Small Fry's 4th Birthday-Rainbow Style

I don't know if anyone even reads this any more but I keep doing fun things and thinking, "man I have to blog about this" and then I remember I am taking a break from blogging.  But I just couldn't hold out any longer.  I had to share something.  What better to share then Small Fry's rainbow birthday party. 

 The rainbow shirt was made by me.

 She isn't into really one thing in particular so we chose rainbows because they are springy and fun and perfect for our beautiful weather we have been having (except on the actual day of the party when it was cold and so windy that we had to have the party indoors). 

Here is the table (minus the punch but it is pictured below).  I had rainbow cookie pops, rainbow cupcakes in a jar, rainbow cake pops made by my amazing brother, a mini rainbow cake for the b-day girl to blow candles on, and treat bags that contained rainbow gum balls (forgot to get a picture but I do have a link to share) and rainbow glow wands.

 These are the rainbow cookie pops.  You can find the directions and recipe here.  The recipe is for edible playdough.  I have a post coming about the whole experience-which was fun and yummy (a big hit with mom and kiddos alike).

 You can find paint chip everything these days.  I wanted to make a few garlands for the party and my eye just couldn't get over the paint chips at our local hardware store.  Aren't they perfect for a rainbow party.  You would pay a bunch to make this from cardstock.

 Utensils wrapped in napkins with rainbow napkin rings (made from cardstock).  Little utensil pockets made from paint chips would be cute too.

 I made another garland out of these kind of paint chips (I just cut them in small triangles).

 In all my preparations I forgot to make an actual little cake for the candles to go on so my aunt and I ran to the store and bought this mini carrot cake.  I scraped the frosting carrots off the top and sprinkled colored sugar to make my rainbow on top.  It was perfect and easy.  I think I would do it that way again on purpose.

 These are cupcakes in a jar.  I think they are my new favorite thing.  I didn't take the time to make them perfectly layered as a rainbow but they still turned out beautiful.  The cake was so moist and because they nearly filled the jar there wasn't much room for frosting so they weren't sickening sweet.  They were a big hit with old and young at the party. 

 Rainbow cake pops made by brother who is working hard to become a famous pastry chef.  My husband said he could have eaten 40 of these.

 Rainbow juice (the cheap cheaters method).  I wanted to have a rainbow assortment of juice for the party but I had 2 set backs.  #1.  I couldn't find all the colors of the rainbow in juice containers and #2 the ones I did find were too expensive.  So I bought clear koolaid mix (it is flavored but not colored).  I made 2 batches and then poured it into my cups.  Then I added a tiny drop of food coloring to each cup, stirred and TADA!!! You could make it in 6 colored batches as well but I didn't have enough juice holding containers to do that.  It was fun because the kids were dead certain some tasted different than others.

All the printables I got from here

And this is the link to the gumball ideas as well.  Mine said, "I hope you had a ball at my party.  Thanks for coming."

Isn't it such a fun party idea.  I didn't even touch unicorns but think of what you could do with rainbows and unicorns for a little girls party. 



Birthday Review

Small Fry's birthday went perfectly.  The weather was perfect, the company was perfect and actually she was too (no fussing or screaming-MIRACULOUS!!!)  Here are the highlights.

A tutorial for my doughnut pops will be coming....sometime....

Look Who is Turning 3 Today

Yep-the big 3 she is.  She looks so grown up in these pictures.  She is smart and beautiful and spunky and stubborn.  I love her to death. We are partying today.  I will share the details next week.

Getting Ready to Party

Miss Small Fry is having a birthday on Friday so I am in party mode right now.  This years theme: Strawberry Shortcake.  Here is what I have so far:

The invite

 The count down (go here for to download this graphic free)

 The t-shirt

 The decorations (see instructions here) Don't you just love these-they are like fluffy white clouds.

 The cupcake wrappers (go here for a free download)

 The cupcake toppers (go here for a free printable)

On the to-do list I still have: bake the cupcakes (strawberry of course), dip my doughnut pops (don't worry I will post it after), make more pom poms, assemble my red and pink candy buffet and gather items for the games. 

Small Fry is growing up.

A blessing or a Curse

I bought this for the girls for Christmas.  It was on clearance for $20.00 at K-mart and I thought it would be great to play on during the cold days of winter and then it can go outside in the summer.

 It is either going to cause me to have a nervous breakdown or save us this winter.  As I step over the 100+ balls thrown all over the floor on a daily basis I can't decide which it will be.

