Aiming for Organized

So, now that we are closer to being settled in the new house, I've decided to start creating forms to put in a household binder or command station area to keep me organized (a HUGE task as I am of the super messily creative variety). Here's a look at what I have so far (any advice on how to tweak these would be appreciated)....also, not pictured is a 4 week fitness plan that is in the works (a different workout for each day, with 4 weeks of variety so that I don't get bored).

 Hopefully, I'll get the house clean soon to show off some of the rooms that are finished (potty training around here makes everything a little extra crazy and messy).

Our Little Monster turned 2....here's how we celebrated

Some recent work

My Sister is a Good Sport

When I found out Trish would be having another baby (#3 in just over 3 years), I knew I had to plan another special and unique baby shower.  When I found out it was a girl, I knew I wanted to do an umbrella themed shower, with crystals as rain and a picture on her invite of her under an umbrella while it rained all around her. I told her of my idea, and she said "if you're using that as a 'shower Trish with love' jumping off point, why not just put me in a shower with a shower cap on?"  Her flippant remark changed the entire plan for her shower.  I took it and rolled with it. I convinced our friends NINE Photography to snap a couple of pics for me while they were shooting my daughter's first birthday. I also roped in my good friend Tina (of Twitterpated) to help me.  I wanted a picture of Trish in the shower with lots of extra  arms doing shower things....here's what we got.

Here's how we pulled it off....that's me laying on my back in the bottom of the tub, and Tina standing on the edge of the tub behind the shower curtain.

 

The rest of the shower was pretty tame, with a pink, orange and purple thing....lots of flowers and sparkles! The invitations had rhinestones glued on was water droplets from the shower.

LD's Pirate Party

My nephew's first birthday was a blast....it's taken me MONTHS to post this because I had so much fun preparing for it that I didn't charge my camera and therefore didn't take any pictures.  It all started with the idea to have a splash party...his birthday is at the end of May and it is hot here in Texas!  When I found the pirate ship inflatable pool online and showed it to my sister we knew instantly we had to go all out pirate.  Our friend Tina from Twitterpated created the invitations modeled after some I'd found online...I'm hoping I can post a pic later, it was super cute!  Then I shopped around for fabrics and other pirate-y things. My mom and her husband created the birthday cake, I made a watermelon fruit salad ship, and of course we had goldfish among other snacks. Pirate balloons and streamers were purchased at various party stores. I made a giant red X for the front yard, burned the edges of manila paper for all of the signs, and created a photo booth area with all of the great pirate dress up finds.

 

 

 

Elliott turns 1

When I was looking for ideas for Elliott's first birthday on a bunch of my favorite bloggers sites, I ran across a night owl night club themed party and fell in love. I love owls, they're very 'in' right now...especially post Elliott's party when I no longer need owl related decorations, fabrics, and things. Since our daughter is up late anyways, we decided to make her party an evening event (summer in Texas is a little less miserable at night too). I found a cute fabric at Hobby Lobby with owls in red, pink, lavender, blue, and green on a black background and used that as my jumping off point. Here is the invitation I designed:

I spent a couple of weeks making the rest of the decorations for her party...a few felt owl balls hung from the ceiling, scrapbook paper garlands, mantle and highchair tutu's, birthday banner...etc.  I hate bringing balloons home from party stores, so I rented a helium tank (only $50) and inflated a bunch of balloons in all the party colors. We had 2 card tables set up outside with coordinating fabrics, we had our deck decorated like a bed with blanket and pillows, our favorite photographers (Nine Photography) put up a photo booth area for us using a great vintage quilt as the backdrop.  

Since we planned an evening event, we knew we needed to provide food for everyone (and not just typical party appetizers).  We went with a Build Your Own Pizza Bar and a Build Your Own Icecream Sundae Bar. Both were big hits, and my husband was a good sport about slaving over the grill cooking everyone's pizzas.

For party favors, I had stickers made that said "sweet dreams" for the older kids, and books custom made with pictures of the kids as the animals in the story.

And here is our Birthday Girl!

Elliott's Room

My original plan was inspired by a duvet from Pottery Barn that I had in my guest room. I bought coordinating fabrics and my mom and friend Tina made the bedding.

In Progress:

Some pictures of the final result: (photos by the AMAZING Nine Photography)

Elliott in her room....