40 blows {40th birthday party}

My hubby is 40... over the hill!  I thought I would post what we did for his 40th birthday party.  His birthday was 3 days before Christmas... and a Sunday... and right when we already had other couple's parties to go to.  So, I opted to have a little party after Sunday dinner at his mom's house.

I got my inspiration from this picture I found on pinterest.   The link didn't really take me anywhere.

I went with the idea... and tried to make it a little more manly.

We gave his family members a little bag of bubble gum with the invitation as the treat topper.

 The back side had the date, time and place.

I sat up a little treat table when you walked in his mom's house.

I had jars of bubble gum, blow pops and party blowers.

I made cupcakes with gumballs on top.

I made a larger cupcake for him with 40 candles on it.

(The platter is a cheeseball dish that I glued onto a wooden candle stick and painted.  It has a glass lid, but it wouldn't fit on with the candles)

The treat bags with Pick Your Plum treat bags.  I put gum and suckers in them.  And stapled cute "40 blows" tags on them.

 I made a banner with pictures of my hubby from the time he was a baby.  I hung it in the window with a banner that said "40 Blows" and some balloons.

Our first game, the contestants had to blow 3 balls across the counter into the cup.  Whoever got their balls into their own cups first, won.  For prizes, I had mini gumball machines.

The second game was to see who could fit the most pieces of gum in their mouth and still blow a bubble.

The 3rd game, the kids had to blow up two balloons and see who could keep them both in the air the longest.

After the games, we had cake and ice cream and had the hubby blow out all 40 candles!

Happy 40th birthday hubby!  I'm sure 40 won't really blow:)

ELF {on the shelf}

It's that time of year again!  

I just thought I'd post what our little elf was up to last year... to give you ideas for this year... if you need more ideas.  Most of the ideas came from various sites I have come across on Pinterest.  I'm truly sorry for not linking to you if the idea was uniquely yours... it was just too hard to keep track of where I got the ideas.

On another side note, the app that I used to create this calendar is called Photo365.  It's great for advent calendar stuff like this.  The app that I used to create the titles is called Labelbox.... love it too!

Oh, and also, I didn't want to buy the book, so I found this little plush elf on Amazon.  He's a little different than the one that everyone else has... but we like him:)

Priesthood Preview

My calling in my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is in the Primary.  I work with the kids from age 3-12.  At the end of the year, we are asked to hold a special night for the boys who will be turning 12.  It is called the Priesthood Preview.  The boys listened to talks about the importance of the priesthood.  We had a musical number and then had refreshments.

I had seen ideas (and talked to people) about doing a "tie" theme.  So, I found an idea on Little Birdie Secrets for a shirt and tie invitation.  

Then I got to work on the decor.  I wanted to make a tie banner.  I was debating on making it out of paper ties.  But, when I got on Pinterest and did a little searching, I came across this tie wreath... and I had to make it!  I asked friends for ties and got WAY more than I needed.  

To make the wreath, I simply cut a circle out of a cardboard box... I'm cheap.  Then, I cut the tied and hot-glued them around the wreath (overlapping slightly).  I tied one tie in a boy and glued it on.  Then glued a string on the back to hang it. 

To make the banner, I used the left over tied and cut them in half.  I cut the cut off tie back into a point and hot-glued the layers together.  Then, I folded over the top half and sewed it so that I could easily slip the ties onto a ribbon.

We thought it would be a great idea to just serve donuts and hot chocolate for refreshments.  I wanted the Oath and Covenant of the priesthood displayed but couldn't find a poster.  So, I wrote it on the chalk board!

 I also had some left-over Halloween candy that I put in glass jars... with a small child's tie around one of the jars.

We have a great group of boys!!!

Star Wars {Birthday Party}

My baby turned 5 (wow, I'm old) and for his birthday, he wanted a Star Wars party.

I found some great printables online from All Things with Purpose.  The first was a set of signs.  I put balloons on my front porch with the sign that said "Happy Galactic Birthday."

