Baseball Birthday Party

Hey friends, I am sorry for not showing my face for three weeks around here...I'm a blogging space cadet! Ha! Well, I'm back today to share some details from my sons 5th Birthday party!! Three weeks ago I shared with you the Stadium Cake that I made for him...which was my favorite cake yet! So, now here are some of the details from his friend party!

Micah's birthday party was a lot of fun, we couldn't have asked for better weather. We had 9 great kids and their parents join us to celebrate five years of life for our sweet little man. What an incredible day. Micah was so anxious for his party and wanted it to start right when he woke up in the morning but we kept him occupied with helping to set things up to keep his mind off the time...it worked for a little bit. We enjoyed being outside almost all day and even ate lunch outside because it was so nice.

I had posed a question about treat bags on facebook and got some great responses. The majority of people said that they tried to stay away from a bag of candy and little plastic toys but still liked for the guests to leave with something. I was planning on having the kids trace themselves on paper and draw their own jerseys but there just wasn't a good place to do it. I also had cut out triangles so they could decorate their own pennants to put on a pencil but totally forgot to bring that out at the party. Those were originally going to be my "gifts" for the guests to take home but while I was at the dollar store getting a few things for the party I noticed some bat/ball combination toy so I decided to get that. I also got some plastic popcorn buckets for the kids to use at the party and take home. My kids love to use their popcorn buckets when we have movie night so I thought it would be a good versatile take home party favor. So, all in all the party was great and Micah had a blast. I'm glad we're not going to do the big blow out birthday party every year...you plan and plan and plan and then it's over...just like a lot of things in life. But we truly enjoyed celebrating Micah. Here are some photos from the day.

 Our "thanks for coming" gift.

 The kids "pitched" the ball through the hula hoop.

 Everyone ran around for a bit and just had a good time playing with friends and being a kid.

Greg then helped all the kids who wanted to have a chance to hit the ball off the tee. They loved it!

 The kids enjoyed some peanuts, popcorn, pretzels and fruit!

 My dad helped the kids play pin the ball on the bat.

 My frosting fell flat...I think I added a little too much milk...but it still tasted good!

 The cake pops were a hit too!

 A great suggestion that a friend made on facebook was to have the gift giver sit next to the birthday boy while he opened the gift from them. It gave the gift giver a great view of Micah opening their gift and it took the pile of kids on the birthday boy opening presents away.

Baby girl slept through part of the party but had a blast watching all the kids running around!

 A good time was had by all. If you're planning a party and need some help let me know. My dream job is to be a party planner...so let me know how I can help!!

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Desk for Boys Room - Re-Purpose

I had my eye on some lockers I saw in a shop, but they were not for sale.  Well I finally got the call that they were available and I picked them up. I have had them for a little while now and knew I wanted to do something cool with them. First I just put them in my laundry room for storage. Nope, not what I wanted. So I moved them into the kids room. My plan was to put them together and place a table underneath for a cool media center. Again, I didn't care for it! Finally, I found exactly what they were meant for! YAY! My mom gave me a retro table and chair that fit perfectly under the lockers. LOVE IT!

And I couldn't resist taking a pic of my little NERD. They were playing dress up during my little redo! ;)

After I got it set up, it was time to decorate. I found an old atlas at a thrift store a year or so ago and wanted to make a wreath with it. Good thing I didn't because I ended up using it as wall paper behind the desk. I plan on using more on more of the wall, but this was cool and had to do it now. When I use more of it, I will scan it into the computer so I can print them and be able to use both side of the paper.  Then I will either pin them to the wall or glue them. I like the idea of pinning, that way, if I change the look later down the road, it will be easy to change. But for now, the map can be used for years to come. It's not too young or old.

Next I just added in some old road signs, soda crates, globe and a few knick knacks to finish it off. LOVE this desk area for my son. So excited at how it turned out and he has plenty of storage too!

I think the kids loved how it turned out too!

And my crazy kids had to post silly, of course! Love them!

I have a whole bunch of regular size lockers too that we got from a local junior high.  I am holding on to them until I can figure out exactly what I want to do with them. 
Any ideas? What you you do with lockers?

