Delicious Recipes to Keep my Family of Four Happy and Full
When kids are babies, they come with lots of cute little clothes and stinky diapers. They grow up a bit and lots of toys are added to that mix. As they get a little older, you get to the lose the diapers but the toys get smaller and hurt your feet a lot more. Then, they turn 5.
Now, we still have all the toys {lots and lots of toys} but we also have lots of paperwork! Seriously, it amazes how much paperwork H has come home with in the first week alone!
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For E’s party, I really wanted to keep the train theme in the party as much as possible. In addition the table runners I made, I wanted to try and incorporate the train them into the food.
I found these cute little cardboard things in the Target $1 aisle and picked up three of them.
I painted the pirate parts in navy blue and red paint and added wheels made out scrapbook paper.
Then, I tied them together with blue ribbon and filled with food.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
I mentioned that I made my own cupcake sticks for E’s party. {technically I made them for H’s party too}. They are the perfect way to take grocery store cupcakes and make them extra special. You can customize them to any color, shape and theme that you want. It makes keeping a kid’s birthday party in budget a lot easier too.
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If you were here yesterday, you are going to read this and think I am completely insane. If you know me in real life, you already know that I resemble that assertion.
Why am I crazy this particular month? I scheduled two birthday parties within 12 hours of each other.
There was H’s mermaid pool party on a Saturday evening. On Sunday, there was E’s train birthday party at our house.
Yep, the house that is still undergoing some major work to finish the basement. I told you…crazy.
After H’s party, we tossed both kids in bed and quickly got to work on E’s party. With the help of my dad, we managed to just about everything done before dawn.
Earlier in the month, I had done a few things like…
Put together favor bags
Make table runners out of train fabric
And make a pennant banner that said Happy Birthday
The rest…my dad and I threw together between 9pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday. He laid train tracks around the house {which sadly I got no pictures of…maybe mom will be able to help me out on this}
I set up the food table and paper good tables
Here are some more fun details shown in pictures
Now…I’m putting in a request to change one kids birthday so they aren’t 2 days apart. Think I can do that?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
H turned 5 recently and, since a few weeks after turning 4, she knew exactly what kind of party she wanted: a mermaid party!
I did some web searching for mermaid party ideas and came across the amazing party that Kim had done for her daughter. I knew I wanted to use elements from that party in the birthday party for H. I think it came out very well.
H’s party was held at our neighborhood pool. I went over a little early and set up everything up for the party.
Each table had a small fish bowl filled with “sea water” and mermaids handing on the side. I also scattered shells and sea glass around the centerpiece.
Each place setting had tube of blue and aqua gumballs and small star fish.
We also covered mason jars with fabric that matched center piece and stuck striped straws through the top.
We had Costco pizza (H’s special request), little cups of goldfish., fruit salad, pasta salad and Hawaiian pork sandwiches.
On the second table, we had the cake, cupcakes, rock candy and these amazing lollipops shaped like seahorses.
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| The seaglass in this picture is actually candy made by the same people who made the lollipops! |
We tied labels onto the water bottles and juice boxes.
The favors were little pink canvas bags (white for the boys) filled with beach balls, goggles and markers to color the bags.
The party turned out really great and I think everyone, especially the birthday girl, had a great time!
Sources:
Seahorse lollipops: Andie’s Specialty Sweets
Cake: Stephanie the Baker
Plates, cups, twine: TomKat Studio
Favors: Oriental Trading
Fishbowls and Mason Jars: Wal-Mart
Centerpiece plates: Z Gallerie
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This post is sponsored by GapKids. Check out all the fun Shine On activities at your nearest Gap store. For event dates and locations, visit Gap’s Facebook page and join the conversation on Twitter with hashtag #ShineOn.
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Going back to school can be stressful for parents and kids alike. There are the supply lists, the lunch ideas and all the paperwork.
One bright spot in all of this for a lot of kids {mine especially!} is shopping for back to school clothes!
GapKids has set out to make clothing shopping even more fun with their Shine On Saturday events. These events will occur in select GapKids stores around the country and offer activities to help kids unleash their creativity.
Highlights of the event include:
– A series of special art projects by Merrilee Liddiard of Mer Mag. These projects were inspired by the new fall collection, including the new 1969 denim
– These fun projects include ideas like creating geometric masterpieces on canvas with paint and tape to custom journals
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| [Source] |
– Fun clothing options like Jewel box Skinnies for girls (brightly colored stretch denim skinny jeans) and Action Stretch Denim for boys (denim that’s made for all day play!)
For the DC Metro Area, you can attend the following event:
GapKids Shine On Event
Saturday, August 25th
10am – 1pm
GapKids @ Pentagon
1100 S. Hayes Street
Arlington, VA 22202
Check out this video for more on this great event:
For my readers not in the DC Metro area, visit Gap’s Facebook page to see if there are Shine On Saturday events happening in your area.
Have fun shopping AND being crafty!
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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
With H going back to school, we wanted a way to capture some of her favorite things so we could see how her tastes evolve as she gets older.
I bought these cool mdf quote boards from an Etsy seller and painted them in black chalkboard paint
Then, I used painters tape to section off where I wanted to draw lines. 
I used my chalk ink markers to trace lines against the painters tape. Then, I wrote in my “categories” based on what H wanted to talk about. My bubble isn’t very big so I just wanted to capture her basic likes so I included: food, color, song and movie.
From there, I just got H to give me the answers to the questions and I filled it in. I was a little surprised by 2 of her answers but it is her bubble so we went with it. Once the answers were all filled in, we headed outside for a photo shoot.
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| Wow, MDF must be a lot heavier once you add chalkboard paint. |
We’ll do another photo session on the actual first day of school. Who knows…her answers might change by then. She is 5 after all.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Isn’t it funny how the month of June hits and all of sudden everything gets busier? Crazy how that happens.
Here is a quick photo glimpse of what has been going down in our neck of the woods during May and early June.
There was festival #1 which a yearly Memorial Day tradition for us
And, festival #2…a little closer to home!
We also spent some time sleeping in the car…
Making and eating food for cook-outs…
And eating lots of cheerios.
We rounded out the month of May/started June with H’s first dance recital.
Bring on summer!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Last week was Teacher Appreciation week and I am so late sharing with you some of the things our kids did for their teachers.
Being in preschool/daycare, the school does a lot of stuff for the teachers and provides “guidance” on the events they will be doing to help parents do things in line with the plans.
Monday was make your teacher a card day. I set H to work on cards for her two teachers and she had a lot of fun!
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In addition to catching things on fire melting crayons with the blow dryer, I also pulled out the crayons for another little project.
This time, I had a lovely assistant
First, we glued the crayons together into her first initial, H. She got to pick which colors she wanted to use.