Raising Cubs in a Campground

The themes we choose for birthday parties rarely fall in the 'typical' category and I enjoy the challenge! When Elsa turned three we were still waiting to close on our new house so we had to put off her party for a few weeks. Finally the second weekend in August of 2014 we were able to throw her a Farm Party. We had moved into the house ten days prior. I still had red checkered tablecloths from PapaBear's surprise 40th Camping Party a few years ago and we already had a good collection of bandanas as well. Add in PapaBear's vintage tractors from his childhood and mason jars filled with flowers from our garden and we were good to go!   Once I get started on a theme though....look out. I had so many ideas! Pudding cups for mud puddles, egg candy to put in the eggs for an egg hunt, making homemade ice cream, and don't even get me started on the other food ideas. I'll get to those in a minute. First I made signs for the different stations around our yard usin...

Last year we threw our first Halloween Bash and while I took lots of pictures I only shared a photo of PapaBear's hilarious pumpkin carving display. I found lots of DIY Halloween crafts online & thought I'd share them now since the only decorations I'm putting out this year are our pumpkins from our straw bale garden. We haven't ever really decorated for Halloween before so I was starting from scratch. With a very small budget we managed to make our big ol' house party worthy. I used lots of black card stock for bats , mice on the stairs (#8), cat silhouette, and the silly toilet monster (#2).  I also stretched a package of brown paper lunch bags pretty far. We gave out paper bag brooms as prizes for games (#11) ( dangling doughnuts , scavenger hunt, Halloween bingo), used them to wrap up drinks for the dice game which is always a big hit, and used them for collecting items for the scavenger hunt. I wrote "Happy Halloween" on the front of the bag...

Because of the heat, Elsa's rainbow 1st birthday party evolved into a rainbow water themed party. I guess that's what happens when you have a summer birthday? I wouldn't know since the rest of our family has Fall/Winter birthdays. This was our first attempt at keeping guests cool but outdoors where the kids could run and play games - most of which involved water balloons. The little ones liked to reach in the bin and make the balloons wiggle. I opted for full size balloons - none of those flimsy water balloons that hurt your fingers by the time you fill a dozen and pop if you look at them wrong. The ones the girls are standing by are the 'medium' ones from Walmart. The nice ones from Target cost $1.50 a bag for 15-20 balloons but were worth it for the games we played, but I'm getting ahead of myself...first I need to give credit for Elsa's shirt to Little Bit Funky . I changed it up a bit and made the purple a number 1. It was by far the easiest birthday...

This post has sat in my drafts all summer. I figured if I didn't get it posted tonight before we throw Elsa a party tomorrow this one might never see the light of day.   Julia finished up her second year of preschool on May 21st with a sweet graduation ceremony and then we went home to enjoy the beautiful day outside with family and friends. Julia loved preschool and is really going to miss seeing her teachers. She loved learning, singing, playing, and making whatever project they had planned for the day. I am so proud of her and the young lady she's growing up to be. She has a heart for others and is SO generous with her time and talents. In one of the photos below she's cutting flowers to give away. It's what she does and I love that about her. The weather could not have been more perfect. We have lived here for four years but it wasn't until I was scouting out where to put the tables that I realized that the pine trees made the perfect alcove for the k...