Thanks for stopping by to read Trendy Treehouse! XOXO

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Christmas crafting with kids

We got our first snow here in West Tennessee early this week. My kids were so excited. This is really the first time that they've experienced a real snow fall. When we lived in Texas it snowed about 1/4 of an inch in February of this year and it only stuck to the driveway (so that's where they made their snow angels). So, they were super excited. They played outside in the snow...got cold...came in and had hot chocolate. We've also been doing some more crafting and Christmas crafting in particular. My kids love to do "projects", and ask to do them all the time. I figured it was time I start actually doing some of the things that I pin on my pinterest board...so we got out the construction paper and got to work!

The first thing we made was a Christmas Tree ring Advent calendar from Make and Takes. Naomi was able to do this pretty well on her own, I just had to tell her where to put the next ring, however I had to help Micah with it quite a bit.

 Then I decided to cut out their handprints and make a wreath. My mom used to make a big Christmas tree with her second grade classes handprints. I'm sure this wreath has been done before and is nothing new but it was fun to make and it'll be fun to see how their handprints grow over the years. So, I just traced their hands on one piece of paper and then cut six out at a time. Then you just curl the fingers in a bit and then I glued them to a cardboard cereal box circle.

Glue them around the circle and keep layering them until the wreath looks full. Then I just glued some red circles around and covered the middle with a big red circle and as you can see wrote "merry christmas" on the circle to cover up the ends of the hands. I think I used about 24 handprints (half from a 5 year old and half from a 3 year old).

I tried to trace Hannah's hand so that I could make a small Christmas tree but she threw a fit. I'll try again some other time. But, you can use the handprints to create a Christmas tree as well. Just start the hands with the curled fingers pointing down but the hands curling upwards and layer the handprints in the shape of a tree. I'll try and get a photo of one soon!

Happy Christmas crafting!

I'll be celebrating my 32nd birthday tomorrow...and I'm hoping to do 32 random acts of kindness within the next week. I'll let you know how it goes!

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Gifts for grandma and husbands

Hey there everyone, sorry for being absent on the blog last week, I was enjoying time with my family and didn't feel like spending any of that time on the computer...

So I owe you two weeks worth of gifts. Gifts for grandma and gifts for husbands.

There were a few things that my mom mentioned when I asked her about what the kids could make
for her that she would like to receive. She said she loves any handmade gift from the kids and
especially anything made with handprints. So, we did the handprint calendar for grandpa but obviously
grandma gets to enjoy that as well. She mentioned things like placemats, mousepads, an apron with
handprints on it...and while I think these are all great ideas and hopefully we'll still be able to make some
of these things before Christmas, we made something different. My parents are missionaries right now
over seas and they don't have a lot of the "comforts of home" with them over there. So, I decided to have my kids paint them a picture. I just gave the kids a square canvas board and let them use their own creativity to paint them a picture. Canvas boards can be found at JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and it was a package of 6 boards for $7.99 and I had a 40% off coupon so each board only cost me about 80cents, and I already had the paints on hand so this is a VERY inexpensive gift idea.

These paintings usually happen in "sessions", they paint for a bit then stop and add more too it at another time. They LOVE to paint and ask almost everyday if they can paint. I like to keep those square canvas boards on hand for times like these. They make great personal gifts. I didn't take a photo of the finished project because I don't want to spoil the surprise for my mom!

I don't have any photos of what I am getting/making for Greg...but I can tell you about it quick. I ordered some personalized products with some photos that my aunt took for us on Thanksgiving. He's in need of a new travel mug (takes his coffee to work with him every morning) so I ordered one from Shutterfly. I also ordered a desk calendar for him from Vistaprint (I got the same one as a wall calendar for free). And the thing I am making for him is pajama pants. He told me that he was a little sad last Christmas when the kids got new jammies but he didn't. SO, I  went to goodwill and had Micah pick out a top sheet that he liked (he picked solid navy blue) and I bought that and one flannel sheet for the girls and I plan to sew pj pants for the whole family out of those sheets. Sheets are so much cheaper (especially from goodwill) than buying that much yardage of fabric at the fabric store. Plus, isn't it nice to crawl into your sheets wearing sheets?! Ha, we'll see. I have a pair for myself that I cut out of some old vintage orange and yellow flower sheets about two years ago...maybe I'll actually sew them for my Christmas present this year!

Hope I've given you some ideas. I need something else for my hubby though, so if you have any good hubby gift ideas I'd love to hear them!! Have a great week!

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