This summer I’m participating in a great project over at Mommy’s Piggy Tales. It is all about recording your youth in 15 posts or like me 15 vlogs! This week is very exciting, not because anything exciting happened in 4th grade but because you get to see Zarek say his first real words!! I’m very excited about it and you will see that! Hope you enjoy! Oh and yes that is a huge pile of laundry behind me in the last bit, ooops! LOL Oh well!

Today we got to do our traditional egg dying! I was very happy we were able to do it this year, since for some reason I’m working full time this week and I’m trying to catch up from being sick. It was fun to have some family time even if it was a little stressful to pull everything together quickly.

This year Zane was very into the egg dying. Last year I dyed them for him and he got to put stickers on them. This year he got to pick the eggs colors and loved watching Daddy drop them in the colors. Zarek just sat back and watched. We had a snack while we watched the eggs soak. Zarek loved the snack. LOL

I let Zarek look at an egg before it was dyed, for a photo more than anything. He picked it up and threw it to the ground. That’s what he thought of that. I gave him the memory game from the Paas pack and he liked playing with the small pieces of cardboard for a little while. I didn’t get any photos of him with the dyed eggs since he decided he wanted to go take a nap before they were dry.

Zane got to put stickers on the eggs again this year and loved it. He liked it so much that when he found a plastic egg in the house with foam stickers he stuck the stickers all over the egg. He did a really good job all on his own.

Tomorrow I will show you my favorite egg dying technique. Or if you check out my flickr feed you can get the basic idea.

This month Zarek turned one year old. Which is a big milestone. Babies learn so much in their first year and grow and change so much. For parents this is something that has to be celebrated. Their baby is turning one year old.

Last week we talked about figuring out the theme for the party.  This week we will be talking about invitations and decorations. You have lots of options for your invitations and decorations. If you are super crafty or super frugal you have great options.

Prepackaged

You could purchase your invitations and decorations prepackaged from the store. This is dependent on your theme too. But try and think out of the box too. Having an under the sea party find fish themed cards and use blue and  green streamers too make your guests feel under water. You don’t have to just look at invitations trying to find just the right thing look at blank note cards too. Make sure and look in wedding sections and baby shower sections for decorations too.

You could check out party stores, card stores, paper stores, target, walmart, and/or online. Search google for your theme and invitations just search images to get great ideas. You may be surprised what you find.

Some other great online resources:

• Oriental Trading Company -  They have an okay selection. They have themes like cowgirl, trucks, princess, jungle, “planes, trains and automobiles”, Disney Princess, and more.
• Birthday Express – They even have a section of just 1st birthday party themes. They have a huge selection of items to choose from.
• Tickled Pink Designs – Here is a good site to find even more invitations. They specialize in invitations only, but they have a huge selection of designs.
• InvitationBox – You can find some amazing cards here. Great place to just browse and find theme ideas too!

Photo Card Invitations

Photo Card invitations have become a huge trend lately. At first you saw photo cards mainly around Christmas, but now we are seeing them for all kinds of occasions and for birthdays more and more.

You can find some great pre-designed cards at these sites:

• TinyPrints – They have a huged selection! Great place to find any kind of card you may ever need.
• Shutterfly – Shutterfly is known for their photo printing, but they also offer photocard templates too!

Custom Photo Card Designs

Another option is you can hire someone to make a custom invitation. They can create an invitation for any kind of theme imaginable. Just give them some ideas of what you are looking for and the text you need on the card.

You can go on etsy to request custom made photo cards and have the designer print them or just send you the digital file. Visit the alchemy section of etsy and ask someone to create something specifically for you.

I do it for very inexpensive, only $15 for a custom card design. I send you a file you can print at your favorite local or online printer.

I created the above invitation for Zarek and had it printed online, I had free credits for 5×7 photos, and only had to pay shipping. I used envelopes I had already in our house. So his invitations were very inexpensive, but everyone raved about them.

Hand Made

If you are crafty, or know someone who is who may help you, you could create handmade invitations. There are great products out there like stickers, stamps, and scrapbook paper that you could use to make a great cards, cupcake toppers, decorate bags for goodies and more. I am sure that you will have people who will rave about how crafty and talented you are.