For now the girls are LOVING it so that is all that matters.

Have you missed this little face?

I realized that I haven't posted any Small Fry pics lately so I thought I better get cracking.  I have been posting over at my family blog so she hasn't been neglected don't worry.  In fact she's been very busy...getting into things. 

Does this cause anyone else to have horrific flash backs to that dumb Drew Carey show?

Small Fry's Skirt

Here are the pic's of Small Fry in her new skirt. She loved it by the way. I am excited to make some more. I want to try a full length one but will have to do some shopping before I do that.

Just a phase

I was reading last night in the latest issue of Parenting Magazine an article written by a mother of two sharing her top 10 bits of wisdom learned over her years as a parent. One of the things she said was that with toddlers and children everything is a phase-good or bad. That is just too true. The cute little things your kid does that one day you wonder why they don't do them any more or a new annoying habit they seem to have picked up-the thing she said to remind ourselves of over and over is, "this is just a phase." That gave me hope that perhaps small fry is just going through a:

-I won't hold still for pictures

-I don't want to say hi to anyone

-I am not going to talk to grammy on the phone

-I will not cooperate no matter how many times you ask me

-I hate getting my teeth brushed

-I want 15 million snacks but then don't really want to eat any of them

-I hate green beans

-I am plugging my ears

-if you don't get me what I want as soon as I ask I will repeat myself as many times as it takes until you get me what I want

phase.

This too shall pass, this too shall pass. As long as the sweet little songs she sings and the big hugs and running after daddy and saying, "wait you forgot to give me a big kiss" and her little giggle don't pass, I will survive.

Potty Update

I am sure none of you are wasting any of your time wondering how the potty training is going over here at small fry and co. but I thought that since we are progressing with flying colors I would just post an update and say thanks to everyone for your advice. It gave me much peace of mind and some good ideas. Pretty much it took her 3 days to get it figured out. I went ahead and got pull-ups for night because I was not sleeping worrying about the "moment" she would either pee in the bed or wake to pee and the first night she wore them she did pee in the night but didn't after that. We called them "night time panties" and she only wore them at night. By day 4 she had no accidents day or night. Dare I say it... our days of 2 in diapers are done!!!!! Can't believe it. We don't have to do rewards or dances though she needs mom or dad nearby to do her business. She doesn't even have a problem with #2 thank heavens and actually loves to stick her head in the potty seat, which now sits on the big toilet, and wish the poops a fond farewell (we are working on curbing that one). Lately she has gone back to a few accidents at night but I am not sure if that is because she has drank a bit more before bed than usual or not. The only thing I would like to work on now is having her get brave enough to go on the big toilet. She is too scared right now so we are toting the potty seat all over the place. But we did it-YIPPY SKIPPY!!!!

This mommy needs some help

I am sending out this post to all the mothers who have walked the treacherous road of potty training before me for help and advice. I was planning on reading a book or something before this all began but it kind of came upon me suddenly and I am feeling somewhat unprepared and a bit like I am in a dream (possibly a trance as I am on pins and needles at every moment waiting for the next time small fry needs to pee and can't seem to even relax-not even to sleep). So here is where we are at and what I need some advice about:
-she has the pee in the little potty thing down I would say 90% of the time-maybe even 95% of the time if she doesn't have on panties. Put the panties on and the success rate seems to drop. I am fine with her running around without the panties but I don't know if that is giving her the idea that she will never have to get dressed below the waist again (which right now I think would be fine with her). So I am not sure how we make the transition. She wears panties to sleep.
-poop is a hit or miss affair despite the fabulous basket of prizes I have. We have had 2 happen in the potty on her own free will and 3 happen in other locations. Not sure how to conquer that beast.
-this is my biggest unknown-the night. What do we do at night. Since I am not using pull ups I have just been putting her in panties at night and she actually can sleep almost through the whole night with a dry bed and underwear (I know because I wake up 50 bizzilion times to check) until like 4 am when I have finally drifted off to sleep and then she comes running to say she has to pee but she has already wet the bed and then finishes in the potty. Should I wake her up in the night and have her pee? I try and reduce drinks before bed but she is used to drinking a "BIG BIG" (as she calls it) drink always before bed so it is easier said than done. Is this normal? Will I just be washing her bedding every morning for the next month or what?
Does anyone have any advice that might help? I have read other blogs with tons of potty training advice-I am just hoping someone out there can offer some words of encouragement/insight to help us on this path of unknowns. What a fun stage of parenthood.