When the guests entered the house, they went to the kitchen table where they colored their Padawan training badge that I got from Libbie Grove Design.

After they got their badge, they were able to put on their Jedi Tunic.  I bought an old sheet from a thrift store.  I cut it into strips that were about 18"x36".  I hemmed the edges and cut a hole for the head.  They tied their tunic on with a strip of brown fleece.

I had seen numerous ideas on Pinterest for pool noodle light sabers, so I showed them to my husband and told him to make them:)  I figure anything involving tape is his area of expertise.

Then the boys headed through the back door for their Jedi Training.

My older sons and Princess Leia (myself) trained the boys... we used balloons and played games like... not letting the balloon touch the ground... we even tried sticking the helium balloons in the grass with golf tees, but the boys were too abusive and hit them so hard that they pulled out of the grass and flew away.

After they were trained, Darth Vader....

.... and Darth Maul came out to fight the Jedis.  (we tried to copy the Jedi Training at Disneyland).

After training, the Jedis were hungry and thirsty, so they came back into the house where I had the party set up.

I made the banner myself and just found a free Jedi font online.

I decorated the table with the food, some light sabers and an R2D2 popcorn bucket we had bought at Disneyland.

The cake was quite simple.  I got the idea from Cake Central.  I tried to pick an easy one.  I baked a 9x13 rectangle cake.  I frosted it with brown frosting.... I used the tip that has several small holes and just piped the fur on... I didn't care if it looked all perfect.  I used two different colors for the fur and a darker brown for the mustache.  I made the eyes, nose and teeth out of fondant (I keep small amounts of different colors of fondant in my freezer for things like this).

The plates were from Walmart.  The straws were from Pick Your Plum.

The water bottle labels were a free printable from Clean and Scentsible.

The napkins holders were a free printable from Catch My Party.

I got the idea for the "Wookie Cookies" from Craft, Interrupted.

Down the center of the table where the Jedis ate, I put my son's plastic Star Wars figures along with yellow sparkle stars I had cut out with a star punch.

I put my hubby in charge of the piñata.  He did a great job.  I showed him the idea I had pinned from the Thriftress.... but then he searched some more and put together several ideas.

We had the Jedis hit the piñata with a light saber...until we got worried the light saber would break.

The party favor bags were printed on white lunch bags.  I took the Jedi Knight certificate from Libby Grove Designs and edited it in Photoshop to say "Thank you for Coming to my Party."  The kids put their wookie cookie in the bag along with their candy from the Piñata. 

Welcome to the Jungle {safari pack meeting}

I love the leaders we have in cub scouts!  They are awesome! I am in the Primary Presidency in my ward.  I am the person who oversees the cub scouting program.  I have a son in cub scouts and I want it to be fun!  So, last night, my cubmaster and assistant cubmaster came up with a jungle theme for our pack meeting.  We had a lot of awards to give out... including 2 arrow of light awards.

 So, we (my friend Haley and I) started by decorating the room to look like a jungle.  We took rolls of craft wrapping paper from the dollar store and cut them into 3rds.  Then we took the long strips and rolled them up to make the vines.  We cut leaves out of construction paper and hot glued them to the vines.

 Haley did a great job of accessorizing everything with the vines and adding jungle stuffed animals.

We had a cheesy skit from a safari powwow book that we had in our cub scout stuff.  The skit had us going through the jungle and finding bobcats, wolves, bears, webelos, etc.  At each stop, the awards were given out.

After the awards, I had the kids (cub scouts and siblings) make binoculars and go on a treasure hunt.  I had painted toilet paper tubes black and hot glued them together.  The kids got to choose their duck tape color and tape the ribbon to their binoculars.

Then they took their binoculars and followed clues.

 Their clues took them to a room by the kitchen where my amazing Webelos leader, Jenifer, had an a cute table of safari food set up.

 My favorite was the gummy skewers.

And she had cute bags of animal crackers with labels on them!

It turned out so cute.  The kids had a good time and it was short and sweet:)