Olivia the Pig Birthday Party!

For Nora's 2nd birthday in Feb. we had an Olivia party. Nora loves the Olivia books and movies, and after she was Olivia for Halloween, we knew we had to plan that for her birthday!

Here are a few of the fun decorations we made for the party!

Here are the water bottle labels we made for this party! I love making these, they are such an easy touch to add. These ones are just computer paper printed with Happy Birthday Nora and a picture of Olivia on them. Then I just cut them out, and put them on the bottles with packing tape.

We had lots of red and white (Olivia colors), but I loved these red and white striped straws I picked up on clearance after Christmas; apparently they were candy cane. :)

Dessert area was more red and white. I love making cakes, but for this party we opted for make-your-own brownie sundaes and cupcakes.

It's hard to see in the pictures, but we made little cupcake toppers of Olivia characters.

I made these yummy reindeer noses for the party too. Let me tell you, they were NOT as easy as everyone says they are to make! It took me three failed batches before I learned the tricks!

Red and white decorations were easy this time of year since Nora's birthday falls right before Valentine's day. One of my favorite red touches, was putting red licorice in collin's glasses around the house. Yum!

And even thought this isn't a great picture, we sewed these cute paper garlands to hang up!

And of course pictures of the birthday girl up on the fridge!

Here's Nora enjoying her birthday lunch with dad!

Getting good at blowing out her candles!

She was very spoiled by family and friends, and loved opening her presents!

Along with little Olivia boxes and stickers for all the kids, we laminated activity placemats so they could color them with dry erase markers.

Nora had a great birthday, and we are so happy we could have friends and family over to celebrate her turning 2!

Sock Buns!

I think I am the last to find out about sock buns, but, Holy Cow they are AWESOME!! Look at this adorable sock bun on Molly. :)

I followed this simple tutorial from Three Pink Dots, and started with a pony tail.

Then rolled the hair around the sock top, and just kept rolling. I did use a little kids sock, since it was going on little kids hair.

And, Voila!!! Love it!!!

Doll Hair Makeovers!

If you have girls, I'm sure you have a bunch of dolls that look like ours. :) Seriously, my girls carry these dolls around by there hair! In Molly's words, "It was totally time for them to have a makeover!" I saw this great tutorial on how to fix doll hair from the blog Cookie and Claire.

I used a spray bottle filled with 2 Tablespoons of liquid fabric softner, and the rest water. Then I just sprayed the hair, and combed it out using a metal wig brush! I was AMAZED at how well it worked, and how much better their hair looked. I was worried the hair might be greasy from the fabric softner, but it's not.

Here is Rapunzel's crazy before!

And after... ahhh, much better!

And Minty's (yeah, not sure how Molly picked that name) messy do before!

And after! I am happy to say this has worked great. We are busy giving hair makeovers to all the dolls, barbies, ponies, etc. we can find. :)

A Few New Sweet Recipes!

Last week I tried this AMAZING new recipe for Carmelitos. We were having some friends over, and I was a bit nervous to make something I hadn't tried before, but they turned out fantastic! Seriously, SO yummy! And to make things even better... the just put a Biggby by Molly's preschool. So the next day I got to enjoy the last Carmelito and a Coffee!

We also have been loving these No Bake Energy Bites. They are a perfect snack when you are craving something sweet and filling, and since they are so rich, you only need one or two. Perfect!

DIY Scratch Off Cards!

Today I made a few of these DIY scratch off tickets to try them out, and make sure I knew what I was doing. We are planning on making these at MLife, thinking it would be so fun for when kids are bored this Summer to get to scratch off a card and find a fun activity to do! I used this tutorial from ArtMind.

I made a winter one as a test, and love it so much, I am going to make a bunch of them tomorrow so we can use them this Winter. Here are a few of the activities I am putting on our Winter cards:
-Go Sledding
-Build a Snowman
-Snow Inside
-Bake Cookies
-Build a Blanket Fort
-Living Room "Movie Theater"
-Frozen Bubbles

-Paint

Vinyl Signs!

Today at our Church's MLife group we made these great vinyl signs! It was such a fun craft, that I bought an extra set to take home and let Molly make. She had the best time painting the 2x12 board with pink paint. Then her favorite part was rubbing the vinyl letters on with a popsicle stick.

She was thrilled to get to paint and do this whole craft by herself. She was SO proud to put it on the dresser in her room and show her dad the second he got home. :)

New Year's Eve!

This year we had a fun New Year's Eve celebration with the girls! We celebrated at 6pm, since that was midnight in Paris, and if you know Molly, you know she loves everything Paris!

This party was all about this girls, so Molly had the BEST time, doing everyone's hair and picking out all our outfits. (whoopsies, I forgot to get a picture of me with 20 clips in my hair ;) We all ended up in pink, but she loved being a fashion designer. This Paris dress Grandma gave her for Christmas was perfect!

We had noisemakers and party blowers to start off the celebration!

Molly was very excited to watch the countdown and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower live on the computer!

And Confetti Poppers from the dollar store were a big hit with the girls, and Dad. :)

We had sparkling Grape Juice to Toast the New Year!

Molly couldn't get enough...

Nora tried some...

But wasn't so sure. :)

Molly worked hard all afternoon making decorations. Here is the tablecloth she decorated with markers, stickers and balloons. She was very proud. I just taped a giant piece of white paper to our vinyl table cloth and sent her loose. :)

Indoor Smores for dessert were a big hit!

But the biggest hit of the night was playing glow in the dark hide and seek! We saw this idea over at one of my favorite blogs, Play at Home Mom. Here is a picture of some of the glow sticks hidden in Molly's room. Some in her shoes, under the doll bed, in her plastic drawers! The girls had the BEST time with this. (even though it was super hard to show in a picture)

I got a few glow sticks from the dollar store, and I picked up a ten pack of glow stick bracelets from the grocery store to hid through out the house. Then I let the girls find them as fast as they could and put them in a bucket in the kitchen. This was such a hit, we played for over an hour! Molly loved taking a turn hiding them too.

We had a fantastic time celebrating with Molly and Nora, and since they are only 4 and 1, it was nice to have them still in bed by 8. :)