Mommy deserves some potty pennies

Yes people, this would be small fry with her first poop in her potty (you can think less of me for posting it if you want but it is a fact of life). This morning I was thinking, "I wonder how I am supposed to tell when she is ready to potty train?" Well I got my answer. Who knew today would be the day. Not me, not with daddy out of town and a trip to the park planned. But she said she wanted to try the potty and I thought, "oh gads, here we go again." We have been down this road a few times in the last couple of weeks. She pees once and then all over the house after that. But this time she just kept on peeing right in that little pot. We would do the pee dance (jump up and down hysterically), then march to dump the pee into the big toilet, then wash hands, then march back to get potty pennies, then hitchicoo's down the hall to put the pennies in her piggy bank and hitchicoo's back to the kitchen, call a relative and wait to repeat it all again. And I mean I had already promised a walk to the park so now what was I going to do? What any other mom would do-put that potty right in the stroller with us and take it to the park to and set it up right there just in case-that's what. I have up'd the treat promises, broken out the M&M's and potty danced my buns off. Then this evening she said her tummy hurt-AKA she has to poop. I knew from reading comments on other blogs this could be a beast, but I got her to do her little crouch on top of the potty and low and behold she did it. I must have said, "HOLY MOLY" after she was done because until she went to sleep she kept saying she wanted to do another holy moly. Let me just say, I am more exhausted than I have been in months. The constant vigil, the dancing, jumping, hitchicooing down the hall, keeping little pumpkin off the potty and keeping small fry wanting to try the potty- I am thinking there should be a prize basket for mommy some where so that I can pick out a little toy, sucker or some M&M's. What a day. But I am not turning back now.

Ways to keep your child busy when you have something else to do.

Here are a couple of ways to keep your child busy while you have something else to do like cook dinner or bake bread or something.

She's two!!!

It happened-today April 15th Small Fry turned 2. I can't believe it. When she was born I wasn't sure how we were even going to make it through 1 year-I felt overwhelmed and unsure of myself as a mother and look at us now-we've made it-she's two and I am more in love with her than I ever was before. She is super smart, funny, sassy, sweet, impatient and demanding, energetic, imaginative and playful. She is a good helper when she wants to be and a daddy's girl through and through. The weight of my responsibility for this little life hangs on my shoulders heavier with each passing day as I know that my husband and I have been placed in charge of raising this amazing girl and I don't want to mess anything up- though I know I do all the time. Isn't it great how forgiving and forgetful little children are. Well she is just adored I must tell you. We had her party yesterday and she had a blast. Today she has been telling me that she doesn't want it to be her birthday any more so I told her that any other presents that come her way are going to be mine. I am sure she will change her mind later on. Here are some of the highlights of our 2 year old birthday bliss:

This is how she shows how old she is

Adorable

A little turkey
Chilling out like I always tell her to do

Today I took her out to lunch for her birthday

We had pizza

Eating her birthday Elmo cupcakes

This is while everyone was singing Happy Birthday. When they were done she said, "one more time."

With her presents

She loves this present

Grandma and Grandpa gave her a swing set for her birthday and she loves it. She said, "Look everybody, my new swing set."

It has a little trampoline on the side

Swinging

We had to do some major renovations to set this up. Stay tuned for that post.

For the treat bags I made Rice Krispie cupcakes.

And put them in these cute cupcake wrappers with these toppers. I put them in paper sacks with a thing of bubbles as well.

And for dessert we had Elmo cupcakes. I saw these online and knew I had to try them for small fry's birthday as she is an Elmo fanatic. Here are my version

Making these made me totally miss my older brother. He would have loved making these with me. He was here last year for small frys birthday and I really wish he was here again this year. Didn't they turn out cute. I used a marshmallow cut in half for the eyes with some black gel for the pupil, a orange slice cut in half and then rolled into a ball like shape for the nose and a half an Oreo for the mouth.

It was such a great birthday party-fairly low key and simple and the kids and small fry had a blast. I am really looking forward to this age for her even with it's "terrible" moments (some of which we have been graced with early on). She is really interactive and we have some of the funnest conversations and I can start doing all the cute fun things I have been waiting to do as a mom now that she is a bit older and I am really excited. Happy birthday my little turkey, princess, sweety!