You could also go onto etsy to hire someone to create these invitations or decorations for you. You can either find a shop that has premade , banners, cupcake toppers, lollypops and even more. Or you can ask on alchemy for some to create a custom invitation for you. You will find some great talented people who will love helping you out.

Evite

Running out of time don’t be afraid to use evite to send out your invitations. They have lots of invitations/themes to choose from. And you will probably get more RSVPs with evites and less “drop in guests”.

Later this week we will be talking about food for your party. And who doesn’t love talking about food!

The day started early as you had a scheduled debut. You were going to be evicted from your snugly abode. And we were excited. The day also started with snow, in March in Oregon, a very rare thing to happen. We called the hospital to see if we could come in early so to make sure we didn’t get stuck on our hill or on the hill up to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and they were ready for us. We got comfortable in our room and we got to listen to your heartbeat and your kicks as you kicked the monitor.

In the operating room it was strange for mommy, because with your big brother it was such a shock to be in there that I remember very little of being in there. But then I also got sick this time. Don’t know if it was nerves, not eating, just being more aware, the constant morning sickness that never went away or the spinal.

But then you were in the room with us, complaining about leaving your nice warm home for this bright cold world. Daddy got to watch you as you got weighed and monitored and then I got to see you.

In our room we got to have you near in the hospital’s funny little plexi-glass bassinets. And for hours on end you laid all swaddled there and in my arms, humming. You almost sounded like you were singing to yourself, trying to sooth yourself. I loved listening to you, to the first sounds you made.

Your brother adored you right away, running into the room to see the baby. And everyday he loved coming back to see his brother. And on your first car ride together as we tried to figure out how to shuffle you both to the car we tried taking Zane out first. He ran to your car seat and started dragging you along with him.

Now you have learned so many wonderful and spectacular skills. I love to watch you “run” up and hall. I love when I catch you playing with your brother.  I love to listen to your little babbles as you try to learn to talk. But even without words you are learning to communicate. You hold out your hand and give a little motion to tell me “give me”, “I want”, or as I like to pretend you are saying, “Please”.

We cannot wait to see what the Lord has prepared for your life. To learn more about you and your unique personality. To watch you grow and change. To see how you and your brother grow closer and become bonded together as brothers. We love you so much!

This month Zarek is turning one year old. For Zane I planned such a great birthday party. I wanted to make sure that Zarek’s birthday is just as grand as Zane’s was. I will be sharing with you my plan step by step to make the Perfect First Birthday Party.

Choose Your Theme

The first thing you need is the perfect theme. This can be the most fun part of the planning or the most frustrating, but it’s all in how you look at it. There are some great websites to give you ideas. One of my favorite’s is:

Birthday Party Ideas

Think about some of your little one’s favorite things or your favorite things to do with your little one. Obviously a one year old doesn’t tell you in words what their favorite things are. But think about their favorite food? Do they have a favorite toy or stuffed animal? Do you always read the same book to them every night? Or you can do a theme around a color, the theme of their room, or just something fun.

Some Ideas For You

Some of my favorite themes:

• Balloons (Zane’s first birthday theme)
• Camouflage Green or Pink
• Bubbles
• Prince/Princesses
• Cupcakes
• Bugs
• ABCs
• Animal Crackers (do everything in animals)
• Fishy
• Butterfly
• Nursery Rhymes
• Circus
• Trucks/Construction
• Cowboy/girl
• Dinos
• Dr Suess
• On the Farm
• Winnie the Pooh
• Rainbow
• Rubber Ducky
• Stars and Moons
• Star Wars
• Sunshine
• Tea Party
• Train Party
• ABCs
• Robots
• Pirates

Be creative think outside the box.

Six Categories

Write down 3-5 of your ideas for themes on the top of a piece of paper.  Write these six categories under each theme:

1. Invitations
2. Decorations
3. Games/Entertainment/Craft*
4. Cake
5. Food
6. Goodie Bags

*With a one year old you may not play games but you may want your guests write notes to your little one or have trivia about your little one or about the theme.

