Busy week! Five days of baking, four days of Stroller Strides, three days of shopping, two days of parties, one exhausted mama… and a partridge in a pear tree! No, not really.

Sunday:

I take at least 2 of these pictures almost every day

Oh yeah, maybe THAT'S why I didn't lose weight this week

We missed Santa at the Seaport (apparently I can't read a calendar) but still had fun playing

Monday:

If you want to lie under your blankets drinking milk, why not SLEEP IN once in a while kid?

As soon as she sees my phone she runs towards it as fast as possible

Late-night grocery shopping for the party

Tuesday:

Angry troll baby is angry

Making meringue cookies colored with sparkle dust

Ahhhh bubbles in my eye ahhhhhh!

Wednesday:

Why yes that IS my coffee mug

You know I'm planning something when my purse is full of tiny Christmas trees

I threw ALL the books on the floor Mom! Aren't you proud of me?

Santa called. He said he knew I was really busy and frustrated with my attempts to make a play kitchen, so he'd bring one this year instead (also, it was only $48 - down from $99 - after a sale & a coupon)

Thursday:

Shoe in one hand, gun in the other. She refuses to be put in a box!

Bath & Body Works for some scented candles to make my house smell festive.

Non-Weight Watchers Approved Answer: Cookies and Egg Nog.

Friday:

Dinos AND a fairy wand. More box refusal! I love my kids.

Three shadesof pink for the cake

Running like a crazy person at the Nautilus Submarine Museum (for E's work party)

Saturday:

I swear sometimes he wears clothes! It was just a busy week!

One hour til the guests showed up and I was already dressed! It's a miracle!

I think she had a pretty good time

Rub a dub dub two gingers in a tub

Today I have no voice, sore feet, and no energy to put anything away. Although thanks to E and my mother-in-law all the dishes are already done and the kitchen is clean, so at least I can find the coffee maker. And the peppermint schnapps.

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

This feels a little bit self congratulatory (especially since the party hasn’t even HAPPENED yet, so I have no proof these things actually WERE good ideas) but I am pretty excited about some of the stuff I’ve put together. This is the 4th party I’ve thrown since I discovered how much I LOVE hosting, and I’m finally getting the hang of it. And by “getting the hang of it” I mean “not spending a zillion dollars on unnecessary crap” and “make sure the guests have fun instead of just making the pictures look good”. So here are a few of the details I think are worth explaining a little more in depth than the coming soon post-party picture post.

DIY lace paper

A fancy hole punch can make regular paper look expensive. I bought this Martha Stewart edge punch at Michael’s with a 50% off coupon I tore out of a magazine. I’ve had it in a drawer for months and has started to think it was a dumb purchase, but it ended up being PERFECT for Caroline’s invitations. Then I carried the pattern over to the signs for the cocoa bar, food labels, cocktail recipes and the favor bags. One $10 box of blank invites and one package of white cardstock was the only other cost. There are tons of patterns that would be cute for other party themes, but the lace worked nicely with my snowflake decorations.

Party favors

I’ve spent a lot of dough (PUNNY!) on stupid crappy plastic party favors in the past, but I’m really excited about this idea. I made two double batches – one pink, one blue – of sparkle play dough (using this recipe I found on Pinterest), divided each color up into 10 smallish balls, popped them in sandwich bags and stapled on a label. It worked out to pennies per favor and I think they kids will really like it. I also made a triple batch of plain white glitter play dough I’m going to have out with a bunch of plastic cookie cutters for the kids to play with at the party. They’re all going to be COVERED in glitter but I figure then they’ll just match my theme better.

Christmas tree turned into a Caroline tree!

