Green Jello

Outside

We had our first taste of Spring this week; 60! Tomorrow, 2-3 inches of snow. We found this nest on one of our walks. It feels good to be outside again.  

Winter Wonderland

We had perfect snow yesterday; the kind that sticks to everything. I broke into the forest preserve by our house early, so I could photograph the snow. I don't know why, but the forest preserve is closed for the winter. I only had to climb a little fence. It was beautiful and I was the only one there, except for a Cardinal who taunted me...would have made the best picture, but I couldn't get close enough. This is the best I could do;

Walking through this was just what I needed to reset and feel good.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mad Hatter Party

We had our Mad Hatter Halloween party this weekend and it was a lot of fun. Went a little crazy on the decorations, but everything was done cheap. I covered the chairs with different colored fabric, put white sheets on the walls and ceiling and used black lights to make everything glow.

The bar - I used some Martha Stewart labels for the bottles. Tonic glows a strange blue under a black light, so I poured some in a container and made heart shaped ice cubes.

I used images from the new Alice in Wonderland movie coming out in March and painted details with black light paint. The frames I bought at a resale store and sprayed with black light paint too.

My friend Al came up with the idea of making a deck of cards, so we sprayed cardboard white, glued on paper hearts, and used stencils for the numbers. The entire room was covered in black plastic that we bought in rolls from the hardware store.

This is the tree my friend made - out of cardboard. He is so creative. This was at the front door with a strobe light on it, so it looked like it was moving.

Over kill? Yep, but we do that. It was a lot of fun and I wish there were more pictures, but taking them with the black light proved to be almost impossible. Hope you had a great Halloween. I miss being here & I am trying. I have to figure out where Edward is going next, I lost my paper that had the names.

 
 
 
 
 

Look, I'm a zombie!

Oh Alice!

I saw the trailer for Tim Burtons' Alice in Wonderland, you have to click the link because they turned off the Embedded one: here. I love Alice in Wonderland. My son's first birthday was a Mad Hatter tea party. I'm going to try and talk my husband into a Mad Hatter Halloween party. I could go nuts...black lights, checkered floors, little bottles with "drink me" on them. Please give me some ideas for the party & costumes! Johnny Depp is a strange man.

Throwing Money in the Air at the Zoo

 

I know I post pictures of the zoo every year, but this is our life. We are fortunate to have such a nice zoo so close, but it's expensive. I would become a member, but I don't want the kids to go so much they no longer find it interesting. We did binge on Mold-A-Ramas...

 

This was my husband's fault. A hunter gatherer instinct took over and he wanted to find ones we didn't have.

 

There I am at the machine.

 

The butterfly exhibit is our favorite. It's a walk in screened house and they are everywhere.

 

Luna Moth; I wanted to get closer, but I didn't want to break the rules and walk in the garden. They were hanging out on the outer screens. So pretty.

 

 

Isn't this obnoxious? I had to buy one for the kids. $8! Zoo management knows how to remove your money; every kid had one. They will all poop blue for a week.

 

Other favorite animal; the dangerous and rarely viewed BBQ chip eating Chipmunk. I may have thrown that chip to him.

I hope to post about The Host tonight, the kids are not cooperating with my wish to type on the computer right now.

Batman Birthday Party

The party was a success; the children arrived like a swarm of locusts with the parents squealing out of the driveway happy for 2 hours of freedom. They bounced in the rented bounce house, tattled on each other, ate sandwiches, candy and cake, there were some tears and laughter, and someone got a wedgie.

Games: Mr. Freeze froze Batman and Robin, so the kids had to save them by melting the ice with water guns. I borrowed this from our Ben 10 party. The game was a huge hit;

 

 

Batman buckets - I taped images I found on Google to our Bozo buckets game. Easy! I wanted to use Liz's idea of making villain bean bags, but I ran out of time.