Brainstorming

Now it’s time for you to brainstorm for each theme you are considering. Write down quick ideas for each of these categories. Just write basic ideas down later on you will expand your ideas once you have chosen your theme. What you want to do is see if you can fill up each category and see which theme you start to get excited about, that sounds the most fun.

Zarek’s Example

Zarek is going to have a Cheerios themed birthday party. Here is a rough draft I created to plan his party.

1. Invitations: Modify a picture of a cheerios box with the party details
2. Decorations: Yellow: yellow balloons, streamers,  plates, etc.
3. Games/Entertainment/Craft: String Cheerios on a necklace, slide show of the year
4. Cake: I’m thinking about making a round cake to look like a big cheerio
5. Food: Cheerio Rice Crispy Treats, Donuts, Cheerio Chex Mix
6. Goodie Bags: Single Servings of Cheerios, Cheerio Cereal bars, Spoon and bowl

This is all about having fun with your theme. Don’t feel like everything has to match. Your one year old will never know that they didn’t have all yellow balloons. Or that the cake wasn’t perfect. Take the stress out of the planning, just have fun!

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, all about party invitations and decorations.

The boys are testing my mommy skills and I’m getting to my limit. If Zarek is not throwing up on me or I’m not changing a icky diaper, Zane is having alergic reactions to who knows what having us run to the ER. And I think he must like the ER because he decided this morning to eat 1/2 box of benadryl.

It was mommy’s fault for leaving the benadryl out but I’m also running on almost no sleep. Saturday night (1:30am) Zane awoke just inconsolable.  In the next half hour we were rushing him to the ER with head to toe hives. You know it’s bad when the nurse tells you if he starts having breathing or swallowing pull over and have an ambulance take him the rest of the way.

We stayed at the hospital till 4 or 5am got a shot of steroids and some benedryl. We got home and I stayed up with Zane to watch him and make sure he didn’t scratch. But after staying up I just couldn’t get myself to go to bed. So I got a whole 1 1/2 hours of sleep on Saturday and Sunday.

And it didn’t stop with the weekend. Monday I screwed up not looking at my schedule. I was just too tired Sunday night and I’m always scheduled at 10am.  Nope I was scheduled for 8:30am.Which threw off my whole day.

I have a family member who has been arrested for some nasty stuff. So glad that we rarely saw them anyways, maybe once a year. But it’s been hard just wrapping my mind around the whole thing.

On the good news though business is really picking up for me on my graphic design jobs. It’s been amazing some of the great jobs that have been coming in. I’m going to be having a huge site reveal in the next few days which is very exciting.

We have had so many big milestones hit in our house, it’s so amazing and joyful! I love my little boys they are such a blessing and everyday is a reminder of this.

Zane decided two weeks ago that he wanted to go potty in the potty. From there on we have been going potty in the potty 90% of the time. Just today he decided to start taking himself with no reminders into the bathroom and go potty on the big potty.

He did really good until he tried going #2 on the big potty and missed. I was on a chat with a new client and had to drop everything. He came out of the bathroom with toilet paper streaming all around him saying he needed to clean up. LOL I went in and helped him clean up and just tried to explain to him it may be better to go poo poo on the little potty.

Zarek has been making his own big steps this last week. Literally. He has started walking. He had taken a few steps here and there a few weeks ago, but this week he started taking more and more. And today I am pretty sure he walked more than he crawled. You could tell he was thrilled with himself as he would giggle as he walked around the room.

It has also been a great week to watch the boys interacting. Zane is starting to have fun with Zarek. He is starting to look at him more and more as a playmate. They run/crawl up and down the hallway. Zane calling out behind him, “Come on Zarek, let’s go!” And Zarek of course is thrilled to be included in the games and is happy to chase after Zane. Earlier today Zane started getting really upset that Zarek was taking his nap because he wanted to play with him

February is Freebie month here at PepperScraps so here is another fun valentine freebie! These are labels you can print, sign, cutout and tape to the lids of play doh to make some really fun Valentine’s Day “cards”. Click the links below. Choose All Sizes. Choose Original. Download and print.