Birthday Decorations

7 months later, I am finally finishing this post. For the longest time I couldn't find the birthday invite, and I didn't want to do the post without a picture of it.

I knew I wanted to go with a jungle/zoo/safari theme and set out to find some fabric to center the party decorations around. Although it is mainly blue, I loved this fabric and the animals on it.

Here are a few pics of the decorations:

The invitation. I ironed the fabric on cardstock in order to put them on the card. I loved that the cards were all different and had different textures on them.

The birthday banner, made easy by the wonderful CriCut!

I figured it would be easier and less stressful for me if each kid had their own glass to drink out of. I love the take and toss glasses- cheap and work pretty well. So the kiddos didn't mix them up we put an animal and their name on each one. The animals came from the 'party fabric'.

The upstairs drink set-up.

The 'main' table with Ellie's 2 scrapbooks.

An up-close of the scrapbooks and the party favor bags. I had extra fabric, so I figured why not make the favor bags out of them. Saves me from having to buy them and the kids can reuse them to store things in.

I took an easy way out with the centerpieces and just did photos of Ellie throughout the year. Each table had one. I also did table clothes out of the fabric to put over the boring pink plastic ones. Afterwards I made bigger bags out of those for Ellie to store her play kitchen food in.
We are always huge fans of the Costco cake! Cheap and yummy. Unfortunately they don't do special designs, so a caterpillar it was.

And of course the birthday girls' smash cake.

Bath Toy

Ellie loves this bath toy.

Of course she doesn't use it use it as it was intended to be used.

Pictures

I finally downloaded the 500+ pictures off the camera. Get ready for lots of picture posts. Sorry that some of them are from as far back as March!

5 on Friday

1. We had a great baby shower last Saturday. I still need to download the pics from the event and will write more about it then.

2. Ellie had a great time playing with Grandpa Greving. Grandpa took her all around town showing her off. They even purchased some special sweet treats--- maybe that is why she was following him around like a shadow after they got back.

3. While in Ames, we celebrated Nick's Dad's birthday. Once again, Ellie was spoiled by the attention and some new books. That girl loves her books.

4. I have started reorganizing the spare bedroom room. I already have a number of bags to send off to Goodwill. It is amazing the stuff we accumulate!

5. Ellie and I went to the mall on Wednesday after work. Since we didn't get to play on the play-place last week at the mall, we stayed a little longer this week so she could play. Combine the fun of the play-place and a little girl that should have been getting ready for bed, and she did not want to go home. At all.

5 on Friday

1. You don't realize how valuable your free time is until you don't have it. I am loving my free time right now.

2. Tomorrow is my sister's baby shower. So this week has been dedicated to planning it and getting everything ready. A lot to do in one week. But I am loving every minute of it. I think it is coming together nicely and I just have a few more things to do on my afternoon off. The theme is a little blue/tan giraffe. I will post pictures later.

3. Ellie and I had a Mommy & Daughter trip to the mall on Wednesday after work. Complete with Ellie getting some new items (a swimsuit or two) and Mommy getting some new items (shirts). We topped it off with dinner at Jimmy Johns... my favorite! I hadn't been to the mall in a long time. I have missed it (although I don't know if Nick has missed me going there).

4. I had been studying over lunch for the past 5 months. I really missed being able to run errands over lunch, so this week has been bliss and I feel like I have accomplished so much.

5. Ellie's faces are hilarious. We have started taking pictures of them and Nick hopes to put together a blog series displaying the various faces of Ellie. The kid has expressions.

Tubes

After the umpteenth ear infection, Ellie got tubes. We went in on a Monday to the ENT Dr., and were scheduled for surgery on that very Thursday. We had to be there bright and early at 5:30AM, so of course we forgot the regular camera. Good thing for camera phones. Here are a few pictures before Ellie's first surgery: Eleanor was such a good girl, and we were in and out by 7AM. Dr. Jay, our regular Dr., said they looked great when we went in for Ellie's 18 month check-up.

So far, so good with the tubes. We have gone a whole month without an ear infection (something we hadn't been doing since before Thanksgiving). Now I just have to find some cute ear plugs for the pool this summer!

Hiatus is over.

The blog hiatus is officially over. I tried to recruit a guest blogger, but I guess he was too busy chasing after a certain 1 1/2 year old to add any posts. I cannot blame him.

I feel like a lot has happened in the past (almost) month, and yet I don't really remember what. I need to go through what pictures we do have and get some updates going. Something to look forward to.

In the meantime, we have a super fun summer planned and I cannot wait! A baby shower this weekend for Baby Jones, a vacation to the Dells to celebrate my parent's 40th wedding anniversary later this month, swimming in the pool with Ellie (which reminds me I need to see if we can still sign up for swimming lessons in August), Baby Jones' arrival in July, the State Fair in August and then we are already into fall! And getting the house ready to put on the market. Busy, busy, busy. I cannot wait!