I ran out early{ish} this morning to get my groceries for the week.
When I left, Holden looked like this:
When I returned, he looked like this:
Getting the weekend off to a productive start since we have some fun stuff on the agenda for the next 2 days…Gramma K visiting, a sleepover tonight and a baby shower & birthday party tomorrow!
Here’s to a weekend free of chores and full of fun!
Let me just say that 5 minutes after this picture was taken it was a “miss”.
There I was standing on some paper towels sopping it up.
My poor, poor sisal rug! That thing has been through a lot in the past 4 years.
But, how cute is he in his “football panties” and his $1 ghetto fabulous Brobee jammies from Wal-mart? Seriously $1….now I have a Yo Gabba Gabba song in my head!
Anyhoo….hoping for more “hits” from here on out.
3 years ago:
Today:
Thursday, February 25, 2010
25 pounds & 35 inches tall
(exact same weight, but 2 inches taller than 6 months ago)
I won’t go into the percentiles, but let’s just say that he’s still LIGHTWEIGHT and SHORT so he’s well proportioned!
Today he had his blood pressure taken for the first time…
80/42…normal
And here he is with his “friend”, Dr. Yen:
He was such a good patient ~ letting Dr. Y look for “buggies” in his ears and checking out his eyes and his mouth.
No shots.
Just a high five, a couple sugar-free lollipops, some animal crackers, a Spiderman AND a Buzz Lightyear sticker.
Next scheduled visit in 1 year…
We LOVE Dr. Yen, but he’s not a person we like to see a lot of.
I was curious to see how “cheap” I could do Holden’s party…
Since I came up with the Outer Space theme about a year ago (OCD), I had plenty of time to search around and find some bargain finds throughout the past 12 months!
These are just estimates, but I made a mental note of what I paid for everything, so these totals are pretty close:
Invitations: $3 (notecards & stickers ~ printed myself)
Goody bags/favors: $45
Rocketship cake: $8 (1 box cake mix, 1.5 containers frosting, “3” candles, candies)
Layered cupcakes: $7 (1 box cake mix, 1 container frosting, 2 food color gels)
Decor: $25 (rocket ship piñata, balloons, posters, hanging stars, silver garland)
Food: $60 (Taco bar, bean dip, chips, guac, bagel bites, pb&j’s, jell-o, sugar cookies, non-alcoholic beverages, etc.)
Adult beverages: $47 (Midori, tequila, wine & beer)
Serving stuff: $21 (platters, plates, napkins, cups)
Thank you notes: $3
Postage: $4
I wanted to download some Star Wars music off iTunes, but instead Jay discovered the NASA channel on our Direct TV so we put that on in the background…it was pretty cool….and FREE!
Grand Total: $223
Contributions:
Gramma K: rocket ship tent (Holden’s gift), bean bags, hanging planets (decor) and glass jar beverage dispenser
Meghan: jump house
Lisa: lime green utensils
Thanks Ladies for helping me stay under budget! I appreciate your contributions to a fantastic festivity! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! XOXO
There were a total of 28 guests (including our family). So, for under $230 I was able to do this party….I’m pretty proud of myself….I’ll have to check with Jay, on the other hand, and see what he thinks!
Believe me, I could’ve spent a lot more!
Today is special for a couple of reasons…
We celebrated Holden’s 3rd birthday.
This is my 100th post.
I’ve been at this blog thing for almost 4 months now and already at 100 entries. Wow! I didn’t think I had that much to say!
I’m having a lot of fun with it and am looking forward to the next 100! If I stay at this rate, we will be at 200 around the first day of Summer. Another reason to celebrate.
Speaking of celebrations, today we had a houseful of astronauts, robots, martians and aliens. Hard to believe my little space cadet is already THREE.
This was Holden when the guests started arriving:
Oops!
It was a BLAST! (pun intended)
Thanks again to all our little astronaut friends for coming to our planet for an afternoon of fun!
Below are a few recipes and links to the extra terrestrial eats:
For the “taco bar” I just browned up a couple packages of ground turkey and chopped onion and added 2 envelopes taco seasoning and a little water. I set out crunchy shells and small flour tortillas with all sorts of toppings lined up ~ shredded lettuce, cheese, sour cream, mango peach salsa, sour cream, jalapeño rings, cilantro lime corn salsa & guacamole. Everyone created their own taco masterpieces ~ super easy!
