2nd Birthday Party!!

Austin's Second Birthday party was held just a few week early this year. I wanted to have a party with all out family before we moved from Ontario to Alberta. We had the party at my mom's house since our house was already sold. It was a Toy Story theme and I think it turned out GREAT! Everyone had a blast and it was a fun day!!

Here is a picture of the invites I sent out, I made the pockets from my cricut using the Wild West Cartridge. I then printed the invite part off on the computer, the sky print also on the computer and cut the Date Time and Place out using the Wild West Cartridge as well.

I made the envelopes for the cards with my new fancy scrapbook tool (I can't remember the name now...) I made them out of 12x12 cardstock that was patterned on one side, so the inside of the envelopes had a fun pattern. I closed all the envelopes with a cowboy hat (Also cut from the Wild West Cartridge on my Cricut)

I am big on goodie bags. But at 1 and 2 years old, there is a lot of traditional goody bag items that are just not useful to young kids. I bought toy story bags, and inside them put some goodies I picked up. I got a stamp and paper set from the dollar store, (Toy story 3, and for the siblings some princess ones) some leather balls, (again, toy story and princess) some toy story 3 lip balm, toy story pencil cases, double ended toy Story crayons (and some princess) and for the older kids toy story markers. For the really young kids I substituted some of the things with sippy cups and other age appropriate items. I cut out much bigger cowboy hats and put all the kids names on them with glitter then attached them to the bags with rope. Also for the kids and adults to take home, I created these awesome goodie bags.... Yes, I had 3 different goodie bags!

I am a very detailed person. Inside these goodie bags were some gummy army men from the Bulk Barn and some sour dinosaur gummies. (In green t-rex only... yes, I picked through the bucket until I found enough! Thanks to Devon for the help!)


Inside these goodie bags (Which were smaller) were some chocolate loonies and twoonies, plus some plastic coins.




A few months before this whole Toy Story Birthday extravaganza was planned we got Austin some cute Toy Story outfits and a second Build a Bear. Of course, Mr Monkey and Bananas made an appearance at the party!
I also tend to go a bit over board on Balloons. Last year I spend a whopping $115 on balloons for the Elmo Birthday, so I decided this year to save some money I would rent a helium tank. Well, this is what our basement looked like before we started taking the balloons upstairs. I would say including the tank rental we probably spent $70-$80 on the balloons this year. (ok, ok, I admit, I have a balloon problem!!!)



I have been seeing a lot of birthday banners in pictures of parties and on my chat boards. I figured I could easily make one myself. I got out my Wild West Cartidge again and started. I think it turned out great, but really really long. It says Happy 2nd Birthday Austin. I cut out sheriff stars and the lettering for the banner is the rope letter option on the Wild West Cartridge. In between each word I cut out the wanted posters from the cartridge and glued pictures of the toy story characters on them. Then I hot glued everything onto some rope (which I bought from Michaels, but later found out I could have gotten the same thing from Dollarama for MUCH less. sigh)







As for the food table... well there was so much I could have done, but let's face it, with the party 2 days after we had to move out of our house I just ran out of time. By the time I got the main decorations done and the house packed I just gave up. Next year I will have to make the food table fantastic to make up for it. See - it's very plain and boring. I would like to note though, we did serve Toy Story Mac N Cheese as well as Toy Story Macaroni Salad. I found the Ital Pasta Toy Story 3 Mac N cheese earlier in the summer and bought 2 boxes. Once I decided on the theme to the party I knew we had to get more boxes!


For all the kids I bought bandanas for them to wear. Red for the boys and pink for the girls. Some kids wouldn't wear them, but they looked cute while they were on. I also cut out yellow sheriff stars (Of course with the Wild West Cricut Cartridge. lol) for everyone to have a name tag. I tried to be creative with the names, but I will admit, some of them were just plain sad and corny. The birthday boy however was Sheriff Austin.


Above, my Nephew with his bandana on, and below, my Niece with her pink one on. (and her nametag on her head)



The birthday boy had a lot of fun playing outside and running around.


Finally, What kind of a birthday party would it be without cake?!?! I completely forgot about the cake and had to order it 2 days before the party. Thankfully with Toy Story having just been in theatres the grocery stores have some themed cakes. I was able to order Austin a cake and it turned out awesome! (and tasted so delicious!)

