Ay's Butterfly Bowling Birthday

Hold up- Didn't I just post a Birthday Blog Post today? What am I doing here posting another one? If you didn't already know, Ay was born one day before Cam's 3rd birthday - making January a fun month of back to back birthdays. We had two birthday parties in one weekend, but it's worth it to make sure everyone has a super special day.

All Ay wanted this year was a "Butterfly Party" and that was easy enough to accomplish. She went with me to Dollar Tree and found some butterfly plates and a butterfly banner. I picked up a cheap pink tablecloth and we were basically set. I got her cute little party napkins on clearance from Target. The party wasn't happening at home, so I (gladly) minimized the crazy that I typically put into parties.

We had her party at a Duckpin Bowling Alley (if you're lucky enough to know what Duckpin is, then you can sit with us ;) If you don't know - it's mini balls and pins. Now you know, and now you can sit with us ;) ) The alley had a Sunday special and is always cool with  crews just showing up, grabbing lanes, and getting their party on. We ordered 2 pizzas and sodas from the alley and had fun watching kids almost break throw balls down the lane.

Her butterfly cupcakes came from Wal-Mart and each had a butterfly ring inside. We got some butterfly and star glow wants at Dollar Tree for the favors. And I ordered her sweet little party dress from here (affiliate).

By far, her favorite part was having everyone sing to her. She giggled when we all sang her name.
You can watch it all below.

Cam's Super Rad SIXTH Birthday

We typically go big for birthdays, but having a kid in Kindergarten put us on a whole other level! Cam decided he wanted to have a Dance Party with a real disco ball, I was happy to make a party where the main activity was just letting kids dance it out. Some affiliate links are included to help you find what we used.

We made some super cute invites from this free download and I ordered a ton of glow sticks from here. I taped a glow stick to each invite and sent them to school in an empty tissue box (I was super paranoid the kid was going to crack them all open while sitting on the bus, but they all survived.)

We ordered some way RAD friendship bracelets and some cool shades to give out as party favors. We still have a bare wall that we covered in neon steamers and filled up the living room with neon  balloons (and that disco light we gave him as his present earlier in the day.)

My FAVORITE part of the party was this polaroid picture frame I made from the Dollar Tree. It was so simple. You can check out how I made it here. After Cam opened each gift, we took a quick photo with the kid who it was from and then used them later as our Thank You cards.

I got the YAY cupcakes from Wal-Mart. Seriously. Wal-Mart. For less than $12 for 24. We also picked up some $5 pizzas and jugs of lemonade and called it done. I think I picked up a box of rainbow goldfish crackers that never even got opened... But food was not the priority of this party. The priority was dancing!

Cam helped make a playlist and we hooked it up to Alexa (I'm convinced he really just wanted an Alexa party, but having her play music was a big hit.)

So, what's on a 6 Year Old's Playlist? Here's what we had for a good 30 mins of music:

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This was one of the most stressful parties to think about planning (um, hello, we had parents drop off and pick up a bunch of kindergartners! eek!), but it turned out so cute and was such a blast. Watch all the fun below:

DIY $5 Wal-Mart Mirror Makeover

I've had this on my to-do list ever since we've moved into our new house. The sellers didn't have my style at all, but they did have a mirror leaning down the end of the hallway that brightened up the space.

I don't have a million dollars for a fancy leaning mirror, nor would I want a million dollar mirror anywhere in my house at my current life situation (hello, breakable items at kid level... I'm smarter than that.)

I went to Wal-Mart and picked up this mirror for $5.88. I won't lie, it's not the best mirror on the planet- it kind of shifts and bends and gives a slight funhouse mirror vibe- but it reflects light down a hallway and that's all I needed. Sold.

They also have a "high end" $15 mirror if you want to live life like the rich and famous, however I'm not sure if the process of removing the frame would be similar to what we did or not (but I image so...)

So this is what we did.

We used a box cutter to remove the backing from the mirror. The backing is a thick cardstock type paper. Just cut around the edge and it's fairly easy to rip off. It just takes some time. Do not stick your box cutter anywhere other than the edge near the frame. If you scratch the backing of the mirror, it's going to scratch off the reflective surface and put a scratch on the mirror part of the mirror.... I just said mirror a whole lot of times but I'm hoping that made some sort of sense.

Use the box cutter to then cut down and horizontally into the adhesive attaching the frame to the mirror. It's okay to cut into the actual frame of the mirror too. You won't be keeping it (but your 4 year old will probably want it to do some sort of craft with... Heads up.) Pull up the adhesive and your good. Again, this looks way easier with YouTube magic. It takes some time, but it will come off.

Use a screwdriver to twist the corners and pop the staples holding the corners together. Again, this isn't too hard because we don't really care about what we do to the actual frame of the mirror.

Once you have your mirror free from the frame, measure in a set amount all around the edge. The more you measure in, the less mirror you will see. We measured 1cm and used a washable marker and our wood edge to mark some straight lines.

Once we had our lines, we knew just how long we needed to cut our reclaimed fence posts. We just measured the lines and miter cut them.

