It's A Wild Rumpus!

To celebrate Pinky Lee's 4th birthday and Boo Boo Bear's 2nd birthday we decided to throw a Wild Rumpus based on Maurice Sendak's classic children's book "Where The Wild Things Are". Pinky Lee loves this book, especially when we do the wild rumpus!
I spent three weeks planning and crafting for the event, but somehow managed to not get everything done come party day. That is what comes from wanting to do to much. However, all of the kiddos had a great time & most of what I tried to accomplish turned out. Here are some really great websites that I got most of my ideas from. I think I remembered all of them. Thank you to everyone who had great ideas for me to borrow!

My Rumpus - masks, boat & clipart

Metro Baby - magnets (I made these, but didn't get any pictures!)

Toy A Day - again, no pictures. Look for all 3 (Max, Moishe & Sipi) on his site

Caitlin Creer - bubble wrappers (nope, no pictures...but mine were orange with polka dots that resembled bubbles & had the same words as hers)

All of the following websites have great inspiration as well: Hostess with the Mostess, Simply Creative Insanity, Gauhaus, Creative Party Place , Mommy Star, Party Perfect, Skip to My Lou, Se7en, Fantasy Jr., and Story Connection Blog

I'm sure there are plenty of others out there, but these are the ones I found. Please check them out & explore their sites because they've got good stuff!

Here are the things I did:

The King of All Wild Things Tent

Here is my interpretation of the King of All Wild Things tent. I was drawing on the colors from the book & found these gorgeous fabrics. The top is supposed to come up higher, but I was working without a pattern & was off in my measurements. Oh well, still cute, the kids think it's fun & it's about to be a nice addition to the family room.

The Boat
In the story, Max reaches the island of wild things by sailing in his little red sailboat. Without it, this party would have been incomplete. Each of the guests got their picture taken in it. The credit for this project goes to my DH, and he did a great job!

Cupcakes

I was so behind on party day, that I had to frost these as the guests were arriving :0! My plastic bags that I was using to frost both ripped, which has never happened before, so they just got smeared with icing using my giant spatula. Not ideal. However, they were still quite yummy. Knowing I needed to use three cake mixes, I made layered vanilla, strawberry and chocolate cupcakes. The wrappers and the toppers are so cute though. I wish I had better pictures of them. The toppers are various monster faces or "Where the Wild Things Are". The wrappers say "I'll Eat You Up!"

Wild Rumpus Banner

The Thank You Cards

I made these thank you cards THEN realized that I didn't have envelopes that would hold them. So I had to make them by hand. It was more involved than I imagined since I had to make my own template. After completing all the envelopes I felt they were still lacking, so i made a collage of party pictures in black and white to line the inside of the envelope. The thank you cards have two pictures of the party guest, the group photo & one each of Boo Boo and Pinks.

The Invitations

For the invitations, I just used some clip art from the book (courtesy of Nat from My Rumpus), then added my own text, using lines from the story.

Other projects not pictured: magnets, bubble wrappers, personalized treat bag labels, food label cards with cutesy names like Monster Mac n' Cheese, decorate your own crowns & paper toys.

My Wild Things

The first slideshow is of each partygoers pictures in the boat (plus some others). The second slideshow is everything else at the party. There are lots of pictures so be prepared for it to take a while to load. Oh, and look for the cute little "Wild Thing" t-shirts I made for Pinks & Boo!

I hope you enjoyed seeing our Wild Rumpus!

Superbowl XLIV Party

What would the Superbowl be without a party? Just another football game. And that is why we had a party! Woohoo!

Party Animals:

Supercool Homemade Decorations:

Yummy Foods:

Football shaped brownies, 7 layer dip (7 layers of deliciousness, my friends), chicken wings, veggies, and more!

My Favorite Superbowl Commercial

I love the Superbowl and I (mostly) love the commercials. My favorite one came from HEB this year. Since HEB is a grocery store located mainly in south Texas, not everyone got to enjoy this. I took me a while to find it, but here it is: Status Meeting

Now everything makes sense!

Let me know what you think about my favorite Superbowl ad, and tell me what YOUR favorite commercial was this year.

Focus on the Family

These are the last of our vacation photos. On our way home, we stopped in Colorado Springs to visit Focus on the Family. I always just thought it was a Christian publishing company, but they have a college, huge bookstore, and a very, very cool play place. We spent hours there! The big kids got to ride on a two story slide that goes OUTSIDE the building, while the little kids had their own little camp themed room to play in. There were themed areas for different scenes from "Adventures in Odyssey", and a special room for "The Chronicles of Narnia" where you actually got to walk through the wardrobe and into Narnia. How cool! They also had several different scavenger hunts and we decided to do all four of them. We walked around in circles looking for stuff forever, but finally found everything. I think. It was so fun though, and the kids had a great time. If you ever end up in Colorado Springs, go check it out. Did I mention it was free?

Snow Day

Other than Christmas Day, the only day it snowed was the day we were leaving. Can you believe that? The kids were so excited that they just ran right out without being properly dressed for the weather. Of course, they don’t really know that without hats and gloves they’ll freeze to death. Pinky Lee was happy to put hers on, but Boo Boo Bear had been opposed to his from the first time we tried to put them on. So he had a great time right up until he tried touching the snow with his bare hands. Lucky for him, Papa was right there to make everything all better!

