Charlotte's Preschool Class Picture...Minus Charlotte

Here is Charlotte’s preschool class picture.  Unfortunately, we’d already scheduled to be out of town when we learned about picture day.  :(

Charlotte’s Preschool Birthday Celebration

Charlotte was adorable at her school birthday celebration today, wearing her special Birthday hat.  I was so excited that SHE was so excited to see me, Charlotte RAN right to me as soon as I opened the door a gave me a huge hug.  Charlotte beamed when her classmates and teachers sang Happy Birthday to her.  I was wondering how she would feel about being the center of attention, since she can SOMETIMES by shy – but she LOVED it!  I brought cupcake shooters to school for her special treat and the kids were so cute eating them.  The girls (including Charlotte) took tiny bites and barely ate anything before it was time to pack them away to finish at home.  The boys ate them so fast some were done with theirs before I’d even gotten all of the cupcakes passed out!  

When the treats were finished and CLEANED UP – three year olds can be messy!  Mrs. Osborne, Mrs. Cannaday and I passed out the little gifts my mom and I had made.  They were mini versions of the party favor bags we did for her birthday party this past weekend.  However, my Mom was nice enough to use her spiffy sewing machine to embroidery all the kids (and teachers) names on the bags – how sweet!  We filled them with all kinds of candy and games too – hope they enjoy them!

It was so special to be able to go visit with Charlotte at school and to watch her interact with her classmates and teachers.  Charlotte had a great day and I felt so lucky to be a part of her special celebration.  Happy Birthday Baby!    

Charlotte’s 3rd Birthday Party Prep, Part II

Thought I would share some of the last minute projects I worked on for Charlotte’s Birthday Party.  I was going to a semi vintage Hansel & Gretel candy extravaganza!

 

Since the entertainment for Charlotte’s party was a marionette show, I decided to design tickets as part of the invitation.  I think they turned out really cute!

I added the ruffled streamers (which I made earlier) and coordinating tags to the plain traditional birthday hats.  I think they look a little more vintage, festive and personalized now!  

Here are some of the drink labels that I made for the lemonades. I also did water bottle labels but forgot to take a picture while they were in process.  I do need to thank Wayne because he patiently helped me assemble three dozen water bottles and they are time consuming…adorable but time consuming! 

 

Here is a crafting photo of Charlotte’s birthday banner, check back for a picture of the final product!

 

With inspiration and help from my Mom (and Wayne) we used felt to make these cute treat bags for the kids.  My sister-in-law, Gwen, helped me make sweet gingerbread tags and when you put it all together you have adorable bags for the favor buffet.

Here are the early stages of the Clothespin cake topper.  This was really where the vintage part of the party plan took root.  This was created on quite a schedule because of the dry time involved with wood glue, paint, glitter/glue and hot glue but I think the end product will be worth it…stay tuned for pictures!  (I have a dozen or more of these “in process” for Charlotte to play with after the festivities too!)

 

Here are the mini gingerbread cottages.  My friend Marcie and I took deeply discounted (Hello, after Christmas sales) gingerbread villages and split them apart, substituted yellow and pink decorations, included one tiny gingerbread man, added homemade labels and there you have it!  I do have one regret with this cute project and wish I’d been able to find small tubes of decorating frosting to add to the kits.  :(

This is not my project but I wanted to share a picture of Grandma (my Mom) with Charlotte trying on the dress Grandma made for her.  One of the many cool things about my Mom is that you can say “I’d like to have Charlotte wear a dress for her party that is a cross between Pippi Longstocking’s dress (Charlotte’s current FAVORITE character) and a Mathilda Jane dress but like $100 cheaper!”  My Mom found dress patterns to mix and match to get the look I was going for and let’s face it she basically designed the dress from scratch.  Add a (hectic, I mean it’s hard to find colors and patterns that don’t quite "match" but go together) trip to the fabric store… and she creates this amazing, adorable dress that Charlotte LOVES!  Thanks Mom!

Making Brownies

On Wednesday we have friends coming over for dinner and it’s our turn to make dessert.  I asked Charlotte to lend a hand since she LOVES to help in the kitchen!  One of these days I will be brave and have her help me with baking from scratch but until then Charlotte is getting really good with the basics.  I generally measure everything out beforehand and just let her dump the ingredients together.  I try to show how to do little things like “smash” the egg yolks before scrambling them so it’s faster (and less messy).   

Most recently, this has been without spills – yippee!   

We do talk about what each ingredient is, the order it goes into the bowl and general info on why we need each ingredient.  

I think her favorite part is the funny "zoom" noises I make to go along with the mixing hand motions.  I am really looking forward to baking more and more with Charlotte in the years to come!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day from The Chambers Family!  

We started the day with having to wake Charlotte up…hum… THEN some of her first words were:

 “Mama, I’m gonna take a nap today”
What???  Oh no, our little girl MUST be sick!

And she is!  After doing the parental forehead temp test – VERY HOT – I just had a BAD feeling that Charlotte was too sick to go to school today!  BOOO!  I hated for her to miss her school Valentine’s and the candy and the fun..oh, and ballet too!  So, I moved forward with meds, teeth and hair brushing, potty, cute V-Day outfit with heat hair clip…etc.  Being the photo-holic that I am I insisted on a few pictures.  

Please note the puffy eyes and rosy cheeks!

Then I innocently mentioned to her that she MAY be too sick to go to school today, here is the reaction…the second before a MAJOR crying fit…poor baby!

So, I decided to take her to school - we needed to deliver the Valentines to her classmates anyway, right?  And, I needed to stop by work to pick up some work, right?  On the way – after listening to sniffles and coughing fits, I chickened out and called Wayne (who was already at work) so that HE could break the bad news to her!  He is such a great Dad!  Side note, that news coming from Dad was taken a lot better!  Hum?

Anyway, I really expected to have to DRAG Charlotte out of her classroom but she seemed to feel very important telling her classmates that she was sick and could not stay in class.  Her friends and teachers were really nice wishing Charlotte well and a Happy V-Day!