A Monster party for Benjamin!

So yeah, Benjamin turned 1 in early February.. and I'm typing this in um.. early July. Better late than never, I say! 

I wanted to come up with a theme for Ben's party since that is how I roll and since he was only turning one, he wasn't "in" to anything. I looked and looked and came up with a Little Monster theme and I love how it turned out! Mind you, my darling husband bitches and moans about every party we have and how I go a *smidge* overboard with the planning and my lofty ideas about making the decorations and food. But, once it happens, he is always pleased with the results and thanks me for my hard work! (Smart man!). 

Benjamin in front of the inflatable cake at daycare.

So this picture = hilarious. But, you aren't laughing?.... Well.. a few people had arrived and we were all in the kitchen finishing things up and putting out the food. Benjamin was in the living room... opening up his presents!  Yup. I heard silence and knew something was up. Sure enough, I found this scene when I checked on him! Ahahaha! That's my boy!

I made this fruit monster and was very proud of how it turned out!! 

I LOVE this stuff!! Here is the recipe! You can make it with oyster crackers, pretzels, 

goldfish, or a combination of all of them like I did here. 

Pampered Chef's cool veggie pizza!! YUM YUM! Recipe here.

Happy Birthday banner.

Super awesome monster cupcakes! One of my co-workers made these! They turned out SO cute! 

Benjamin's first (and LAST) cupcake....

He ate a banana flavored one.... 

and promptly broke out in HIVES and had to be rushed to the ER!!!

(true story). You can see the reaction on his skin where the icing touched.

My friend Erin went with us (I needed someone to help calm me down and she was awesome!). 

The nurses and doctors referred to him as "cupcake boy"... har har har!

He scratched his little forearm so much it pretty much turned into one whole whelp. 

All tuckered out after a CRAZY, busy day! 

This "cupcake" incident prompted our pediatrician to do an allergy blood test that came back showing he's allergic to milk, eggs, and "nuts". (Oy vey!!) We got a referral to a pediatric allergist and he had further testing that showed milk, eggs, cashew, and sesame. There was several other things he tested positive for, but not as severely and we are to trial them. This has been one crazy allergy rollercoaster and on top of the allergies, he has eczema (exacerbated by the allergies, we've found), and asthma. Slowly but surely we are figuring it all out and it is our hope that soon we can get him "all better"!

Easy Ribbon Topiary & 3rd Birthday party!

Ahem. I didn't realize that I never finished this post. Hahah! I had uploaded all of the pictures and then something must have come up and well.. here we are more than 3 months later! Oopsie! 

So... back in early March I was planning Brooke's 3rd birthday party. She's totally not one of those kids who is obsessed with any one thing. She's an equal opportunity child and likes a variety of things, which I can totally appreciate. I may just gouge my eyes out if everything we had around here was Princesses, Dora, Minne Mouse, or the like. Although, now that I write that.. perhaps that is why we have SO much stuff- we have to have a little bit of everything! hahahaha....hmmm.....

Okay, so the one show she does request to watch on a regular basis is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Since she's a girl, we went more with the Minne Mouse thing and since hot pink and zebra is sort of "in" right now, I picked that as our theme. I was browsing crafty blogs and Etsy as I tend to do and ran across some super duper cool Ribbon Topiaries! I HAD to make one for the party!! I asked my friend if she wanted to have a crafty day with me and she did (yay!), so we hit up Hobby Lobby when their ribbon was 1/2 off (I had PLENTY of ribbon already and needed NONE, but I love a good excuse to get more!!) and got the necessary supplies. I had forgotten the straight pins (an integral part of this project!), so I ran to the store. The GHETTO "$1" store. Side vent: I think that stores that contain the word Dollar or $1, should only sell items that cost a buck. Peeves me off when things aren't a dollar. My pins were more than a dollar, but oh well. They also appeared to have fallen off of a truck from Mexico and to have been used previously, put back in the plastic box and taped up. Again, oh well, I needed them and Kroger didn't have any so this was my only option. 

Okay, so this isn't really a tutorial, but I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to make these little pretties! 

You will need:

* STRAIGHT PINS FROM THE NON-GHETTO STORE (I tell you this for your own health- I was terrified of poking myself and then dying from a flesh eating disease)

* oodles and oodles of yummy ribbon! I say pick a color theme and go crazy with it!

* a wooden dowel rod

* a styrofoam craft ball

* that floral foamie stuff (you will cut it to fit into your pot and will poke your dowel into it on one end and the ball on the other end)

* something to cut the ribbon into the proper lengths (I used my rotary cutter and self healing mat to cut several pieces of ribbon at once- a huge time saver!) 

* time (this was a huge time suck- much longer than I had anticipated!- in fact, I had every intention of making a pair of these, but ended up with only one! I'm not sure if Kelly ever finished hers actually!)

The quick and dirty instructions: 

* Figure out how big of loops you want by making different sized loops in your hand and holding them up to your ball. Figure out how full you want it and then snip a length of ribbon and cut the rest of them to that size. I believe mine were all 5" (or were they 6"?).

* Roll out your ribbon and roll out another one on top, and another, and another.. then make one cut through the stack! You should be able to cut through 4 ribbons at once and go down the length of your ribbon.

* Cut LOTS of ribbon. More than you think. Then once you start, you will end up cutting more. Promise.

* Loop a length of ribbon and overlap the ends while placing it on the ball and pin it. Repeat. You will place these pretty close together so that you don't get any bald spots. 

* I wrapped my dowel with ribbon and hot glued down the ends.

* To cover the green foam in the pot I just rolled up some tulle and placed it on top. Not the best, but it works and I haven't changed it.

* As I made more progress on the ball, I put it on the dowel and worked around it, but initially I just had the ball on the table and started on one side.

I *think* that is enough information for ya?!.... 

 My supplies:

Some of my piles of ribbon.

Ribbon loops pinned on the ball. I had to fill in a lot. I ended up pinning the wider, fat ribbons and then filling in with the thinner ones all around them.

Kelly cutting ribbon w/ the rotary cutter. She thought it was fun!

Coming along nicely!

I ended up cutting up some tulle and poking it in there randomly. I liked it!

Done! Well, as done as it got! I'd like to paint the pot black and glue a band of ribbon around it!

Brooke's hairbow that matched the topiary pretty well actually! (yes, this picture is sideways)

Brooke in her awesome dress (that also matched the topiary!).

 

Here are some pictures from her party! 

The sight of this playroom made my blood pressure rise. Holy shit.

When I was little we always had pinatas at our parties! I was super excited to get one for Brooke. I was super IMPRESSED that now they have these cheater pinatas and all you have to do is pull a ribbon and it opens up the bottom! No bats and hits in the balls necessary!