Twinkle picture in action

I figured since the Christmas tree was already prominently featured as part of our decor (because it is a GIANT TREE covered in lights in the middle of the room where we have parties) I should make it more Caroliney for her birthday. I am very conscious of the “My birthday never felt special because it was too close to Christmas” problem EVERYONE I MET told me about when I was pregnant. I dreaded telling people I was due December 26th because they always told me about their mother/brother/cousin/dog who was born that week and has hated it their whole life. My attempt to prevent that feeling in Caroline is why we are having this party at all, so I’m doing my best o make the day ALL ABOUT HER. But really, photos + clothespins on the tree is a cute idea with ANY photos.

Which reminds me I made this:

I crack myself up.

DIY Pull String Pinata

I think this is the project I am most excited about. Ever since I saw Young House Love’s party post about their daughter’s 1st birthday I’ve been dying to try making my own pull-string pinata. The idea is a one year old is too young to smack a pinata with a stick (and also hello December birthday in New England, we’re INSIDE, maybe giving kids bats to swing isn’t the best idea) put they can pull a ribbon and have the treats fall out. To make the base, I followed their tutorial here. My original concept was a giant snowball or snowflake but I like how this ended up even better. I just folded coffee filters in half and glued them around with hot glue, overlapping layers.

Close up of the coffee filter petals

My last good idea isn’t so much a really good idea as just a “Why didn’t someone TELL me that before?!” I bought a small glass pitcher at Goodwill to put the cream of coconut in for my grown-up drinks. I figured no one could identify white stuff in a glass pitcher as cream of coconut, so I was just going to write on the glass with a black sharpie and it would be my cream of coconut container FOREVER. But it turns out magic eraser takes permanent marker off of glass super easily.

p.s. I have terrible handwriting

It also worked on clear plastic, which is perfect for my dipping sauces. Regular dry erase would get smudges and illegible as soon as it got dripped on/touched but I tried smudging the sharpie and I can’t.

I’ll try to have a full party recap up on Monday, unless I am so exhausted I end up sleeping straight through Sunday. It’s entirely possible.

Here’s how it went down:

No, I’m not having a party for Caroline’s 1st birthday. It’s so close to Christmas, people will be out of town or busy with other stuff. I know, I’ll throw a Halloween party and that will get my need to throw a party every 6 months out of my system. I mean, obviously we’ll have a cake. A cake isn’t a party. I’ll make a really nice cake and put up some streamers maybe a few balloons. Let me just check the internet really quick for ideas.* Oooo look at these cute winter cupcakes I saw on the internet! I’ll just start a Pinterest board for Caroline’s First Birthday but it’s not like I’m going to invite a zillion people and make fifteen different kinds of cookies. Maybe just three. Ok seven. And I’ll make just a handful of invitations. Ok ten. Ok twenty five. And sure, Mother-in-Law, you should definitely fly in from Ohio for the party – I mean NON-PARTY – because it’s going to be amazing. Twinkle lights and sparkly snow and silver sequins and doilies everywhere. Hot cocoa bar! Hand cut snowflakes! Sparkles! GLITTER!!!!!!!!

Truly, I’m a little jealous MY birthday isn’t in December because it’s kind of awesome. Everywhere we go there are lights and ornaments and Christmas decorations and as far as Caroline is concerned they are all for her. Our family adventures are all super fun and usually end with candy canes. Everyone is full of well wishes and good cheer and my adorable little munchkin face red-headed elf baby shines where ever she goes. It’s magical.

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been working on for her just-a-tiny-bit overboard first birthday!

*WHOOPS. OBVIOUSLY, this is where things went downhill. Or uphill. Whichever way leads into the pile of magic twinkle lights, glitter and fake snow.

Busy, crafty, bakey, sleepy, crazy week. I cannot BELIEVE it’s December.

Sunday:

Saw cute toddler hat online. Thought "Dude, I can do that". DID IT.

Lights on our bannister

Spray paint for an overly ambitious project. Per ushe.

Monday:

Double swinging

Future basketball scholarship?

I made this. WITH MY HANDS.

Tuesday:

My floors are disgusting. Were disgusting. Obviously I cleaned them, but they're probably this dirty again by now.

