Chica Schmica

When Annabelle first told me she wanted a “banana party,” I had no idea what that would entail. It ended up being a ton of fun coming up with ideas and the party was hit with all of the kids!

First off are the invites which were, of course, bananas! I used yellow cardstock for the “peel” and used my sewing machine to stitch around the edge so that the “banana” could be inserted and removed easily. And, I couldn’t have a banana without a banana sticker, so I used sticker paper and printed off my own with a 3 on them. The fronts read, “Our little chiquita is turning 3!” and the back had the pertinent party info. They were sent with the flaps up so that the guests could feel like they were actually peeling the banana. I love these

I found this adorable banana fabric from Moda and used it for her skirt and the goody bags. It was destiny! The skirt was made from this twirly skirt pattern and it was quite cute for the short amount of time that she wore it.

About 20-minutes into the party she changed into her bathing suit to play on the “wet banana” (AKA slip-n-slide). Ok. I’m the only one who called it this. I do believe that the slip-n-slide will make an appearance at all of our birthday parties because it’s easy and the kids LOVE IT. I will find a way to work it into whatever theme these little monkeys come up with!

Here are the goody bags. I just made very simple bags that tied with an attached ribbon. Inside the bags were paintchip-notepads, banana crayons (melted then poured into candy molds), noise makers, banana suckers, and little craft papers that I picked up in packs at JoAnn’s. I spent no more than $10 on everything total (not per bag…total!) which thrills me to no end.

Some of the kids were not quite ready to jump right in and join the fun at the slip-n-slide so they played this Banana Toss game:

We had chocolate cuppies with a light banana topping. I’ll post the recipe for the topping tomorrow (I actually have stuff to post so I’m dragging this baby out!). While I’m at this photo I’ll also point out something else that worked out and made me immensely happy. I used the tutorial for attaching plates and candle sticks from Design Sponge to make this cupcake stand and I’m just thrilled that it worked out so well! We had more cupcakes than this. I staged this quickly before the party then promptly put everthing back in the fridge before it melted. I added a banana slice to each cupcake before serving.

And, for the cake, I made this Banana Split Cake from Martha Stewart. It was a big ol’ pile of ooey goodness and it was delicious!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our fun! Here are just a couple more pics of the girls playing with the banana toss the day after the party:

So today my little girl turned 3. Here she is wearing her favorite dress (coincidently my least favorite) and playing her favorite game: catch. She had a blast at her birthday party yesterday and I’ll have some of the details from that tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some proud-mama-pics of my big girl.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Easter Sunday!  We spent the bulk of our morning at church and since we knew we wouldn’t have time to do baskets beforehand, I set everything up after ushering everybody out the door. When we got home from church, the girls were surprised with this scene upon entering the house:

If you’ve been following OCP, then some of this may look familiar to you. The baskets were inspired by the one from Disdressed, the bunnies were inspired by the chenille bunnies from Smooch Designs, and the idea for the goldfish carrots came from No Fuss Fabulous. Here’s a better look at the goods:

They each got a book, some stickers, a pocket purse, some heart bangles, and bubbles. Inside the plastic eggs were either animal crackers, peeps, or Play-Doh.

Sweet and simple, just how I like it.

Here are the girls on our way to church this morning. Lately they don’t want to go anywhere without their sunglasses!

They’ve been so excited about Easter for weeks and we’ve been counting down the days on our calendar. A few days ago I had them both paint some wooden eggs. I saw a similar idea here and I thought it would be a fun tradition, plus I love the idea of having a massive collection of hand-painted eggs by the time they’re both teenagers.

Of course, the eggs needed a home, so we tried our hand at the yarn nests that I’ve been seeing everywhere.

I think I enjoyed making these more than anyone, but we must have used waaaaay too much glue. It took forever and a day for them to dry, and when they did they just looked like a big goopy mess. We ended up keeping all of our eggs (the hand painted and dyed eggs) on a plate on our kitchen table. It’s been a lovely and colorful centerpiece that will be missed after today.

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Right now it’s nap time. Everyone is sleeping and as my eyes glaze over my computer screen, scanning what I’ve typed thus far, I’m thinking perhaps I should have joined them. We’ll be spending what’s left of our Easter driving to different relative’s homes and celebrating with family. The food is good, the  hospitality is always warm, but hopping from place to place is downright exhausting!

Wishing you all a very happy Easter!

I haven’t been around much here, if you hadn’t noticed. And it’s not because there aren’t things I’ve wanted to share…there’s plenty. So today, for the sake of catching up, I’ve decided to create one BIG post that includes everything that I’ve wanted to post about over the past couple of weeks.

Lots of pics (mostly unedited).

Few words.

We had an absolute blast at a butterfly garden:

(photo by my wonderful husband)

Here’s Annabelle chasing the butterflies:

Here are both girls totally engrossed watching this one little white butterfly on the red flower.

Charlotte’s favorite part was smelling the flowers. I think she smelled each and every one!

The flowers bloomed

Annabelle got sick…she was so miserable.

We broke out the watertable and have enjoyed it daily.

We made a sailboat for our water table adventures.

Then this guy came around.

He was showing a little too much interest in our recycled watercraft.

And the next thing I knew we had a stowaway.  It seems you can’t go anywhere these days without being invaded by pirates.

Have I mentioned before that our neighborhood is classified as a registered bird sanctuary? One of the perks is this distinction is being able to look out into our backyard and see this on the other side of the lake:

Quite the looker, wouldn’t you say?

I love those wispy feathers that hang from his neck.

Oh..and what’s this? Putting a little show on for us, eh?

