Got a Minute? Felt Flower

What do you do when you daughter reminds you that she has a birthday party in 2 hours, your bank account is flashing a big fat $0.00, and you have absolutely nothing on hand?  First you go into panic mode.  Then your sweet, unassuming 5 year old tells you, "It's okay, Mommy.  We can just whip her up a pretty dress real quick." After you laugh hysterically at her sweet innocence (let's just say I'm not the quickest sewer in the world), you decide that you could whip up a quick hair pretty!

 For those of you reading this that know my kids.  Yes, I am aware that this isn't the 5 year old.  Charly felt more like chasing imaginary bugs around the yard directing the photo shoot than actually being in front of the camera.

I just eye balled it and cut out 3 sizes of petals from felt.  I hot glued them to a felt circle with a clip. And glued a flower rhinestone to the middle.

 We added some glitter to give it a little more character.

 Speaking of character, look at that pose!

I love how it turned out so much that I have plans to make a whole rainbow of felt flowers for the girls!  Can't wait!

Tangled Party

All right folks.  This is it.  The piece-de-resistance.  The grand finale.  The whole Shebang!

 If you missed the post about the banner and flower balloons, go here.

 And if you're dying to know about the birthday girl's outfit, go here.

Oh, and P.S., I like the outfit a lot better with the leggings!

And now onto the fun and food!

 To entertain the kids while we finished with the food (thanks Mom!  You're the best!),

I made a giant Rapunzel braid from yarn (remember the leftovers in the banner?) for the kids to play tug-o-war with.

This thing was a labor of love, I tell ya!

 Note to self (and anyone else braving this project) #1:  DO NOT enlist the help of your 4 year old, 2 year old, and two cats to make a mile long (slightly exaggerated for the dramatic) braid.  Talk about TANGLED!  Geez!

 Next up was a pretty funny activity, if I do say so myself.

Another great quote from the movie was my inspiration.

They are about to fling Flynn over a wall.

 My sister-in-law (same one from the balloon flowers) built this catapult for a school project last year.

She let me use it to "Fling Flynn"

 The kids each got an egg with their name on it

 And shot it at the target where Maximus was waiting.

(If you haven't seen the movie...you don't get this.  Max is waiting on the wall for Flynn.  Got it?)

 The winner got a candy bar for being such a sure shot.

 Note to self #2:  DO NOT make red punch for birthdays!  What was I thinking???

Which leads me to the part you have all been waiting for...

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Drum Roll, Please!.......

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 Let's EAT!

 Spaghetti (again with the red...)

 In case you are wondering, no these are not homemade.  I went with Rhode's rolls.  Always a sure bet!

 The cursed red punch!

 And my personal favorite...

 Caramel Apple suckers served in a frying pan!

Of course, the caramel apple suckers are in honor Maximus and his love of apples.

Our last activity was to make lanterns.

We just used white paper bags and decorated them up real pretty.

Here's all the kids with their lanterns, giving me their best "smolder".

I forgot to mention earlier that the starting activity was to "Add a few new pictures to my gallery."

That' why there is sidewalk chalk on the wall behind them.

The Birthday Girl's Lantern

In the movie, the lanterns fly, so of course we had to see if ours could!

 If you made it this far (sorry about the long post) you have made it to the crowning glory of any Birthday party...with a little spin.

 I got the idea for the donut tower in lieu of a cake here.

 The birthday girl was awestruck by it. 

 And her little sister was caught trying to snatch a donut hole!

 Chey blew out all four candles (with a little help)

 devoured a whole donut...or maybe two or three

 opened some presents

 and had a moment of pure joy over her new stuffed puppy. 

 Then we said goodbye to all our friends and loved ones with a battery operated tea light for their lanterns (because what's a lantern without some light), and a peanut butter caramel apple with a little note

Sorry there are no pictures of the apples.  I wasn't feeling up to it by that point in the party.

Maybe I'll show you how to make them when I am feeling a little better.

Chey was tickled pink with this party...or maybe that's just the red punch mustache!

Tangled Party Banner

Have you ever seen "Tangled"?

Around here, we watch it a lot!

My kids can pretty well quote you the whole movie.

Which made basing the decor off of great quotes from the movie pretty easy.

One of my favorite quotes is when Rapunzel tells Gothel, 

"That's the funny thing about birthdays.  They're kind of an annual thing."

I thought that would be so fun above a collage from Chey's Birthdays.

I just made the banner in Microsoft Word Publisher, banners.
I just Googled Tangled fonts for the font.  I think the name was Juana B Tangled v.2
I added a couple of photos from each of her birthdays with some leftover yarn from one of the activities, which I will share tomorrow.

The balloon flowers I found on Pinterest here...or not!  I could have sworn I pinned it, but I can't find it anywhere!

Okay, Plan B.  If this was your amazing idea, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

So the original directions were to cut circles out of cardboard in 2 different sizes, one for the center of the flowers, and a larger one for the petals.
I was feeling pretty lazy, so I grabbed a pitcher that was the size I wanted the centers and a pot for the petals.
Then I put my sister-in-law to work (free labor.  Yay!)
She blew the centers into the pitcher until it touched the sides and I tied them off.
Then she blew 5 petals in the pot until each one touched the side.

