Trevan's Birthday Carnival

Trevan's fifth birthday was a little over two months ago. I knew that I wanted to throw him a birthday carnival back in April, and I planned it then, and then did nothing with it basically until the week of his party. Agghhh! Oh well. So, I wasn't able to do a lot of the things I had wanted to, but whatever.

I was going to have a whole carnival set up outside, but it rained, and had to move it indoors! So we rearranged our furniture, and had carnival games spread out everywhere. We had a game on the front porch, and we set up my tent to have two games in the back yard as well. So, people only had to get a little wet to get under the tent. It was fine, but I wished I could have done the whole thing outside.

Here are his cupcakes. I wished I had made them before, so I could have had a little more time to experiment with them, but they turned out all right for the first try. I made rainbow cupcakes, and they were really fun.

I served carnival food; lemonade, snow cones, funnel cakes, and we made some home made kettle corn.

Guests were given tickets to redeem to play games, and get food. They were also given treat boxes to take around with them to the carnival games to carry their prizes in.

My ghetto bean bag toss. I had plans for my dad to make me a nice wood one, but it never happened.

My dad made the funnel cakes.

Marianne, my sister, was a "Carnie" operating the duck pond.

Trevan trying to knock down the cans. (I just covered soup cans with fun paper)

My friend dishing up snow cones.

My last minute, ghetto ring toss. I had big plans for a great ring toss, but life got in the way... I didn't get a picture of the jar toss. But, I put together an assortment of glass jars and put a prize in the jar, and the kids tossed ping pong balls, and if their ball landed in a jar, they got the prize.

My sister, the clown.

Trevan wishing for Transformers, I'm sure...

Trevan did not like the red hot noses on the clown cupcakes!

This was Trevan's first real birthday party with friends, and it was CRAZY! Trevan tore through those presents in no time. He got sooo much stuff - seriously more than Christmas! I tried to make him slow down and look at cards, and thank people, but it was hard work getting him to do all that stuff! Oh my. But, he absolutely loved it!!

My little clowns.

This was the funniest thing! The party was over, and I was cleaning up, and I looked in the living room and found the grown up men playing with Trevan's toys. They were just "figuring them out" so they could help Trevan... Those Transformers sure are tricky...

Even, though we had to cram everything inside, and not have everything how I wanted, the kids had a great time, and that's all that matters! I think Trevan had a very happy birthday!

The Seven Year Itch

I invited a few friends to a surprise seven year itch anniversary party to celebrate John putting up with me for seven years. I had just been "itchin'" to have a party. John was surprised.

He had his suspicions, but I had just gotten back from being gone a week and our house was a mess, so he thought there was no way I would have a party under those circumstances. I did, however, get everything done in time (barely... Trevan even dusted the furniture for me, if that tells you anything), and I did have to forgo putting tags on the favors (backscratchers).

I invited people over for seven desserts and seven games; John's favorite things (besides me and the kids).

I made a few of his favorites, oreo chocolate cheesecake, texas sheetcake cupcakes, lemon bars, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, blueberry pie, a chocolate pudding dessert made into tarts, and of course his other favorite, ice cream.

While everyone was waiting for John to come home from work, I had them do a few games.

I had them rank seven of the craziest things I have done in our seven years of marriage (how they thought John would rank them), here's how John ranked them 1 - being the craziest...

1. Made John take produce back to WalMart

2. Paint our walls orange

3. Throw bananas at his feet

4. The day we went to the lake with Jon and Candi

5. Make us leave our house in search of somewhere to eat, only to come home without any food because nothing sounded good

6. Start a business that keeps me up until 2AM

7. Try to get John to go skinny dipping in Florida

I do need to add that the majority of those crazy things I did happened when I was pregnant, to give me a little credit. Pregnancy and crazy hormones....

They also ranked John's seven least favorite things about me. :) Here's how John ranked them...

1. Back seat driving freak outs

2. Making his "to do" lists (just for the record, he told me he likes that I do this...)

3. Holly's shopping habits

4. Not cleaning bathrooms or doing dishes (again, for the record, he agreed before we got married that he would do these things...)

5. Letting the kids eat in the living room

6. Keeping the kitchen table and our whole house covered in crafting items

7. Never getting gas in the car

The winner of these two games got a prize of Hydrocortisone cream.

The party guests also took this quiz, and I added the answers here.

1. Who asked who out on a date first? Holly asked John

2. Who doesn't like to sleep under the covers? John

3. Who was late to their wedding? John

4. Who said, "You might could get lucky if you go to the dance with me?" Holly

5. Who bought who a train ticket to meet their family for the first time? John

6. Who talked who into buying a king sized bed? John

7. What candy reference did John use to tell his friends about his first kiss with Holly? (This was multiple choice with the correct answer being, taffy.)

The winner of the quiz received taffy as a prize. Actually, the same person (our neighbor, Chris) won both games.

I also made up a marriage/wedding/anniversary version of scattergories, and the same thing in a charades, and taboo combo.

It's always fun to eat and play games with friends! Happy seven years John!

All things Egg

It has been exactly a year since I threw my last party, and it was starting to get rather depressing. Especially considering we had been doing one a month! So I decided Trevan and I were going to throw a mommy/child play date party.

So we had an Easter party, with the theme, All Things Egg.

The invites I made

filled the backs of the invites with "eggs"

We hung eggs from the ceiling and I made a fabric egg banner with fabric I already had to hang around the kitchen.



How the guests were greeted.


I made the tablecloth with the leftover fabric from the eggs. Very convenient.


The menu.


Egg nest cookies


The quiche doesn't look so appetizing, but even Mallary ate it.

A fruit pizza in the shape of an egg.


I dipped pretzels, and had egg rolls with soy sauce served in an egg shaped dish. You can also see the robins eggs in the back ground in an egg shaped bowl. Some food was labeled with the egg cups.


Deviled eggs, egg salad sandwhiches.


Chocolate cheesecake cupcakes, in the shape of an egg.

Vegetable pizzas in the shape of an egg. This looked better in

my mind. I was going for grass and a flower, but they look like funny pinwheels or something.

You can see my decorations in this picture too.

The party started with egg portraits. The moms drew their kids, and the kids were supposed to draw their moms. Then the kids had to guess which egg their moms drew, and vice versa for the moms.

Trevan trying to guess which egg he was.

The kids played outside with sidewalk chalk (shaped like eggs, of course)

I made egg bags for the kids to collect all their loot in and imagined them hanging sweetly from the trees, but the wind was too crazy and twisted them up.

We did mommy/child relays. In this one they were supposed to toss choclate eggs in our mouths, I only caught one, but two people caught three.

The classic egg on a spoon relay. Trevan (left) did a good job!

Holding the egg under our chins. We all look so funny!

The pinata was the finale. I made it myself!!! John had a hard time rigging it up because it was so heavy.

Trevan taking a swing.

The rush to get all the goods.

The loot bags. I was going to make fabric ones, but ended up doing paper.

This is the part of the party that John really enjoys... clean up. (well, and leftovers)

Last night I asked Trevan if he had fun at his party he said, "Yes! I want to have another party!"

He is definitely my child.