Battlestar Bean Dip
2 cans Campbell’s Bean soup with bacon
1 pint sour cream
1 package taco seasoning mix
1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and then transfer to an oven safe dish. Bake @ 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Serve with Fritos Scoops or your fave tortilla chips. (Another yummy recipe from Melanie Corona!)
Pineapple Limeade (AKA Solar System Citrus Punch)
Alien/Martian Sugar Cookies
1 package Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix
McCormick NEON food coloring
1 small container (12 oz.) white/vanilla prepared frosting
Gingerbread man cookie cutter
“Red Hots” candies
Prepare cookies as directed on package for “cutout cookies”. Roll out dough, as directed, and cut out with cookie cutter. Place only about 8 cookies at a time on cookie sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes @ 350. Let cool and then frost with lime green frosting.
Lime green frosting:
I used about 25-30 drops of the green in one small (12 oz.) container of frosting. Frost cookies and then add Red Hots candies for the eyes!
Jay shot this picture yesterday…
It’s symbolic to me in a couple of ways.
The red bike symbolizes Valentine’s Day.
Yesterday was gorgeous…we sat outside and enjoyed Chipotle for our V-day lunch. It made me long for warm (not HOT!) Summer afternoons…they will be here before we know it!
The words “No Brakes” are also ironic to me.
I look at Holden riding Elliott’s “big girl bike” and I feel like LIFE has NO BRAKES!
Wasn’t my baby boy just born last week? Now he’s riding a bike?
The countdown is on to his 3rd Birthday ~ 10 days from today.
I guess I’d better hang on because I don’t see things slowing down anytime soon!
May your week go by fast, but may you cherish all the special moments that come along with it.
1. Superbowl menu is set….making it easy:
Cranberry Meatballs (as seen here)
Sonoma Salad (find it here)
Artichoke Dip (check it out here)
Superbowl sipping will be vodka crans with a twist of lime.
There…..done! That was easy!
2. Elliott made all her playdate friends some paper chains – one for each child. She was busy, cutting, taping and creating this morning…this was all HER idea! Love that girl…
3. I’ve been bitten by a creativity bug….all these cute blogs that I’ve discovered…the only thing is is that I’m not a sewer or a scrapbooker or a gardener, but I am feeling inspired and am going to look around the house and see what I can CREATE or REARRANGE or ORGANIZE and give the place a little kick in the pants for Valentine’s Day! So glad it’s on a weekend so we can celebrate as a family and I can try some new recipes! Stay tuned…
4. I am feeling a little selfish lately and am looking forward to reserving a teeny bit of this year’s tax return for MYSELF. (Don’t worry Jay….I only need a few bucks (relatively speaking, of course!) There are some goodies that I have my eye on….nothing expensive, just a couple things on Etsy, The Pioneer Woman Cookbook and a couple apothecary jars….that’s about it.
5. Countdown to Holden’s 3rd birthday party…I am having fun planning the menu, getting the favor bags all figured out, picturing the decorations all hung and working out the FUN cake that I have planned…
I am also excited to see how low I can keep the budget on this party ~ so far, so good:
*Invites were under 10 cents a piece
*FREE bounce house thanks to MEG!
*Decorations from Dollar Tree and 90% off Christmas stuff @ Target
*Making my own cake
Should be a “blast”!
Happy Friday!
For Elliott’s 1st Birthday we spent almost $80 on her invitations! Eighty Dollars! Wow…..that was ridiculous! I ordered them from Polka Dot Design and had THEM print them off for me! Duh! Never again!
For her 2nd birthday I ordered the invites from Polka Dot Design again, but printed them my damn self! Still, I spent too much.
I vowed never to do that again and just make them myself based on the party theme. BIG SAVINGS and fun too!
Holden is turing 3 next month and I’ve been on the hunt for some cheapo blank note cards that I can feed into our printer. Voila! At Michael’s I found a couple packages in the $1 section that were marked down to 3/$1 – 33 cents each for 8 cards! With my 20% off coupon, I got them for 26 cents a pack!
