This week’s challenge is the word “Up”
When I here the word up, I always think of my kids.
“Up, Mama, Up!” I hear that a lot.
Last summer Ian got to ‘climb’ his first tree.
Meaning my husband lifted him up to sit in the branches. Ian LOVED it!
I remember how big he looked up there in the tree and how proud he was.
He still says “up” to me all the time, but now he is so big. But I guess I still pick him up…
Happy Shooting
I have a second cousin who is about to have her first baby. She grew up in Hawaii and her parents are still there, but her and her husband live here in the Pacific Northwest now.
Since she has a plethora of family here, we decided to give her a baby shower. Some of my aunts, my sister, my mom and another cousin gave the shower. We all participated in the food, but I was tasked with making most of the decorations.
Baby Mama and Baby Daddy started calling the baby Little Fox. So we decided to have a shower with a fox theme. At first my sister and I thought about doing a Fox and the Hound theme, since Baby Mama and Baby Daddy are also dog parents.
The timing of the shower was really close to that of Ian’s birthday party, so I didn’t get a chance to get into The Fox and the Hound theme. So we just focused on a Little Fox & forest theme.
For the decorations I mostly used two kits Camp Out by Crazy4Monograms and Woodland Animals by Pixel Paper Prints.
I of course started a Pinterest board for the shower.
My sister thought these cupcake in a box guest gifts were so great that we decided to give cookies in a box as gifts. We used this recipe, omitting the nuts, for our gifts. We also really like these fox treat holders. Neither of us own a Silhouette (yet…) so I had to make them in photo shop and just cut them out. My sister bought some lollipops and I made little circles to glue on them.
Of course it wouldn’t be a party with out personalized M&M’s! Which is what we put in the treat bags.
My sister really like this pop-corn-tree, she made the cones to hang from some branches.
My sister also made these wonderful acorn cookies from chocolate chips, Hershey Kisses and mini Nutter Butter cookies. She also made the stump for decoration on the plate (I really had to point that part out).
We always make food labels, and I really like how this post used pine cones to hold them.
I made this “Welcome Baby Jack” banner
And of course we made some pinwheels, after they turned out so great for Ian’s birthday party.
My aunt made this wonderful cake. It was as delicious as it was adorable!
We played gift Bingo, Guess How Many?, and Is the Price Right? games.
With Gift Bingo the guests get Bingo cards with gifts on them,which they cross out as Baby Mama opens it.
For the “Guess How Many” game, we bought a baby bottle and filled it with candy, the guests then need to guess how many candies are in it. I made these cards for them to write their guess on.
For the “Is the Price Right?” game, we bought some baby necessities for Baby Mama and had her guess what the prices were. The guests then decided if she guessed ‘too high,’ ‘too low,’ or ‘just right.’ I made some cards for this game too.
We were able to Skype with her parents in Hawaii, which was great since they couldn’t be there. That way they were able to watch her open the gifts.
I think it turned out to be a great shower.
Happy Party Planning
Here is the long-awaited post about Ian’s 3rd birthday party.
I let him pick out his theme and this year he wanted Superheros. So I quickly started pinning ideas to my Pinterest Board.
I kept checking with him to make sure he didn’t change his mind about the theme. Every time I asked him what kind of party he wanted he would throw his fists in the air and shout “SUPERHERO BIRFDAY PARTY!”
I originally thought about taking some pictures of him in his superhero costumes and making a comic book for his invitation. Due to my limited time and his unwillingness to pose for pictures, I decided to make a newspaper cover as his invitation.
I used pictures I had previously taken of him. The hardest part was thinking of what to write!
I wanted the kids attending the party to decorate their own capes. This was a battle between my mom and I, she didn’t want a bunch of kids gluing stuff while in her house. I had originally thought of iron-on but then someone would have to man the iron. In the end we decided it was the best option.
I also decided to go with inexpensive so we used all felt for the capes, masks and decorations.
I think we ended up with 24 capes (big enough for a 7-year old), 24 masks and all the shapes for about $40. Which is less than two-bucks a cape! The most expensive thing was the binding web. We made the capes too large and trimmed them to fit each child. She used this pattern for the portion around the neck.
I printed out the shapes and my mom cut them all out, and the webbing to fit. She went a little overboard, but it allowed for each kid to have as much on their capes as they wanted.
This is one little girl’s cape
This kids placed the shapes and then a friend of mine, or my mom, ironed them on.
When making decorations for a party I usually find a digital scrapbook kit I like and use it. I could not find one for superheros. There were some available, but none that I liked. So I just used pictures that I found on Google. I tried to only use ones from Marvel or DC, but I can’t really say for sure where I got all of them.
What party is complete with out party hats?
I used Photoshop to make these and bought the string at the fabric store. It is elastic thread.
I wanted a night-time city scape behind the food table, I got the idea from this post and this one.
Of course Ian needed to help.
I just used a cardboard box and some poster paint.
I wanted some hanging decorations and saw this post that used pinwheels. I usually make decorations for the table dishes but decided to use the circles for the pinwheels.
I was so pleased with them that we used the same concept for a baby shower.
My Aunt made this wonderful cake! Ian was so excited about it.
I saw these suckers all over Pinterest, this post has a printable template, but I just made my own.
I printed them on card-stock and used a hotglue gun to glue the masks on. 
I really like the idea this mom had about adapting the game “pin the tail on…” I photo-shoped a picture of Ian on a comic book city and had a poster printed. I did cut out little masks, but we never got a chance to play.
I used this posts idea about making a banner with the Superman logo that says “Happy Birthday”
(please excuse my mom’s gold mini-blinds…)
I loved the boxes in this post, so I decided to make my own. I was just going to make a few for decorations, but of course my mom said they had to be filled with candy, which meant I had to make 40 of them! They all had to be cut out, folded and glued together!
I made three different styles. They are my new favorite thing to make.
The gift bags we just got at Party City, we added a few things that we found along the way, plus a bottle of bubbles!
I made the food labels using the same circles on the pinwheels and on the party hats.
This Avengers Scene I downloaded from Spoonful.com. They had a number of printables that I didn’t get a chance to use. They had some great masks, like the Hulk and Ironman, but I didn’t get them made.
The other thing I wanted to do but didn’t get a chance to, was to turn my mom’s front porch screen into a red telephone both door. I just ran out of time.
The Birthday Boy had a great time.
Happy Party Planning
I have been working on some things for a baby shower this weekend and realized I have not posted anything on Ian’s birthday party. But today is not the day for it either.
However, I did want to take a minute and post about the weekly photo challenge. This week the topic is Change.
With that in mind, it always amazes me how quickly a baby changes. One day he is a messy little squirmy thing that can hardly open his eyes and the next day he is sitting up eating food by himself.
In the blink of an eye my newborn baby has turned into a Bouncy Baby Boy.
Since we can’t get those days back, I keep trying to capture them in film and written words. That way when I am old and senile I can look back and remember.
Happy Shooting
I Tri and Craft 