And if the scenery here looks familiar it’s because it’s exactly where Mama Duck was hanging out with her babies. I guess the geese were getting to be too much of a nuisance to her because I haven’t seen her around lately.

Annabelle started feeling better and Charlotte and I enjoyed having her home so much that we pulled her from daycare.

More fun at the water table:

I thought the girls would enjoy making a birthday card for their friend’s first birthday party so I carved up a quick potato stamp.

Ooops! Forgot to reverse the image! We didn’t have the time to redo everything so I captioned the inside with something about the baby girl being “on the other side of one now.”

Had some fun fingerpainting.

This one got a little carried away:

By the time she was done her upper body resembled a smurf…I’m sure it was a wonderful sensory experience for her, though.

Surprised my husband with a cake for dinner on April Fool’s Day:

It’s a meatloaf cooked in a cake pan covered with creamy mashed potatoes. I got the idea from Jenny last year and knew I had to do it. It was great. Poor Charlotte was *very* disappointed when she bit into her piece…even though both girls saw me make the whole thing. And Cory was totally confused until he realized what it was.

There…all caught up now!

Now that both girls are home I’ll likely be doing more kiddie crafts around here. Hopefully I’ll be able to share our daily goings on more regularly than I have been. I’m still trying to find the right balance  for everything. I’ve decided not to post more than 3 posts per day on OCP and I’m hoping that will help me manage everything better. But frankly, there’s just so much good stuff going on that it’s hard not to post everything I come across.

I’ll also be working on the girls’ Easter gifts over the next week and hope to share some of that.

Did anybody actually read all of this? If so, thanks for hanging in there!

See you soon!

We spotted these  Mallard ducklings across the lake over the weekend. There are 9 of them…9 little puffs of fluff sticking close to Mama and making all kinds of sweet little duckling noises. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I’ve been telling the girls to expect some ducklings soon, so I was elated when I noticed them swimming about!

So far they’ve been staying by the natural preserve across from our lot, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them as they get older. There are a couple of Canadian Geese that have been behaving very aggressively towards these little guys, so Mama Duck is understandably keeping them as protected as she can.

We’ll be keeping an eye on our ducklings, so you can probably expect a few more updates over the next few months!

What a treat to come home from visiting my mom this afternoon to find two packages at my door! The first contained a (very) belated gift for a friend. I can’t show the gift just yet, but I can say that it was from Wellhouse Farm Pottery on Etsy. They sell beautiful works and I just hope she and her husband like what I picked out.

The second package is very exciting and will likely be the object of a giveaway on OCP in the next week or so. It was sent to me by a publisher…for free…with no obligation whatsoever. I’m still beside myself that someone would just send me something cool for free. Clearly they have me mistaken for somebody else. Regardless, I figure I’ll pass along my good fortune to some other lucky gal (or guy).

And since this is turning out to be a bit of a teaser post, I’ll give you a glimpse of what I’m working on. I have a few posts that I meant to put together last week about some fun we’ve been having around here. I’ll hopefully have a few tutorials put together for some simple things I’ve made for the girls. Side note: I know my tutorials are often so piddly they hardly seem worth mentioning and I thank you for humoring me. One day I’m sure I’ll make something grand and these little tutes that I put together here and there will be great practice for the Big One! Back on track now: I have an idea for using some of the left0vers of my felted heart scarf, so if that works out I’ll be  sharing that with you, too.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

I had to pull the plug on the baby booties I was trying to knit. The hat apparently gave me a huge confidence boost so when I read “make this pattern when you feel very comfortable using round needles” I figured I was golden. After all, I used them once with no problems so I must be an expert. I have been humbly put back in my place and will attempt said booties at a later time.

Instead of the booties, I turned to JC Handmade’s Best Bib pattern, available on Etsy. Hers are gorgeous. Here are mine (plus a little hat I threw in):

Aside from a sad attempt at free-motion quilting, I was very happy with how they turned out. I’ll definitely use the pattern again. Actually, the girls didn’t want me bringing these bibs to “the baby” so I might go ahead and make some for them.

Oh, and the B on the hat is for Brian, which will be the baby’s name. Can’t wait for the little guy to get here!

Teaser: I will have a tutorial up some time this week. Probably Thursday. This poor blog has been neglected lately, so I’m really excited about having a few things to post about this week. See you soon!

My glasses are broken. Again. This time the arm actually snapped off so I can’t just go and super-glue them back together.

Very irritating.

To see what’s irritating others, check out Jenny’s photo challenge for today.

I am celebrating tonight, not only because I’ve completed my first knitting project, but because I actually finished a gift project!

I have more unfinished projects that were intended as gifts than I care to admit. It’s truly embarrassing.  Thankfully, this little hat had alot going for it: It was quick and easy!  The pattern is  from the Stitch N Bitch book which has to be the world’s best “how to knit” book ever written. After videos and classes, I was still clueless until I read that book. I just checked the book out on Saturday and learned how to knit in the round using round needles and multiple needles, how to bind off, how to increase and decrease, and how to read patterns.

The hat was quickly whisked away to its new home and will rest atop newborn Baby, Eli’s sweet little head. The parting was bittersweet, but I know little Eli needs it more than I do.

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My next project will likely be for an upcoming baby shower. Think I can whip up a whole blanket in about two weeks?

As much as I’m loving sharing my finds on OCP, it’s a huge timesuck…so much so that my creative time has been cut back dramatically. I think this is why I found myself letting loose with the sprinkles last night after my daughter finished decorating her cookies. I had a blast and it was just the fix I needed….Ahhh. Back to work now!