 

The cake.This one was a sleeper...I thought it would be easy, so I waited until the last minute to make it. I had a Wilton 3-D car pan and my plan was to cover it with fondant and put wings on the back, but then my husband claimed that was not the Batmobile. The Batmobile is a long car with red pinstripes from the 60's, not "the movie" one was making. I had to piece in pound cake to the front and back which made it all bumpy and weird. At 11 p.m. I ran out of fondant and the stores opened at 10 the next day (the party was at 12). I took a deep breath and peeled the fondant off and started mixing frosting, but realized that my black frosting color was dry. I can't believe I didn't heave the cake across the room. I put it aside and waited until the next morning. See, I am making excuses for why it looked like this;

 

It's from the 60's, so the body needs some repairs. I hope this isn't cake wreck worthy. It's o.k., but I am a bit of a perfectionist and I wasn't happy with how it turned out. I do like the flames out the back, which was rock candy on a stick. Black frosting or fondant is gross, so I had a cake to serve, which was a bakery cake I decorated with the Bat signal made from fondant:

 

 

 

Tears because he is too young to realize why there are no presents for him.

I've mentioned this before; I love making treat bags. I sewed these last minute and crazy stitched them, but it's the thought that counts, right?

 

The tags are supposed to resemble the "Pow" from the Batman show and I used a Word shape, enlarged it and added text and filled with color. The kids probably didn't notice them, but I thought the tags looked cute. Inside was a coloring book I found on clearance, Batman PEZ, airplane, Batman fruit chews and sucker.

 

I say this every time, but I have to remember to scale these parties down. It overwhelms my kids to have a tent and bounce house in their backyard with kids running around. My vision of a Mary Poppin's party is shattered when my kids start acting obnoxious because they can't handle the excitement. This is our third kid party, so we are still in the learning phase of this, but chances are good I will overdo the next one.

Favorite gift; a bug vacuum. If you know a child who loves bugs, buy them this toy. I didn't buy it for my son because I was afraid it would harm the bugs when they were vacuumed, but it's very gentle and has a chamber with a magnifying glass on top so they can look at the bug and then release it. The toy hasn't left his side; he slept with it the first night, which is strange, but cute.

 

The end.

Now We Are Six

 

When I was One,

I had just begun.

When I was Two,

I was nearly new.

When I was Three,

I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,

I was not much more.

When I was Five,

I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

A.A. Milne

Happy Birthday my dear little one, yes six is a good age to stay at.

I bought him an old copy of Now We Are Six for his birthday, and I think my husband's family thought I was weird. Oh well. Six is hard for me; like he crossed some invisible hump that makes him a "kid" now and not a little boy. Know what I mean? We have the Batman birthday party this weekend, I promise pictures. I'm going to attempt a Batmobile cake - old school with the red pinstripe. Wish me luck...

 

Parade + Rain

 

We had a rainy 4th of July, but we were troopers and braved the weather for our local parade and fireworks. It was still good, even wet.

 

 

There was plenty of candy and dogs. For some reason, the wacky religious group that is around every year screaming something about damnation & holding amusing signs, was not marching this year. I missed them. We also had an odd shortage of politicians, but why should they get wet when we already had our elections?

 

 

The kids were tired all day, but managed to stay awake for the fireworks. We were sitting behind a group of teenagers, and as soon as the fireworks started, ALL of them pulled out their phones and started clicking pictures and texting friends. I don't understand all this texting. I'm sure if I was a teen, I would be texting too, but it's strange to see.

 

Miss Tink did not have a fun holiday...she would like the boom boom noises to stop and does not care about matchy holiday socks.

I'm sorry posting here has been scattered. I have no idea why, except that I feel like I have nothing to say. I'm in a holding pattern. I can't seem to shake the bit of depression I feel about Kindergarten this year, and with his birthday this week and our anniversary...ugh. I haven't bought his present yet, which is weird for me. I asked him tonight if he could have anything he wanted, what would it be? He said a BB gun. Huh? I told him he's a little young for that, and what would he want besides a BB gun? He wants a house as big as ours with a port-a-potty on the ceiling. I will work on that.

I hope you had a great holiday.

Batman Invitations

 

We have a Batman birthday party coming up. True to form, I am waiting until the last minute to prepare for it. I made these out of card stock and used a silver pen to write the details of the party; "The Joker escaped from Gotham City Jail...Batman needs your help." "Please R.S.V.P. to the Bat phone." I amuse myself this way.

I do need your help with ideas for games. I want to use the villains from Batman as the theme. I was going to freeze Batman & Robin and have the kids use squirt guns to unfreeze them...because evil Mr. Freeze put them in the freeze chamber. Ideas? Thank you.

Guess who went to Seattle?