Raising Cubs in a Campground

We waited a long time for the Great Pumpkin this year as it was back in t he summer months that I chose The Peanuts Gang as our Halloween costume theme. I knew that once I started working again in September I wouldn't have the time to come up with costumes so I started watching Ebay for Snoopy hats in July, and FINALLY in early September I finally scored this one for under $10.  You can get them on Etsy too, but I prefer this tight knit instead of the crocheted look.   The big pumpkin and the one with Elsa's name grown in it were grown in our straw bale garden . The rest belong to my sister-in-law who brought pumpkins to her parent's house for our annual Halloween photos and pumpkin carving. It is much more relaxing to snap pictures days before instead of the night of. We've been doing this for a couple of years now .  Details on how we put together our version of the Peanuts Gang can be found below each character's photo, but first, here's the whole...

I will forever be grateful that I found Tiff's post over at A Day In My Life. If it weren't for her post about the photo book she made as an alternative to a traditional baby book, I can pretty much guarantee that all the photos I took of Elsa over the past year on the 1st of each month would STILL be stuck on my computer waiting for me to catch up on 6 years of blog books .  Instead I was motivated to get 223 of my favorite images into a book for me to publish using my favorite bookmaking site . When Elsa turned one I was at a loss as to how to keep recording her milestones in a way that didn't require a lot of effort. I knew I would have plenty of photos, but I didn't know how to tie all the text together or even what exactly I would be able to blend together into a cohesive book.  I searched for a 'prompt' so to speak, and what I landed on is so simple yet so full of information about Elsa each month of her second year. All I have to do is complete sentenc...

*disclaimer* I am not an expert on this subject. I'm just a mom who's on her third time down the potty training road who wants to record the journeys for those moments when I'm parenting teenagers and want to laugh at myself for thinking this was hard. I am also not telling you what YOU should do with your own children. Every child/family is different and what is right for my family might not be right for yours. Please don't take this post the wrong way. Moving on....  According to the experts Elsa was not ready to potty train. She showed no signs of readiness. She was a poster child for diaper companies - she would cry and cry when I didn't put a diaper on after I changed her diaper in the morning. The girl loved her diapers! I don't  blame her! It's all she's known! Where else was she going to go? And that was our launching point for potty training.  I spent the past week teaching her that the best place to go is on the potty. Why train her bef...

Elsa's Ewok costume was the inspiration for our family Halloween costume theme. I found it at Once upon a Child after many trips to look for one. It was worth the wait don't you think? Once I had her costume I went ahead and put together her entourage...sort of like last year when we did a Chronicles of Narnia family Halloween themed costumes   Jessica Turner wrote recently about taking costume pictures BEFORE Halloween and I couldn't agree more! It takes the pressure off the night of Halloween - especially because it gets dark so early and the weather can be unpredictable.  So instead, once I have costumes I have the kids dress up and run around outside for a while so I can get photos of them. Since we do a theme I need that low key time to get a good one of ALL of them together.  This little mini session took all of five minutes and even the outtakes are great! This is the second year we've taken photos ahead of time and I highly recommend it! Granted, these ...

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...