Father's Day Crafty Style

       So those who know me know that I lack in the creativity department.  Lately I have been trying to channel my crafty side by finding easy crafts that even I can do.  I know it is a little late in posting, but for Father's Day I found this super cute and super easy craft to do on the Family Fun website.  It is a homemade card for dad that looks like a shirt and tie.  Find the step by step directions here.  The only thing that it is missing is a handy little template for the tie, but that turned out to not be so difficult to do.  I just free handed it on a piece of paper.  I bought a couple of sheets of scrapbook paper at Michael's for the shirt and tie.  Take a look below and see what you think.

       I also did a little craft with the kids for the daycare.  I found a blank puzzle template online and printed one out for each of the kids.  I let them color the puzzle pieces. Then I put cut them out.  Then I put tape on the back and let them arrange them on pasta jars that I had cleaned and removed the labels.  I then put a lid on them and attached a ribbon with a note stating "I (We) Love You to Pieces.

A Dino-Mite Party

     My little boy turned two!  He has gone from THIS

to this at ONE

and now he's TWO!

     Okay, okay enough with the reminiscing.  On to the fun stuff that was the celebration of Noah turning two.  For his second birthday we embarked on the idea of a dinosaur theme.  I thought it was a really cute idea and he really seemed to be getting interested in them since PBS' Dinosaur Train came out.  We sent out the invitations and got a big response!  We knew that it was going to be a blast.  Originally we were going to have the party in our backyard, but with the fear of rain I thought it might be better to find a park with a picnic shelter.  Find one I did!  I found this little treasure trove of a park in the town next to us.  It has a little playground that was perfect for the toddlers and a larger playground for the bigger kids.  In addition we packed up our sand/water table and took it to the park.  I thought it would be fun for the kids to dig for little dinosaurs that I picked up in the party favor aisle at the party store.  This was by far the favorite activity of all the kids.  We also sent each child home with goodie pails.  It was a beach pail filled with one plastic egg which contained a dinosaur that grows in water, some fruit snacks, and playdoh.
As for the food we made dinosaur sandwiches using a sandwich cutter that I found at the grocery store which were primarily for the kids.  We also had barbeque beef, chips, and veggies.  I made both cupcakes and a cake for the party and Mike helped me to decorate them.  We have done this for the past couple of birthday parties for our kids and it is a lot of work, but I really enjoy the final product.  I really love the taste of homemade cake.
     Noah also had a blast opening his presents.  He wanted to play with each one and had to be prodded along to open the rest of the presents.  Overall it was a huge success and everyone had a blast.
Below are some of the pictures from the event including his invitation and thank you cards. 

The invitation

Digging for Dinosaurs

Fun at the Playground

The Birthday Boy and his Cake

Present Time!

Thank You!

Time for a Catch Up, Part 2

Now let's see, where did I leave off?  Oh yeah, that's right I left off with the fun of May.  May was super busy and fun for us.  We started the month off by getting family pictures done which doubled as Noah's two year old pictures.

Then there was Mikayla's first gymastics show.  She did a great job and had so much fun.  It was fun for us to see the progress that she has made in the class.  She even got promoted to the next level.  Yay!

Mikayla also graduated from preschool.  It is a time of mixed emotions.  We are excited and proud of her and all the growth she has made.  But we also feel the sadness that most parents do when one of their kids is about to embark on the adventure of kindergarten.  We also know that she will miss her preschool friends, but she is looking forward to the opportunity to make new friends.

Our little boy turned two!  People always say that they grow up so fast and I definitely agree.  It seems like just last month we were leaving the hospital just after he was born and now he is two.  We celebrated the day with cupcake crispy treats with our daycare friends and then treated Noah to a birthday dinner at T-Rex.  I will post more later on his party.

We ended the month with a very busy Memorial Day weekend.  My parents were in town and we had Noah's birthday party as well as my grandma's birthday party.  Mike and I were also able to go stay at a hotel while the kids enjoyed a night with Grandma and Papa.  On Memorial Day we took the kids to their first T-Bones baseball game.  They have gone to the Royals before, but we had always heard how family friendly the T-Bones games were.  The kids definitely had a good time playing on the playground and meeting Sizzle the mascot.  Not so sure they enjoyed much of the game though. :)

There you have it.  Our month of May.  Just think it's only two weeks into June, and who knows I might actually be able to keep up with this blog now.

Time for a Catch-Up, Part 1...

I have totally been slacking these past few weeks (did I say weeks, I mean months) on blogging, but it's not all my fault.  We were without internet for about a week and without the wireless access for three weeks.  So here is a brief catch-up on what we did in April.  We went to a preschool prom for Mikayla's school. I know, I know.  A preschool prom, what is that???  When this idea came about last year I was wondering exactly the same thing.  For whatever reason we did not make it last year, but this is Mikayla's last year there and we were determined to go.  Mikayla picked out a pretty pink fancy dress to wear and we dolled her up a little.  And in true tradition of a prom there was music (played by a DJ!), dancing, and pictures.  It was just too cute to see all the little ones dressed up and out there on the dance floor.  Noah and Mikayla had a blast.

We also took the kids to the free Fairytale Village exhibit at Crown Center.  It was the last day for the exhibit and I was putting off finishing my homework for an online class anyways, so we headed out for an afternoon of fun.  I was able to get at least some of my homework done while Mike entertained the kids in the morning and then decided that I had enough time to finish the homework by the end of class (which I did, two days early :)).

As you can tell from the photos the kids were in desperate need of haircuts and we decided to go all out with a new look.

That takes us up to May.  I will add Part 2 later that should get us caught up to June.