Sydney's 3rd Birthday Party

A Berry Sweet Birthday!

We celebrated Sydney's birthday on a beautiful, sunny day in the park.  The weather couldn't have been more pleasant and the company was even better.  The hubby bbqed hamburgers & hot dogs and my mother-in-law made enough sides to feed an army.  There were sweets galore and strawberries, strawberries, everywhere!  It was a fun day.  We even got some huge smiles out of my shy, little shortcake.  She loved the bounce house and dressing up in her party dress.  I can't believe in a few short days, she will be 3.

Anyway, I'll let the photos tell the story of the day. 

Sydney & Kate in thier Sweet Stuff Creations shirts.  Thanks Wendi!

These were super simple to make.  I dipped some mini wafer cookies in hot pink candy melts & added the sugar cube strawberry.  Yum!

Strawberry cookies by Sydney's request.  She helped by adding sprinkles & by eating the broken cookies. :)

   

 The jumping bean & the jumper!

Ribbon & fabric garland.

I made these centerpieces for about $3 each.  I got the baskets 2/$1 at Dollar Tree.  I added some ribbon and the little strawberry plant 6/$3.  I made the tall signs with a free download I got here.

 The setup

Ribbon mobile.  This was so fun to make & the photo does not do it justice.  I want to make these for my Etsy store when I'm ambitious enough to reopen it.  Someday soon I will have more time to get it going again.

Painted rocks.  Sydney and I had fun painting these and they now reside in her garden.

The marshmallow pops were a hit!

My sweet girls rocking out.
 

My mom made this banner for Sydney's 1st birthday & we've hung it up every year since.  I love it!

My mom made this sweet little crown.  I measured Sydney's head while she slept the night before the party & I didn't do a good job.  The crown was a little too small but we managed to clip it on with a hair bow.  You can't tell by the photo, but she loved her "pwincess hat".

 Sydney in her party dress

Stephen and Sydney picked out this silly guy.  I ordered a strawberry pinata from Party City but when it arrived Stephen thought it was too small.  (Pinatas are serious business in his family. LOL!)  Anyway, he took Sydney to pick out a new (gigantic) one.  This is what they came home with!  haha!  Stephen loved that he threw a wrench into the "theme".  The laugh is on him though because I manged to make it work. ;-)

 Here is the photo of Mister Froggy being decapitated.

Sydney waiting patiently for the candy to hit the ground.



Me & my girl

 Present time

                                                                   It was a great day!

Mi Vida Loca has come between me & my blog. Yes, life has been crazy & busy & even more crazy. Sydney has become very good at keeping me on my toes & bossing me around. She's almost 1, but going on 13. She has been really "feisty" lately & I'm hoping it's a stage. She will not let me leave the room without crying. I am not sure if I should ignore it or tend to her. I want her to feel secure, yet I want her to gain a small bit of independence. She cries & thrashes around like a alligator when I have to change her and she fusses at restaurants and shopping trips. She used to be so easy! :sigh: Despite her giving me a hard time now & then, she is so sweet and lovable. She loves to give kisses, she squeals with delight when she sees dogs or Elmo and she is so smart and focused. Her infant teacher says she is the most focused baby she's ever worked with...and she has over 30 years of experience! She isn't saying anything new that we can understand - but she talks a ton of baby talk. She responds to commands very well & will get Elmo is we ask her to. She loves music, being outside and she is a big daddy's girl. I love her so much. I can't believe she is going to turn ONE is less then a week. What a wonderful year this has been. Right now we are preparing for her 1st birthday party in 2 weeks. There is so much to do! I'm excited though. It will be the 1st party I've ever had...well...um...except for several raunchy bachelorette parties. ;-) This is totally different though...We're going to be host to 70 people in our new home. Yikes! As promised I'll post some of the decor once I charge up my camera. Hopefully Sydney will go easy on me this week and I'll have time to post photos. By the way, I am down another 4lbs. So, slowly but surely I am getting closer to my goal weight. Whoo hoo...Chasing after Sydney is really burning calories. haha!...Well I'm off to bed to get some much needed Zzzzzs.

Toy box make-over

I finally finished the "make-over" of Sydney's toy box. I still have to varnish the whole thing but it's just about complete. I am not entirely happy with the way it came out but I put lots of love into it and I really enjoyed being creative again. It's been so long since I've done anything artsy. I'm ready to start creating again. I think I'm getting closer to a happy medium between motherhood, housework & all the other stuff that makes me happy...although I have to say that the housework usually takes a back seat! Life's too short to be stuck inside scrubbing floors.

This is the toy box after I painted the green accents. This was the paint color that was supposed to go on the walls of our bedroom. The hubby was scared of the color so I decided to use it on this project instead.

I painted the middle section white. This paint was supposed to be used for our kitchen baseboards but it didn't match. I put it to good use here.

I sponge painted the top with pink & gold. I'm not too crazy about the way it came out but it was fun playing with color.

The flowers were cut from pretty papers I've been collecting over the years. I used decoupage glue & sealer to affix them to the front of the toy box. The glue & sealer was supposed to dry clear but it had a yellow tint when dry. It looks a little uneven & splotchy and some of the flowers dried bumpy. Hopefully it evens out once it's lacquered. The letters are wood with origami & scrapbooking paper decoupage. I used rhinestones & puffy paint to pretty things up. I loooooove puffy paint. It's the greatest invention...ever!

Here is the (almost) finished toy box. I cut out two little birdies from a note card I've been saving for a few years & hid them among the paper flowers. I'll post some photos of Sydney's room once I lacquer the box and put it back in her room.

Stay tuned...more creativity to come!