Tie 3 of the petal balloons together and the other 2 petals together.
Then tie all of the petals together with the center balloon.
It won't really look like a flower, but when you put it up against the wall (hubby used duct tape), you can squish it down flat and you have a beautiful, perfect flower!
Does any of that make sense?
If you want more info on the flowers, let me know and I can put together a tutorial, mmkay?

A Party Fit for a Princess

Did you guess what kind of party this little princess wanted to have?

Does the shirt look even vaguely familiar?

I'll give you a hint.

It's one of the princesses.

The newest one to be exact.

Gettin' it now?

Okay, so it was a "Tangled" Party.

Which means I got to watch the movie about 12 dozen times in the weeks leading up to the party.

All in the name of research, of course!

I tried to make the shirt look as much like Rapunzel's dress as I could without going all out.

I found the purple shirt on clearance at Target.  I think it is actually a pajama shirt.  Shhh! Don't tell anyone! :)   I sewed some light pink and gold ribbon on to replicate Rapunzel's dress.

I made the skirt from some squares I had left over from a quilt I attempted to make several years ago.  I added the tulle because I thought it needed a little something extra.

It's my take on an abstract Rapunzel outfit.

My little model was feeling less than cooperative!

We got a lot of looks of annoyance...

Then outright defiance...

and then an impromptu game of peek-a-boo...

She thought that one was pretty funny.

So we tried another route.  I asked her to sing the song that Rapunzel sings in the tower.

That led to some hair twirling and dancing around.  She really got into it!

It didn't make for great pictures, but at least she was in a better mood!

No matter how difficult she can be,

I still melt whenever I see that smile!

I can't believe she is 4 already!

Come back tomorrow to see more of the Tangled Party!

See ya then!

Long Time, No See

Okay, I know it has been a long time...like 3 months, long time!  But things have been crazy around here!  Remember we were supposed to move?  We did.  But not where we had originally planned.  We were planning to move to WY so my hubby could work in the oil field.  But that didn't work out.

My in-laws sold the house they have lived in for about 30 years and bought a much bigger one...with a basement that used to be an apartment, but the last owners converted it into a movie theater room.  So we moved in to help them change it back into an apartment.  We are closer to hubby's new job, so he doesn't have to waste so much time in stupid Utah construction traffic.  Which, incidentally, he is working on now, so I can't say too much bad about it, it pays the bills!

The thing that has really kept me away lately has been my health.  I think I mentioned before that I was having killer migraines all the time.  I was diagnosed with Chronic Migraines in May and they still haven't found any medications that stop it.  Then I had an ear ache in August and went to an InstaCare.  They said I have Chronic Blockage of the Eustachian Tube (the tube that runs between your ears.  You know when you fly or drive up in the mountains and you feel like you need to pop you ears?  I feel like that all the time....yeah. NOT FUN!)  They told me I need to have tubes put in my ears, like they do for little kids.  But my insurance doesn't cover it, so I have to just suck it up until we get insurance that does.

Then to top things off, things got really crazy the Saturday before last.  I had been running around like a mad woman for over  a week, trying to put the finishing touches on this sweet girl's 4th birthday party:

 

Isn't she adorable?  Can you guess what her party was by the shirt?

More on that later!

Anyway, it was finally party time and things were going great.  The party really came together.  Everyone was having fun.  I ran upstairs to get the candles and suddenly had a pain in my chest and felt faint.

I made it through the weekend feeling pretty weak and tired.  I figured I was just worn out from the party.  But by Tuesday I was still feeling lousy.  The hubby convinced me to go to the ER when I nearly passed out doing laundry.  2 hours, 1 EKG, 1 CT Scan, and 1 blown IV (again, NOT FUN!) later, they decided that there was something wrong with my heart, it wasn't blood clots in my heart or lungs, but whatever it was eluded them.  They did say, however, that it wasn't life threatening, so I could go home and follow up with my primary care physician and to call him immediately if I started to run a fever.  Thursday afternoon I got in to see my doctor.  They listened to my heart and said, yes, it was acting pretty weird.  So they sent me home with a 24 hour stress test heart monitor.

The dr. office called me back Saturday afternoon to tell me that they had looked at the results of the test and decided that I had at least 10 incidents of elevated heart beat and several times where it dropped really low.  So they want me to meet with a cardiologist next Monday to decide what is wrong and where to go from here.

In the mean time?  Between my hubby and father-in-law hovering over me ( love you both tons! :) ) I am definitely taking it easy.  The upside?  I can catch up on some blog posts, clean out my google reader (I went from 610 to 0 on Saturday), and get started on my mile long Christmas gift making list.  Not to mention the 4 Halloween Costumes I need to make and the fall dresses I need to finish.  So anyway, it looks like I'm back on the radar.  I have a few things that I have made over the summer but never found the time to blog, so you can look forward to seeing:

• Chey's 4th Birthday Party
• School Picture Dresses
• Daddy Did It Bunk Beds
• and a few other things that have left my brain at the moment.
• Oh, and I have been going through my pictures and found some things that I made pre-blog that I thought would be fun to share.

So, See you around...soon!  I promise!