Willow View Farms

We were on our way to a Thanksgiving meal and had picked up "Grandma Ethel" along the way. I asked if she wanted to go to the apple farm with us, and said unfortunately I was not giving her much warning. She said "No problem, I'll be ready before you get here." When 'A' was an infant, she gave 'A' lots of attention at church. I think this is such a sweet picture.

O's 5th Birthday

Inside favor bags: Cheetos, of course!

For the cheetah heads above, I got a free pattern from this cool shop for a tiger, enlarged it, print it on card stock, cut it out, folded according to lines, but backwards so that I could make it look somewhat like a cheetah instead of a tiger. 

'O' enjoyed helping decorate his cake. 

This picture kills me. 'A' looks so funny!

A's Birthday

The birthday invitation. This is such a cool idea (from here), but to be honest, it didn't work out very well. I glued the tops down too tight, so they didn't send confetti and the invite flying through the air like they were supposed to. Oh well.

My sweeties. O insisted on being in the picture (it was just supposed to be of the birthday girl) and I'm glad he did. So handsome he is (says his mother). I made Amelie's top with a See Kate Sew pattern.

See what the cake was supposed to look like, here. 

These cake pops were made from a kit I found at Walmart around Valentine's day. They came together better than I expected!

I made 'A' a doll diaper bag with fabric diapers, a change mat, and wipes case. This is possibly the most gratifying project I have ever made because A absolutely loves it. She plays with it all. the. time. It was so worth it.

To continue in the tradition of giving credit where credit is due, here is the inspiration (okay, exact copy) for the pinata. 

Pinata loot. I had fun putting this together. And look, hardly any candy (there are some in the bag, though)!

Valentine's Playdate

'O' gets a little extra practice with writing his numbers. I must admit, it was hard to get excited about counting down until Valentine's day right after we used this for the family cruise vacation followed by Christmas. It still adds a little excitement and anticipation into 'O's' day though!

Tutorial for this is found at armommy, one my new favorite blogs (new to me, I mean!). Armommy's totally rocks. Not much I could do about my ugly wall color (on Sunday we are going to paint a wall in the living room, at last...can't wait!). Anyway a fun, festive, and easy project. I made the pdf file into a png file and then cut out the letters on my Silhouette machine.

This was a way cuter valentine's mailbox in my mind. You win some, you lose some.

I made a very easy treasure hunt for the kids by hiding these hearts around the living room (cute little eraser's inside are from Superstore).

A big shout-out to all those bloggers who offer up free printables. This is from lisa storms. Just realized that this was meant to fold in half so it could stand up. Ahhh..well, next time.

And another shout-out for free printables. Check out the whole box here (from One Charming Party). So cute.  'O' chose this valentine after looking at all of my pins on my Pinterest Valentine's board.

My goal was to not stress bigtime or put in late nights for the playdate, thus, some of the cute details were missing. Such as making the toothpicks in these tomato hearts look like arrows.

'O' had great fun making these rice crispy hearts on sticks.

'O' didn't want his icing so he spoon fed it to his friend. If these two were to get married one day, how awesome would this picture be?

These jars are waiting for some strawberry milk. Took the picture beforehand because I knew it probably wouldn't happen during the playdate.

Ahh, there's the pink milk. And one sweet girl - look at that smile!

 And another sweet one.

Had to stick this one in since pictures of me are rare!