Our Hometown

The hubs and I spent a good deal of our childhood growing up in the quaint little town of Anaconda, Montana. Although you've probably never heard of it, it is home to the world's largest smoke stack. It was once used in the copper smelting business. Fun fact: It is so large that the Washington Monument would fit inside. Here is some more interesting info on Wikipedia. You can't see it in this picture, but there remains large amounts of black slag (leftovers from the smelting process that resembles sand) forming the small hills below the stack. Jack Nicklaus used it for the sand traps in the "Old Works" golf course he designed there. Here is the football stadium for the high school. Trust me, this is a huge, awesome football field for our little town. I froze my patuschka many times on those bleachers while in the band.
This is the high school. The founder of our town, Marcus Daly, wanted to name it Copperopolis. Sadly, this name was already taken. (?) So he named it Anaconda. Later on, someone in their infinite (and humorous) wisdom decided to name our mascot the Copperheads. Go ahead. Think about it for a minute. The Anaconda Copperheads.
On a side note, this is where DH and I met. 9th grade algebra class. He annoyed me every single day, and every single day I told him how much I disliked him in a variety of ways. Good thing he never stopped trying!

I was planning on taking all kinds of pictures that day, we didn't get many opportunities during daylight, and just because I know you're dying to find out more about our hometown, here is some more info.
What's cool about your hometown?

Visiting Grandma W.

We drove over to Anaconda to visit Grandma W. one day while we were in Montana. Not realizing that we were coming that day, she was at doctor appointments in Butte! So we visited some other friends, at lunch at Taco Time, and then visited Grandma later in the afternoon. She was feeling pretty good, but tired from her busy day. She was very glad to see us though. At one point, Boo Boo Bear went to the living room & crawled up in the chair Grandpa Wilson used to sit in all the time & made himself right at home. It was so cute! DH called up all the aunts and uncles he could find to come over and say hi, so we got to see nearly everyone. It was a great time catching up with the family!

This Old House

While driving through the mountains one day, we came across several very old cabins. This one appeared to be in the best condition. It was probably one of the first settlements in Montana, as this was a popular area for prospectors in those days. This house even came complete with its own cellar built right into the mountain.

Now if it only had a bathroom.

My Alma Mater

The day after Christmas we went to Bozeman to go shopping. I didn't do much more than help my kids spend their money, but we did go to my alma mater Montana State University. There are pictures of the stadium which has been renovated since I was there, the fieldhouse, the duck pond, and the two dorms that I lived in. I spent 5 fabulously fun years there. After changing my degree from architecture (I'm not good at straight lines) to Elementary Education (with an emphasis in Library) I finally got my degree. Good times, my friend, good times.

Christmas Day/4 Wheelin'

I'd like to set the record straigt here. I am not afraid of 4 wheelers or riding on them. I AM afraid of my very-small-compared-to-the-4-wheeler children riding on them. Of course, that was the activity of choice for Christmas day. Nearly everyone went. My lack of wanting to go was taken as a fear. It was merely sensibility. The temperature was hovering somewhere below freezing, there was a light snowfall, and inside was a nice warm fire and an afghan to finish crocheting. What would your choice have been? Anyway, every one had a good time even though in between rides they had to sit in the heated car to keep from freezing to death. Isn't Pinky Lee adorable with that huge helmet? Oh, too cute! And though there are no pictures to prove it, I did ride with DH on a warmer day.

Christmas 2009 Slideshow Repost

There have been problems with the slideshow every time I have loaded it and/or tried to title it. So here it is, untitled until further notice. Hopefully it will let me take care of it later. There are about 50 pictures, so it may take a while to load. Please be patient, and if it doesn't load just let me know. Thank you!

Christmas 2009

Yes, it's February. Yes, these are our Christmas pictures. Honestly, do you really expect something different? Didn't think so. These are all pictures from Christmas Eve. We had our big fancy Christmas dinner at the daycare house because there was more room for all the tables we needed. It was very yummy. I think we managed to take one whole picture. Apparently we were too mesmerized by the food to be bothered with cameras. Then we went to church where Papa played the drums and Drummer Boy played the guitar. We sang my most favoritest Christmas song "O, Holy Night". Several church members shared how they found Jesus in the darkest times of their lives. I was moved to tears on several occasions.
After church we went back to Granny & Papa's house where we found that Santa had come early! The kids had a great time opening their gifts and the adults had a great time watching. G.I. Joe invited one of his buddies, Little Rock from Detroit (seriously dude, you should have just let me nickname you what I wanted so that DH didn't come up with this one!) to come spend Christmas with us and got him the ultimate gift of a gift card inside ninety boxes. Ok, so it wasn't really 90, but I'm sure it felt like it. My children especially, were fascinated by the unwrapping process. Then Papa read a great story about a little boy who learns about Saint Nicholas and how we can be more giving like he was. Oh, and I remembered to take lots of pictures.

Daycare Christmas Party

Granny runs a daycare, so naturally, she had a Christmas party on the last day she was open before Christmas. The little people made crafts and put together gingerbread houses. Some stayed up beautifully, others fell down. Like the one I helped Boo Boo Bear build. Too many roof decorations. Then we ate yummy pizza and cookies. Two of the adults played like big kids, and then one needed a nap. Fun day!

Daycare Christmas Party Slideshow

The Grandkids

This is the first time all 9 grandkids have been together. Granny and Papa were in heaven! The kids thought it was awesome to have somebody to play with all the time. In the layout above I put them in chronological order. They range in age from 10 down to 6 months, and aren't they just adorable?