Austin definitely had a blast with the cake. I had picked up an extra cake for my Step dad since his birthday was the next day, so the extra small cake that I had originally gotten was Austin's. Last year he got a cupcake. I think he enjoyed the cake so much more (it was a 1/8th slab cake and only $8.99) then the cupcake, as I'm sure the pictures tell you.




There was icing all over his arms, face, and my mother's walls by the time he was done. I have the video posted in an older post if you want to check it out. It was insanity.

Finally, I had seen this at the party story and assumed it would cost me a pretty penny so I wasn't going to get it, but it was only $7.99 so of course I had to get it! I tried to get a picture of everone who came out to the party. A big thanks to all of you who made the day awesome!

Mommy and the Birthday Boy


Papa, grandpa, papa dick, then grandma, Grandma and Gramma

Auntie Katherine and Kevin

Pierce (his mommy wouldn't get a picture taken :( )

It's Jessie/Katrina!! haha, this worked out so well. Also in these pictures, Aunt Helen, Uncle Adam (sigh) and Logan

Sue, Chris and Owen

Aunt Penny, Ashley and Amanda.

Settling in

Hello everyone!

I havent' had much time to post. We've been very busy settling in. everything is unpacked now, except my craft area which I am working on.

Austin is loving his new home. He's loving the fact that he can now access all the dvd's. I am not loving it. Also, he's figured out he can fit a dvd under the tv stand and under the couch. sigh. I think in the past week we have watched Cars 1,394,828 times. At least. haha.

Dave's mom and dad head home to Ontario today, so tomorrow might be a rough day. I joined a group on Meetup and they have a few get togethers tomorrow so I might have to take advantage of that.

I am hoping to have a few more useful posts coming up, depending on how much time I get. But for now, I will leave you with a video tour of my house.




Hope you all enjoy!

Well, I'm lazy.

I guess that's the best way to explain it. And in case you're confused, I'm talking about building furniture. haha. I love to build something and be like "see that? I built the shit out of that!" I'm especially proud of our entertainment unit. I built it my self. When it gets moved... it doesn't wobble. It's awesome. Especially considering it's from Ikea. Before I bought it I was warned that Ikea furniture is a pain to assemble. I owned that entertainment centre. It rocked.

So today we went to Ikea and got Austin 2 more shelves similar to our entertainment unit. It was so much harder to assemble it!!! Either way, I conquered those shelved. One thing I did realize though was that as much as I love to assemble furniture. I'm lazy. Usually you go around the item to assemble, gather the appropriate tools, and go through the instructions. Ikea instructions... well I laugh at them. (more on that below...) So here I am assembling Austin's shelves. I sit on the ground and I move the shelf around me. I couldn't get the dowels in. Instead of getting an appropriate tool.... I used my husband's shoe. haha! It was then that I realized I'm kind of lazy when I assemble furniture.

So, the Ikea instructions... I laugh. It's the Ikea man. Especially on items that require more then one person. The Ikea man is sad. Not that he shouldn't do it on his own. To me this picture says

I am mr Ikea, I don't have any friends. Why won't those two over there let me play???

This one? Mr Ikea is upset that he doesn't have a carpet to work on. :( The other mr Ikea is mocking him, or well, doing something inappropriate to his shelving unit....

I love the Mr Ikea man. I made my husband dig the instructions out of the garbage so I could post this.. haha.

Hope everyone is having a great day. We're off to pick up my In Laws (and my little boy!!!) from the airport.

Day 2 of the trip (a little late)

We were all checked out of the hotel and on the road by 8am. Hit up tim horton’s, then we were on our way. Set the GPS and drove… until we realized the gps was trying to take us over into the US. Not going to lie, there was a bit of my husband not listening to what I have to say (because he never does and yet 99% of the time I’m the right one.) and being stubborn. Eventually we got out way back to Hwy 17 and got moving.

I would say 20 minutes out of Sault Ste Marie we lost connection on our cell phones. (rogers) thankfully dave has a Bell phone for work because he can’t get service while at work with his rogers phone so we had bell service for a short time. I kept trying to get online with the internet stick, but it was either very little or no service. A lot of rock cliffs lining the roads so there isn’t much for signal.

