Thursday, November 24, 2011

My Little Turkeys

Happy Thanksgivin', y'all! Man, do I have a lot to be thankful for.




Photos: Niki Cardwell, Stella Dolce Photography Pin It

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Bowl-O-Rama Bits and Pieces: Food Labels

Well, it's been a month since Graham's Backyard Bowl-o-Rama party, but I wanted to touch on a couple of the details. I am nothing if not punctual. Today, dear readers (Mom), let's talk about that problem that keeps us all awake at night: food tags.

I know I've touched on my themed food disease before. I can't help it. Graham's party was no exception--if I couldn't think of a dorky, bowling-related name for it, we didn't serve it.

I made little tags for these treats based on the image from Graham's invitation (it reminded me of a strike or something; I'm not really sure why I chose it. There are only so many Microsoft Autoshapes, people).



But! Then I was faced with the issue of how to display these little . . . strikey-starbursty things. So I scrounged around my kitchen because that's how I roll. I'll be danged if I'm going to buy place card holders for some four-year-old's rice krispie treats--excuse me, "peanut gutter balls."  

I had lollipop sticks left over from my attept at cake pops, so I just needed something to jab them into. My solution was . . .



Play-Doh! I have no shortage of the stuff, so I just rolled it into balls and used the lolly sticks to poke some bowling-ball-esque holes into it.


My attempts at bowling pins were a little less successful (I'm no sculptor, OKAY?), but we live and learn (and we still should not buy placecard holders for four-year-olds. Please agree with me on this).

Anyway, there you go. Play-Doh and sticks. Another solution for the crippling combination of theme-OCD and poverty.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween Hangover

Man, Halloween is exhausting. And we didn't even go to any grown-up parties or bars; we just stuck with kid-friendly trick or treating and wholesomeness. Still, I am worn out. But I wanted to share these pictures of my little nerd goblins before too much time passed.

Graham was the solar system. I spray-painted a bicycle helmet bright yellow, then I painted styrofoam balls as planets and attached them with floral wire. I found inspiration here and just kind of tweaked their design to fit my kid's OCD issues and big head.


We ended up having to put a ski cap on under the helmet to keep it stable. It had been sliding around on his head and endangering the planets.
This is the creepy face he makes when he knows he's being photographed.

I kept with the spacey theme (not Kevin Spacey, but maybe that will be our theme for next year) by dressing Dean as a rocket. This costume cost less than a dollar. I used an old car windsheild shade thing we had lying in the basement. I just cut out the shape of a rocket and affixed red felt to it. We pinned the cutout to Dean's Baby Bjorn, and he peered out of the little window cutout. Easiest costume ever.


He actually kind of loved it!

This was only Graham's second time to trick or treat, and he was really into it this year. The costume held up okay (Uranus fell off, har har), but he was happy to remove the helmet by the end of the night.




Graham got a bag (well, an alien head?) full of candy, so he was thrilled. He kept sneaking more and more candy, as well as these eyeball cake pops I made.



By the end of the night, Seth and I were just happy he hadn't thrown up. Yay, Halloween. Pin It