A Homemade Costume

Usually I am super spoiled and my mother-in-law sews up a couple fabulous costumes for my kids to wear to our church's annual harvest party. However, last year she was just too busy, so I had to dig into my closet of creativity and come up with something.

Joy wanted to be Pocahontas. Of course the Google Image search resulted in costumes that looked a little... ummm chilly. So this is what I came up with. Based on inspiration from here.

 I love (love, love, LOVE) me a tutu costume. Because, really, when else can you wear a tutu if you aren't a ballerina? Plus (BONUS) they are easy to make. :) Just search for a tutu tutorial and you will find plenty perfectly good, and easy, instructions. I used three different shades of brown tulle for this one. You can't really tell, but I also hot glued feathers to the waist band... mainly because you can only buy feathers one way-- in bulk-- so I had plenty.

 Her little necklace thingy is simply a thousand feathers hot glued to a thick brown string. Don't plan to have finger prints left after making it...  but I loved how it sat around her neck.

Her little head piece and arm bands are made from a thin leather type material I found at our fabric store. I cut the tassels and hot glued them in a loop. I was worried they would be falling down all night, but they didn't bother her at all. The head piece is made just like a simple headband. Then when I braided her hair, I put in a clip with feathers hot glued to it to hold everything in place. I didn't get a great picture of her boots, but they were just her basic warm fuzzy suede boots, and I made tassels similar to her arm bands to go on them. You can kinda see what I'm talking about in the picture below.

 The best part about this costume? It was warm. Just white leggings, white long sleeved shirt and warm boots.

I was happy because she was happy.

Of course... little brother went as a football player....

Because, really, I can't be responsible for two creative costumes in one year. :) Go Beavs!

A snowy Birthday and Rapunzel Cake

Joy's 5th birthday was low key and crazy.

Her birthday is in March and usually falls over spring break, which works fine for us. This year, however (2012), it looked more like winter break!

That's right! It snowed. Snow in March. In Oregon. Just crazy talk. But that's what it did. And Joy was so giddy she could hardly contain herself.

So we took the birthday balloons outside for a little birthday photo shoot.

For her birthday party, we had family join us at Le Patissier, my husband's aunt and uncle's french bakery. (If you are ever in Corvallis, look them up! Amazing!!) Lucky for me, Rob's aunt and mother decorate wonderful cakes, so they made Joy her very own Rapunzel cake. She loved it.

Basically, they used the same items you would need for any doll cake (check out youtube for tutorials). Then they used fondant to decorate. The middle piece was decorated with a stamp and food coloring. We didn't want to get Joy's actual Rapunzel doll all caked in cake... ;). So we used a blonde barbie instead and added doll hair to her ponytail. This Rapunzel had extensions. :)It was a wonderful and easy birthday.

Tractors and a 2nd Birthday Party

For Joshua's Second Birthday, we stuck with using resources that were available to us... and things that he just loves.

Tractors. 

There are perks to living on dairy property-- especially when you have a little boy. Joshua loves anything that is related to tractors and farming. It makes it very fun to live here... and almost makes up for the cow-smell that constantly surrounds us. ;)

 

Haha! Can you tell I'm nervous about him sitting on the edge there... that would be my fear of heights. Those tractors are HUGE!

 Here is the whole crew, and the giant tractor, in our driveway. It was the perfect fall day (Joshua's birthday is in October). I was so glad we were able to be outside the entire time!

For a fun activity, we took the whole crew on a hayride through my parent's property. The kids loved it-- Joshua even sat still the entire time. :) 

 My friends were a huge help for this party! One friend decorated this awesome cake. I simply bought a plain chocolate cake from Costco (I went with Costco because they make yumm-o cakes and their cakes can feed a small army).

Another awesome friend made her delicious apple cider, and then helped serve both the apple cider and CrockPot Hot Chocolate. Both drinks tasted amazing, and we were able to plug the cock pot in outside so they stayed nice and warm. 

I wanted to do a Hot Chocolate Bar like in this picture... however I knew mine couldn't be quite so elegant. Thank goodness for leftover mason jars, tractor cut-outs and my sister's handwriting. Everyone enjoyed adding something to their hot chocolate to make it more interesting (I think my hubby had to try a cup for every option). 

We also served water for the kids who didn't want to drink something hot. Next time I would probably do this with the smaller water bottles. I made the template myself by simply finding a clip art that I liked and playing with the colors a bit. 

For party favors, I made two options since we had a couple kiddos with peanut allergies. The top one is just Oreos crushed to make "dirt" and a gummy worm or two. The second one was made using inspiration from this picture. Hers are better. But they were really fun to make. 

It was a wonderful day with fantastic memories! ...I kinda hope he will want to do another party like this again someday since he probably won't remember this one, and I know one of these years he is going to start having an opinion about his birthday parties. :)