A Day At The Park

St. Patrick’s Day Decorations

I LOVE St. Patrick’s Day! 

Maybe it's because green tops the charts as one of my favorite colors or because I feel a long-lost connection to my Irish roots. Eitherway, I just love St. Patrick's Day.  So as part of my No Holiday Left Behind proclamation, I started working on a few St. Patrick’s Day decorations.

Shamrock Door “Wreath” – I took a Dollar Store tinsel shamrock, added a homemade banner (made in Publisher) laminated so that it would hold up outdoors and hung with an orange sparkly ribion I had on hand. 

Shadowbox Shamrocks – I started with an Ikea shadow box, purchased long ago for about $5 smackers, which was languishing in my garage. 

Added scrapbooking paper (also from my craft stash) and plastic glittered shamrocks I found and JoAnn’s for about $2.

Felt Chains: Count-Down To St. Patrick’s Day – These were made the same way I did the Valentine’s and Birthday banners.  All materials were on hand except the green hook and loop which I picked up at JoAnn’s for probably $2. 

Lucky Banner w/ Glittered Clothespins – I used Publisher to design the letters and then two shades of felt sewn together and pinked to create mini pennants – all of those materials I had on hand.  Then I found a set of medium sized natural clothespins at Walmart ($2) added glitter and ta-da!  I like it but think next year I will finish it off by sewing the penants onto patterned ribion and use the clothespins for “decoration”.  It needs to be more substantial.

I guess I should take credit for spray painting the pickle jar lids and filling them with plastic sparkled shamrocks and green “lucky” coins.  The various photos are ours and the word art from free online downloads.

Next year I’d like to print and frame more family pictures from past year’s celebrations.  Compared to Valentine’s Day these decorations are anemic but considering I started with nothing, it’s not bad!

Charlotte’s Preschool Birthday Celebration

Charlotte was adorable at her school birthday celebration this morning, wearing her special Birthday shirt and hat.  Charlotte beamed when her classmates and teachers sang Happy Birthday to her.  As requested VERY specifically by Charlotte, I brought vanilla cupcakes with light blue icing (decorated with a mini gingerbread cookie crown – made last night) to school for her special treat and the kids were so cute eating them. 

Today they were working on the letter “M” and, so, had mini M&Ms that some of the kids used to decorate their cupcakes. 

Her classmates gobbled up the cupcakes and then set about playing with a little extra sugar induced oomph!  The girls and I sat at a table and made caterpillars and “invitations” to their imaginary party.  We had so much fun sharing supplies and making messy art. 

I put together little goodie boxes for the kids to enjoy – no, they didn’t NEED favors (don’t tell Wayne) – but you know I can’t resist.  Since Charlotte is all about Cinderella this year I went with light blue toys and candy.  I hope they enjoy them!

I was so glad to be able to see Charlotte celebrate her birthday with her classmates.  She sure had a great day!  Happy 4^th Birthday Baby!

Happy 4th Birthday Jackson!

This afternoon the three of us headed out to help Jackson celebrate his 4^th birthday! 

Jackson and Charlotte have been fast friends since their first preschool class together, two years ago!  They have a little love fest going on which I think is SUPER sweet and Wayne thinks is…

A TERRIBLE GATEWAY RELATIONSHIP THAT ENDS WITH CHARLOTTE GETTING MARRIED AT SIX! 

HA, HA!  No, really...either way it’s funny for me!

The party was SO much fun for kids and parents alike.  The kids spent more of their time in a HUGE Toy Story themed bounce house and somehow roped Wayne into playing with them too. 

Jackson’s Mom, Jeanetta, is SUPER creative – just look at this AMAZING cake, don’t forget the adorable cupcakes too!  Let me assure you they were super yummy!  Thanks guys, we loved being included in Jackson’s big day!

Bee My Valentine

This morning Charlotte and I headed over to the Orlando Science Center for their Bee My Valentine Workshop. We LOVE their programs!

For this workshop, Charlotte made a butterfly snack – complete with a lesson on butterfly anatomy, listened to a lecture on bees and the honey making process – complete with honey taste test and a hands on “look” at honeycombs, made a love bug treat – and ate ALL the frosting “glue” to the other parents dismay!  She also made a bee “buzzer”, participated in a bee swarm parade and played all sorts of fun/educational games. 

We both had so much fun together.  Charlotte was silly and had me laughing all morning - I just LOVE spending time with her.