Joelle's Second Birthday

Under The Sea

We went to the Roswell Splash Park this summer and Joelle had the best time.  When I found out you could have parties there I knew that was the perfect place for her second birthday!

The morning of her party it was raining pretty hard.  I had to cancel by 9:30 a.m. in order to get a refund.  I decided to risk it and it paid off.  We had perfect weather all through the party and as soon as we pulled away the skies opened up!

The color scheme was turquoise and pink and I kept it fairly simple because we were only given 45 minutes to set up.  I made these whimsical jelly fish by painting paper plates and attaching a dowel rod through the center.  I glued different turquoise ribbon to the bottom of the plate and placed sand in buckets to hold them up.

I found this cute whale at TJ Maxx and thought it worked perfectly!

I dipped these marshmallows in melted chocolate then immediately in crushed graham crackers. I used melted chocolate to "glue" on the goldfish and added a candy pearl.

I used the same concept on homemade cupcakes.

Blue Kool-aid Ocean Water

Fish Food (nerds) served as a party favor.  I forgot to take a picture of the movies but each child went home with a copy of Shark Tale.

The birthday girl!  

The party guests!

Gingerbread Party

Joelle's gymnastics class celebrated the season with a Gingerbread House Decorating Party and Gift Exchange.

Since they are all girls, I thought pink and green was a fitting color scheme.  I premade the houses using graham crackers and royal icing.  It was much easier than I would have thought!

I found aprons at Hobby Lobby for $5.00 and had them monogrammed (thank you Mandy Crawford).  I then added ric rac to the top and bottom to jazz them up even more!  Luckily, I found an old shower curtain rod to hang them up.

The girls played, decorated the houses, ate snacks, then opened presents.  They each drew names and brought a gift for that friend.

I think they had a great time!

The Pajama Elves

Do your kids get new pajamas on Christmas Eve?
This is a tradition in a lot of families.  If you

already do, or want to start, I recommend

getting the book the Pajama Elves By Hayden Edwards.

It is a sweet story about Santa's special elves that deliver

magical pajamas on Christmas Eve.  The pajamas are

tailored with special powers that help children sleep

on Christmas Eve.  We started this a few years ago

and each Christmas Eve the elves deliver a box to

the front door. The Pajama Elves is available on amazon.

Camo Cupcakes

For Deer Hunting
Weekend

Drew and Andy are going deer hunting

this weekend with some friends so

I made some camo cupcakes with

a chocolate deer head for them to 

take.  I was told I was "girling up"

their trip but I don't care.  Those were

not Andy's exact words but I can't

write those...

I used a boxed cake mix then separated the batter into

three bowls.  One I left as is and the other two I

added green and brown food coloring to.

Drop small spoonfuls of each color into cupcake

liners and continue until they are 2/3 the way full.

Bake as directed.

I googled deer head image and found this one.
I copied and pasted then printed on a piece of paper.

 I placed a piece of parchment paper on top of the

print out.  I melted a container of melting chooclate

then poured it into a squeeze bottle (sort of shown 

at the top right corner).  It was actually pretty easy!

 Once they cooled they peeled right up!