Easter Birthday Decorations...Sort Of

I made a couple banners for Hudson's actual birthday, which fell on Easter.  I decided I didn't really need to go all out since he'd just had a well decorated party the weekend before.  I ended up making another high chair banner and another happy birthday banner.  I purchased the clipart used to make my banners from Stockberry Studios.  I wish I would've had a little more time to work on them, but it was a busy week and I caught my sixth cold of the year, so I wasn't feeling like doing much.  However, I still think they turned out cute and I'm pretty sure Hudson didn't even notice them!  Ha!

The lighting didn't allow me to get very good pictures of the happy birthday banner.  I hate my camera...I've been saving up for a new one and already have it all picked out!

Here is a little better view of the rest of that banner.

A Double Holiday

Happy Easter to Everyone!  And Happy 2nd Birthday to my little Hudson!!  I can't believe how fast the time has pasted and that you're already turning into such a big boy!  We love you so much!!  Now let's get the Easter egg hunt started!!!

 From this tiny peanut (born full-term weighing only 5.9)

 To this handsome little man

I made some cute Easter birthday decorations for the occasion, so check back on Monday to see those!

Recipe Time: Pickle Wrap Dip

**I'm reposting this since summer party season is rapidly approaching.  It's the PERFECT party dip!!**

If you are like me and LOVE pickle wraps, you'll just love this dip. I got the recipe from my friend Abbie. It's about the easiest dip you can make and is great to take to potlucks. I make it for almost every party we host because so many people request it. I hope you try it and enjoy as much as I do!


Ingredients
16 oz of cream cheese (whipped or softened)
16 oz of sour cream
2 packages of corned beef cut into small squares
1 jar of baby kosher dill pickles
1 tbsp water


Directions

Mix together sour cream and cream cheese. Add corned beef. Chop pickles in food processor and add to sour cream, cream cheese and beef. Add 1 tbsp of water to loosen. Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer. Chill before serving and serve with tortilla chips or crackers.

Here is where I'm linking up today:

33 Shades of Green

Tip Junkie

Barnyard Bash

This past weekend we celebrated Hudson's 2nd birthday with a barnyard theme party.  I designed all the decorations myself using clipart that I purchased off etsy.com at stockberry studios.  It all started with the design of the invitation, which I showed you earlier:

Once that was finished I knew the direction that I wanted everything to follow.  So here is how everything else turned out:

The silverware

 I wanted to dress up the party cups, so I designed some stickers for them, and loved the way they turned out!

 Here is a close-up of the napkin ring.

Here is a shot of the favor table.

 The favor bags.

 The favor bag table centerpiece.

 Picture-a-month banner.

 Close-up of the first six months

 The second six months

 The highchair banner

 Hudson enjoying his lunch.  What a mess!

The dessert table centerpiece.

Happy Birthday banner

Close-up

Dessert table

Cupcake toppers

The cow birthday cake.  I made it myself and have never done this before.  It didn't turn out too bad!

The party turned out great!  However, I found out that trying to get a 2-year-old to stay still long enough to pose for pictures is basically impossible, especially when it's nice outside!  But hopefully we'll be able to get some good family pictures on his actual birthday, which I'm also making some decorations for, so check back to see how those turn out.

I'm linking up here:

Thirty Homemade Days

tatertots and jello

Project Life Love

I mentioned before that my husband got me a Project Life kit for my birthday.  I had a pretty good feeling that I would like it considering I'd been scrapbooking for over 15 years, but I more than like it...I L-O-V-E it.  I'm already starting to work on my March pages, so I'm almost caught up on the year!  It's that easy.  I thought I would share some progress pics with you, in case you're curious.

Here is the cover.  I have the Amber edition, but she also has the Turquoise edition.

This is the front page, which you can adjust any way you want.

 Here is one of my January pages.  All I do is insert the photos and then write out the journaling cards.  I never really journaled (is that even a word?) in my scrapbooks.  I always just added lots of photos and tons of embellishments, and without the journaling I find that I don't remember a lot about the events now that I look back.  The journaling is fun and really gets me thinking.

 Here is another page.  This is when we went to the circus.  (Sorry about the flash)

I'm enjoying doing this so much that I just wanted to share it with you guys.  I'm so excited to be back in the scrapbooking state of mind again!

A Little Peek

This weekend is my little guy's 2nd birthday party, so I've been very busy trying to get things ready.  As I mentioned here, I'm designing all the party decoration myself...along with a little help from my hubby, using clipart that I purchased from here.  I started with the invitations and am totally in l-o-v-e with how they turned out!  I'm so happy that we decided on a barnyard/farm theme and can't wait to see how it all comes together on Saturday.  (I'm even making a cow cake myself, so you'll want to come back to see how that turns out!)  Anyway, I thought I would give you all a little peek at the invitation.  

Have any of you thrown a barnyard party?  If so, or if you have any genius ideas, I would love to hear about them!  I'm always looking for inspiration!!

3:00 A.M. Surprise

Yesterday morning around 3:00 A.M.  I woke up to one hot house!  I got up and turned the heat down without even looking to see what the temperature in the house was and tried to go back to bed, but the heat didn't turn off.  It just kept running and running.  So, I got up again to make sure that I turned it down and not up.  Come to find out that it was 87 degrees in our house!!  What??  How long had the heat been running to get it that hot?  Anyway, I turned the thermostat off, opened a few windows (even though it was only 30 degrees outside) and then tried to turn it back on.  But, every time I would turn it back on, the heat would kick on again. 

My major concern was little Hudson in his bed with pants and long sleeves on!  I knew I couldn't go into his room to open a window without waking him though.  So, I hoped that having the other windows open would cool his room too.

We figured that it had to be that the thermostat was malfunctioning and that we probably just needed  a new one...at least that's what we were hoping!  The last thing we need right now is to have to have our furnace repaired.

The old thermostat...not very efficient, but still functional

Anyway, Jeremy ran out last night and bought a new one and sure enough, that's was the answer to our problem!!  Thank goodness!!  Needless to say, we slept great last night and are happy to finally have a programmable thermostat. (Yeah we're a little behind the times, but we didn't really need one because I'm home all the time)

It might not be the fanciest thermostat, but it's good enough for us.

 The hubby getting it all set up.

 Here is the pretty new thermostat.  As you can see in the picture, the old one was much bigger, so we have a little paint touching up to do today.

We were very relieved that it was just the thermostat and nothing major and it gave us an excuse to finally purchase a nicer, programmable one!

I even think it looks better than the old one!

So, now you know, if your furnace or air conditioner won't stop running, the solution could simply be to replace your thermostat.

Easter Banner

My project over the weekend was to make an Easter banner to hang in the weird pass through into our kitchen.  I purchased some Easter clipart from Stockberry Studio for just $5 and got to work.  It didn't take much time or effort and I really like the results.  It's perfect for Hudson!

 Here are some close ups of the clipart.  It's super adorable!

The clipart package also came with chicks, eggs, butterflies and another bunny.  I have a hard time deciding what to use on the banner.

I wish I could get better pics of the whole thing, but it's just a little too long.

I'm linked up here:

Under the Table and Dreaming

Tip Junkie

Simply Cadence

Thanks for the feature!  I love being able to share ideas!