I picked up some outer space stickers ($1 bin @ Target) to go with the theme for embellishing the inside, wrote up the wording, formatted it, downloaded a few free fonts, and printed them off. Seriously, I will never buy fancy schmancy invites again.
Here’s the front of the cards:
No, they’re not very outer spacey, but I liked that they were blue…going with blue & silver color scheme.
Here are the envelopes that I doctored up with some rubber stamps:
Easy peasy!
Here is the inside of the invite:
It’ll cost me over 7 times more to mail them than it did to make them!
Elliott comes home from school with lots of artwork. LOTS. I can’t save it all. I won’t save it ALL. Remember, I am simplifying.
I decided to intersperse some of her cute little marble paintings and tissue paper art in with my new picture gallery project:
I thought it added a little je ne sais quois. A little pizzaz. I’ve never been afraid of color.
I LOVE IT!
(I know, I still need to find two more pics…)
I also had these two red frames that I got from Pottery Barn Kids for cheap before Elliott was born. They were home to 2 of her sonogram pictures over her changing table. I love these frames and wanted to do something special with them. Last Summer the kids painted some water colors in the backyard and I decided these were the perfect pieces for my red frames!
Holden’s masterpiece on the left and Elliott’s on the right.
I am loving having their art displayed throughout the house. I can’t wait for Holden to start preschool this Fall so I can have some great new pieces of priceless art for FREE.
It’s so easy to change them out from time to time.
Next crafty project: having the kiddos paint a couple pieces for our room.
Stay tuned!
Holden is now “2 and three quarters”. He knows what he wants. He knows what he doesn’t want. And he will let you know which way he’s goin’. Lately he has been wanting to wear his jammies out and about. Once in awhile I will pick my battles and let him wear them to drop off Elliott at school, but I do not generally let him wear pajamas out in public.
This morning I needed to run some errands, so I laid out his cool motorcycle shirt and jeans. He fussed and said “No! Jammies!” So, I went and flat-ironed my hair, brushed my teeth and then went back in to fight with him…I mean get him dressed. Hmmm, I laid them out on Elliott’s bed and they were gone. Maybe he just but them back in the drawer…no. “Holdy, where is your outfit?” Ignores me and laughs. He runs away and hides in our closet behind Jay’s dress shirts. I ask Elliott to help me look for them…she said they’re under her bed. Not so. I look under Holden’s bed. Not there. By this time we’re working against the clock and I am getting more and more irritated as the minutes pass. I AM NOT GOING TO LET A 2-YEAR OLD OUTSMART ME! I am determined to find this outfit and get Elliott to school on time…..so I go downstairs and put on “Merry Madagascar” to keep them entertained and head back upstairs to solve the mystery of the missing clothing!
I go back and look in the same drawer, under the same beds, in the dress-up bin, in the pajama drawer, in the guest room, under the guest bed, in the washing machine as the top was open and I thought he may have thrown them in there. Nope! Checked the dryer. Negative. I looked in the Dora hamper. Nope. By this time I am fuming, but NOT giving up. I go in our closet and look in the pile of dirty clothes thinking he may have put them there before hiding behind Jay’s shirts. Nope! Heck, I even looked in the toilet and in the shower of their bathroom. Uh, NO!
“You’re smarter than a 2-year old. You’re smarter than a 2-year old.”
Are you effin’ kidding me? Are you serious?
You know when you’re looking for something and you just go look again in the same place you’ve already looked twice before? So, I got back on the floor and looked under their beds yet again.
I am on the verge of tears and want to scream, but I keep chanting to myself, “You’re smarter than a 2-year old.”
I go back in the laundry room and check the washing machine again – nope. Maybe I’ll check the dryer again too…sure enough…after I moved the clothes around, there they were! The cool motorcycle shirt and jeans! HE HAD BURIED THEM IN THE BACK OF THE DRYER!” I guess he could’ve put them in worse places!
So, after that ordeal, this kid was NOT going to leave the house in anything other than these two articles of clothing!
Once we were all locked and loaded in the car, on our way to school and I had ingested some coffee, I could laugh at Holden’s “humor”.
Just a simple reminder that no matter how MAD you are at the time, you usually can end up laughing about it later.