The Monster at the End of This Book READS ITSELF. Brilliant.

Bath time is the happiest time of the day

Wednesday:

Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne are Evan's new favorite

Target soda fountain, where Coke and Pepsi live together in harmony. AS IT SHOULD BE.

Invite for Caroline's first birthday. I'm insanely proud I made it from scratch.

I asked him to smile nice for the camera. Toddlers are so helpful.

Thursday:

Babies are also helpful.

Lap nap

Tiny Christmas tree to plant in the yard. It makes up for the one we chopped down, right?

Friday:

Caroline gets so much love from the big girls at Stroller Strides

Prepping for some SERIOUS holiday baking

I wish I got as much sleep as this kid.

Saturday:

Twinke lights photo shoot set up #2. It went MUCH better.

Christmas cards DONE.

My kid tried to blow out the birthday boy's candles. He thinks all parties are for him.

Demanding baby demands your french fries.

I’ve been so busy doing stuff I haven’t had time to BLOG the stuff I’ve done (even though a lot of it is stuff I WANT to blog) and I’m going kind of crazy. I feel like I haven’t sat down for a whole week – and that might actually be true, because somehow I’m managing to lose weight even with Thanksgiving and road trip food and sugar cookie dough for lunch. I actually fell asleep sitting up on the couch Friday night. But I’ve only got 2 weeks until Caroline’s first birthday (and the party I SWORE I wasn’t going to throw) and 3 weeks until Christmas, so I figure I can sleep after New Years. I’m looking forward to it.

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

Wheeeeeee! It turn out inviting every single person I saw for three weeks didn’t mean any of them wanted to drive out in a snowstorm to attend my Halloween party, so I didn’t end up with the huge crowd I was worried about anticipating. It also turns out all it takes to wear out my kids is running in circles for three hours (at least an hour of which was LITERAL running in circles – our first floor makes loop). Good to know, hard to replicate on a daily basis.

Most of the food was inspired by Pinterest, so check out my Halloween board here for details. I also used the free printables found here for some of the decoration and labels. I also FINALLY used the cookbook I got at The Creative Connection that had all the cute “gross” food in it. The rest of the stuff is a mish-mash of craft store decor and Target purchases that are probably not really worth listing. I’m going to force myself to limit the photos on this post to a reasonable semi-reasonable almost reasonable number, but check out the blog Facebook album for ALL the rest (probably only something you want to do if you were actually here and want pics of your kid.) They’re all kind of terrible, because the light in my house is terrible without sunshine – and we don’t get much sunshine during freak snow storms – but I can’t stop myself from putting them up anyways. It’s a sickness, really.

Pumpkin decorating station

The kids loved it, but next time maybe I won't set out so much glitter.

Spooky mantle decor

Little Evan's best friends are adorable

Hot dog mummies, dead fingers, ghost lollipops, zombie pizza (which was way cuter before it was cooked)

Clementine "pumpkin" pyramid

Sparkling cider & V-8 Fruit Fusion as spooky drinks, chocolate coverd rice crispie treats, mini donut eyeballs, ghost pretzel sticks

Sea monster veggie dip

Trifle with Death trifle

Penant banner & pumpkin lights

I don't think E was very happy I made him wear a costume

Too-dark photobooth was still a hit

Thanks for coming! Have a great night! Dinosaur rawr!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who came, and also HUGE apologies to anyone local who I didn’t invite in time. I passed them out at Stroller Strides a few different days but kept forgetting who had gotten them, so I promise you were SUPPOSED to be invited and I just suck. Next time I’ll just put a general party announcement on my Facebook and hope no creepy strangers show up. But YOU’RE not a creepy stranger, you’re a blog friend, so next time you’re invited too.

Whew. Now I’m going to spend a week cleaning my house and hiding from the thought that Caroline’s 1st birthday is in less than 7 weeks. Poor second child’s probably getting a store bought cake and a balloon.