{party time!}

We started our official birthday out with doughnuts for breakfast! 

Just like mom, he loves them!

 Made pumpkin cookies for his guests!

 Smash cake! Nothing too exciting but it was homemade!

We had such a fun time!  

We set up a chili bar in the garage and our house was PACKED!

I wanted to decorate more and have more things out, you know, a pinterest worthy party.....

then I regained consciousness and realized I didn't need to do all of that because just being with people who cared about Parker was all that mattered.  

{project} Pinterest!

We needed a shelf that would hold our cable box thingy and couldn't find any deep enough.

So, off to Pinterest I went. 

I found this pin....

Source

Cool.  Let's do it.  It's been pinned for MONTHS....

So I ordered 5 unfinished wood crates from Joann's Fabric because our store here never has them in stock.  Totally scored.  They were 50% off almost AAAAAAAND I had a free shipping code.

You need a cute helper or two....

The labels were glued on (yep...glued) so a little nail polish remover and some elbow grease and they were removed.

A little bit of stain.....

I'm apparently a messy worker....

Lots of lessons learned during this project.  I've never used a water based stain and I've never stained such a big piece.  Overall it's not perfect, but I like the finished project even with my oopsies.

See, again, you need a cute helper or two....

Voila! Finished project.  

Chad used the air nailer to nail two 1x1ish boards to the back to make it a little more study and to nail the crates together.

Is it perfect? No. Is it store quality? No. Does any of that matter? Nope!

It's perfect for what we need it for AND it looks pretty decent AAAAAND it was pretty cost effective. 

{easter}

Making Easter cards for some very important peeps {ha!}

Family pic!

Hunting for eggs!

After the hunt!

Mine! They are all mine!!

My dad made Pman this growth chart for xmas but it wouldn't fit in the car to bring home! it has to be mounted to the wall 6 inches up but its home now (thanks for fulfilling my request for one dad!!)

A Pinteresting evening

I went out and had some me time on Saturday night!
(Chad went out Friday night with friends)

This was, for the most part, my first night out since Parker (not that I had a lot of those pre-Parker).

Megan threw a Pinterest party and invited me to come on up!

You've never heard of a Pinterest party?  
Me either!

The rules were simple:

The host provides the main dish and the craft.

The guests bring a dessert, appetizer, or drink.

All must come from Pinterest.  

Sounds fun to me!

I didn't take any pictures of the food or the process....

I was taking everything in and working on some strategies to help myself get through it.

Everything that was brought looked really yummy 

(however I only tried a few things since I was a little anxious to be there)!
I opted to bring fruit salsa and cinnamon/sugar chips.

Megan had a fun and simple craft picked out!

This is my finished product.  

Her original pin can be found here (I assume that's the pin she used anyhow).

We used liquor bottles instead of wine bottles though.

Alysha found this fun pin to add to the fun!

Everyone (minus Jen) and their finished products!

(stole this picture from Megan's Facebook)

Thanks Megan for a great "first" night out!

(PS this totally counts as one of my "something new in 2013")

Pinteresting Project

For Valentine's day this year for school I decided to make the kids' Valentine's instead of bagging candy and a pencil for them.  How nice of me....I know =)

I had been seeing tutorials on how to make your own crayons all over pinterest so I figured I'd give it a shot.  Bought some crayons (cheap RoseArt crayons worked the best) and a silicon mold that could withstand the heat of the oven and went to town.  

Cut the paper off! Break apart!

 Baked at 230 degrees F for about 10 minutes, then checked and baked another 8ish minutes or so.  Remember to put them on a baking sheet otherwise it may be a little messy because the silicon tray is flimsy.....

Voila!

I also got a free printable to attach them to =) But you could easily make your own!

I made these a week or so ago.  I love how they turned out.  I chose to put "like" colors together and put the browns and blacks together.  I won't had those out as they aren't as fun...they will go into the lost and found bin that has become empty at school.....