There are a lot of beware of moose signs. I’ve yet to see one. I don’t know if I should be afraid to come across one or excited. Haha! In the very high moose risk areas they have sensors set up on the side of the road and if a moose triggers it then the yellow light they have on some of the signs start to flash. I think that’s kind of cool. So, here we are, in a high moose area and of course I have to get a picture of the magnet on the sign (well, me holding it on the sign since the sign is aluminum) Dave pulls off to the side and I walk back to the sign. Halfway to the sign the thought hits me that this may not have been the smartest idea I’ve ever had. If a moose were to come out of the bush I might have shit my pants. However, I survived without a moose encounter. Yay!

So 9:33 this morning is when we hit the wet gross snow. Yuck. Although at some points made a really nice view of the trees with snow on them. Thankfully it wasn’t sticking to the ground and the road was just a little wet. There were lots of hills up and down so it would have really sucked had the roads turned bad.

Hwy 17 went through Lake superior Provincial Park so we stopped at the scenic lookout they had there. However due to the crappy snow there wasn’t much of scene to look at but I got a pic of us anyways…. Dave peed on a rock. Haha! I almost left before remembering the support for Ashley magnet. I stuck it on the side of the garbage pail since it was the only metal I could find there. I wonder how long it will stay for. Hmmmm..

Saw a lot of little lakes and creeks. Sadly we didn’t stop at old woman’s bay like planned. The sign said closed so we didn’t bother slowing down then it was open after all. Really sad, but oh well, I’m sure we’ll do this drive again sometime.Our next stop was for gas just as we got into Wawa, ON. I had to pee something fierce. Lol. Since then we’ve been driving….

My husband has his blue jays tape on again. In case you didn’t notice on my Twitter last night we were listening to the blue jays music tape his dad found and sent with us (we have a tape player in the truck) This is the most ridiculous tape ever. It cracks my shit up. It’s all remakes of songs with words that pertain to the blue jays (circa 1991-1993) Right now we’re listening to Help us Mookie, the remake of Help me Rhonda by the beach boys. Can’t forget the blue jay rap. To which my husband sings along to. We’ve had the when the moon hits your eye (like a pizza pie) song with Blue Jays lyrics, Boy named Sue (johnny Cash) remake, a song that pretty much just lists all the teams in one breath….and who can forget Jay-o, the remake of Day-O. Apparently this was Dave and his sibling’s favorite tape ever and used to fight over it. The excitement he has on his face when he sings the songs is funny, and even better when he plays air banjo along with it. That’s it’s own kind of awesomeness there!

Sunday

We had a glorious late start to the day. I slept like a log and it was so nice to sleep in. We hauled our butts out of bed around 7:30am (8:30am our old time zone) and got on the road.

While I was in Tim Horton's getting breakfast Dave was in the truck and decided to fix the fuse we blew yesterday by using the eliminator plug adapter. Thankfully we have two lighter plugs in the truck so we were able to work with the second plug. So, Dave gets the plug working and we get on our way. We forgot to plug in our camera battery last night so the first picture of the day showed us low battery. I put the eliminator in the plug.... bam. there goes the fuse again. Something must have happened yesterday to the eliminator when we had the laptop plugged in that now causes the fuses to blow. Me, thinking that maybe the fuse wasn't actually fixed, tried the still working plug. Bam, there goes that fuse too. Thankfully, we still had one other fuse to fix one of the plugs. We needed at least one because the GPS wouldn't last all the way through the day. Off to the side of the road we go, Dave works his handiwork and off we go again.

Finally we got to Manitoba. I was so very excited to be able to say we were out of Ontario. Honestly, there wasn't too much for excitement. I napped through Winnipeg. We stopped and got gas, got Dairy Queen, Gas, Bathroom, oh and then Saskatchewan. I will say the drive is beautiful, however going across Saskatchewan I got a bit of 'truck' cabin fever. I took pictures. I took more pictures. I played on my ipod until it died. I read a scrapbook magazine I bought at a gas station. I annoyed Dave. I attempted to sing. (my voice still isn't perfect, but way better then the lack of voice I had last week) I made Dave stop for random things. (pics to come)

Needless to say I was very happy when we finally stopped for the night. Originally we were going to drive all the way through to our house today. I am soooo glad we didn't. We decided to stop and actually have a sit down meal, all of ours so far have been in the truck. We had a great dinner, then a wonderful hot bath in our jaccuzzi tub. Dave fell asleep, I've been up on the laptop trying to get offline. haha!

I have done a quick update at the traveling scarf blog, so go check it out! (http://thetravelingscarf.blogspot.com)