cut out hearts and wrote all the reasons why we love each member of the family and stuck them on our window. The kids loved this activity and loved coming up with reasons why we love. Ella loved practicing her writing too. A few of her hearts have her name on them and that is it... but why not? ... we all love Ella! :-)

An Excuse for S'mores

I love this table top setting by Amy Atlas! This makes me want to have a S'more party! Someday I will put this pretty ensemble together.... but I will probably have to wait until I have an outdoor firepit (which means older children).

Oh, and you might have noticed, but I updated the design of my blog. I seem to design my blog more and more simple each time I do this. But I think the simpler the design the more attractive... I hope you think so too.

The Start of a Flamingo Party

So, I asked Ella what kind of birthday party she wanted and her response was "A Flamingo Party. I love flamingos." So, there you have it. A Flamingo party. I wasn't sure what i was going to do for this party, but I did know there would be a lot of pink. So, after months of thinking it through, I think I have a decent party for my little Ella.

To start here are the invitations I created for the party. When I started creating these invitations I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. I figured cut out some flamingos and put them on cardstock... but then as I started to design and create... i thought glitter (I always think glitter), feathers, bows... and I love the way they turned out. Much better than I had envisioned. I love when that happens!


And just so you don't think the poor boys coming to this party have to endure all pink, they got there own blue flamingo invites!

First 2011 Logos

It has been awhile since I have posted my logo designs. So, I thought I would showcase the latest logos I have designed in 2011. It is crazy to think that this little logo business started 3 years ago as a small on the side hobby and now has turned into a full fledged business. I love designing and working with clients to create something they love.

Activity Days - Valentine Heart Garland/Service

For Activity Days last night, we made these heart doille garlands. I completely stole the idea from here (thank yo so much, I didn't have anything planned until I saw this idea).

I have to say, we had 4 girls and it was touch and go to get this done in an hour. I wouldn't suggest this if you have more than 4 girls (or a lot of helpers). It is a great idea and I love the service/love ideas that the girls get to do each day. I told the girls if they would do what was on each heart each day, I would sign an activity off in their Faith in God books. I figured if they did 14 days of service and love, that was worth signing off an activity in their book.

Also, we didn't stitch the hearts together, we glued them together which was probably as time consuming as stitching. You could also staple the heart doilles together too (to make the activity quicker). Also, you could hole punch a hole in the top of the heart you print on cardstock and tie fun coordinating ribbon to it (to help the girls be able to pull out each heart better) adn add to the cuteness of it all.

Again, love the idea and think it is so cute, festive and fun. I just didn't anticipate that the girls would have such a hard time with it all. But in the end, it worked out fine and they had a great project to take home with them.

And the image of the garland is from Tip Junkie (thanks again).