We used wood glue and our staple gun to hold the frame together. Having the whole thing flipped over, we carefully set our mirror on top of the frame. We went around the edge with a bead of liquid nails. We added more liquid nails onto the frame. We cut out a piece of plywood slightly smaller than our frame and placed that on top of the whole thing. We then went around again with our staple gun and stapled the backing into place. We also ended up using our nail gun (when we ran out of staples). Just be sure to nail or staple as far away from the mirror as possible and with a little pressure as possible. To much pressure or too close to the mirror could both add stress and break your mirror.

Once we had it all stapled/nailed into place, we added some weight to the backboard and let it sit over night. The next morning it was dried and ready to be placed.

I'm pretty excited about it. Even if I'll have to clean it daily and make sure kids don't crash into it, it's still a perfect addition to add some light into our tiny hallway.

Watch the whole build here.

How to Kill Time on a Snow Day

If you got hit by the Bomb Cyclone like we dod, chances are your kids had a few extra days off school. I'm all for snow days, they just went back to school on Tuesday from winter break and then were off Thursday, Friday, and the following Tuesday!

Here's a few things we did to past the time.

1. Legos
2. Play doh
3. Popcorn
4. Movie (or 5?)
6. Outside play/ build a snowman
7. Lunch time picnic
8. Color
9. Board games (I'm really over you, Soggy Doggy...)
10. Cheerio necklaces

Bonus: Find a surprise. I happened to have a few bonus chap sticks. Got a random box of snacks? That works too. Surprises are fun for everyone.

If want to watch one of our snow days, check out our video.

Free Blanket Gift Printable

We made these super cute gifts for our teachers this year. The main gift consists of a simple $2.50 fleece throw from Wal-Mart. You can make it even more special be adding a handmade card or ornament (see how we made ours here) and a coffee gift card.

Watch the YouTube Video Here

We even made printable to hand out with just a coffee gift card.

Get your free printable here.

DIY Good Deed Tracker for the Holidays

Every holiday season it's always a good reminder to do good for others. This year, I felt like the kids were old enough to really understand the idea of service. During our North Pole Breakfast, I added a "Good Deeds Bucket."

I found this super cute printable full of good deeds here and cut them out and put them in a cute Santa bucket from the Dollar Tree along with some blank cards so we can add some new good deeds or "catch them" doing good deeds and praise them when we see them happening.

I found a cute Buffalo Plaid alphabet banner here and made a "Good Deeds" banner for us to pin up all of the good deeds we do this season.

I've created a simple PDF with the banner so you can easily print it out without having to resize or save multiple letters. Print it out here.

December Daily : North Pole Breakfast : Christmas Decorating

We don't do the Elf of the Shelf (because I don't need anymore cray in my life), but we have adopted the North Pole Breakfast tradition.

Every year, before we put up our tree, we have North Pole Breakfast or Breakfast-for-dinner (depending on when December 1st falls on a weekday or a weekend.) Each kid get their Christmas Pajamas so they have them to wear all month. This year they also got a matching ornament, a candy cane, and some stickers and reindeer ears (all from the Dollar Tree).

We made some super simple Snowmen pancakes (with powder sugar and whip cream snow, a jelly bean nose, and candy cane arms). Car was very adamant about everyone eating the "healthy food" before they ate the candy... But nothing about North Pole Breakfast is healthy food. Haha.

We also added some Good Deed cards to our North Pole Breakfast. This way the kids can grab a Good Deed from the bucket throughout the month and we can hang them up as we complete them. I found the way cute free printable here. I also like to make a big deal about awarding the kids a Good Deed card when we "catch them in the act" of being a good helper without being asked.

After breakfast-for-dinner, they all put on their matching buffalo plaid pajamas (thank you, Target store pick-up!) and we got out alllllll the Christmas decorations. Last year we were in the tiny townhouse so Christmas was very much understated. This year; however, is our first Christmas in the new house and we finally get to discover all of the things we've had packed in storage while we moved.

I used to be a "fancy tree" person, but since the kids have started preschool, it is so so fun to go thorough all of the cute little ornaments they have made for us each year. We make sure to have their name and year on the back of each one. And when they (inevitably) come home with more Christmas crafts throughout December, we just add them up on the tree to admire!

We had so much fun (after a bit of a rocky start trying to find different things...) and I hope the kids always have fun memories of the Christmas season.

Watch the fun here. (We also have added some way fun DIY projects so be sure to check out our channel here.)



Every Christmas we also always create a December Daily photo book. They are so fun to flip through every Christmas and to document the fun things we do each holiday. I put them together in my Project Life App and print them at the end of the month with Shutterfly. Easy Peasy. I take a lot of photos with my "Big Camera" but I make sure to take a photo of the preview to pop in my temporary album as a place holder until I get all the good pictures downloaded on my phone. This helps me keep on track with planning and documenting the pages without having to wait for them to get downloaded. And then I can swap them out for the real-deal easily and all at once.

Before (with back of the camera shots) 

After (to be printed in our Shutterfly book)