OLW - Check in for January

I've never done this One Little Word thing before, but like all things I do at the beginning of the new year, I always start to slip up some time around Spring. I don't know what it is about Spring that makes me lose my mind. I think it's the warm weather, but I digress... I decided that since I want to keep this going the whole year that I should have some sort of tally at the end of each month to see what I accomplished the month before.

It was my intention of posting individual posts about "Enjoying" my time and "Organizing" my life, but that same life got away from me this month. I could have sworn that just yesterday was Elijah's birthday party... but I have gotten some things done this month.

I have been enjoying my time with my family.

We even kind of implemented "Family fun night" (a post about this will hopefully appear in the next week), where we spend the evening together doing something fun. Hence the name. Right now it's any random night we happen to have time, but I hope to start having it on a certain night of the week and scheduling things around it, instead of the other way around.

We also just do things together. We play with Elijah more, instead of watching TV and at night, instead of shutting Elijah in his room to fall asleep and me having some "me" time, I hang out with Elijah for about a half an hour. We chat, we sing, we read... just to chill out and I think Elijah really likes this time together, as do I.

This past month we also went down my in-laws to remember Joe's grandfather who just passed away in November. It would have been his birthday, so we had his favorite meal and remembered some funny and touching times that were had. There was some sad, but overall it was a happy time of game playing (Smart Ass and Dominoes) and story telling. That is the way he would have wanted it.

(Picture borrowed from my Mother-in-law's blog)

Along with those fun times we also did a little bit of organizing. We are trying to get into the whole "eating dinner at home most nights" thing, so I am proud to say that this past week we stuck to it every night. Thanks for Joe who started most of the dinners before I got home from work and one night we used the crock pot. I hope to be able to keep it up.

We also organized baby clothes. Caleb was busting out of his 6 month stuff, so we went through all the storage bins and organized them by size.

Now when he decides he ready to go into 12 month clothes, we'll be ready.



The last thing I did, this month, was organize my pictures.

I really want to start scrapbooking again this year and with the pictures grouped, I feel like it will be easier to get a page going. I'm even thinking about putting "Quick Pages" or sketches in the folders, as I get time, so when I get the urge to scrapbook it'll be easy to throw some stuff together. I guess we'll see how that goes.

Lastly, my goal this year is to organize my entire house, room by room, to be the way I want it. If I work really hard and some people (mainly Joe) help me, I should be able to get it done by the end of the year. I also hope to get my second bedroom in some sort of order so I might be able to participate in the "Where Bloggers Create" this summer, if they are going to do it.

I have no official plans for this coming month. That's the way I seem to roll these days, but there are always things that jump out at me to do, so I'm sure there will be no lack of things to be organized or things to enjoy.

How is your resolution, One Little Word or plan for this year panning out?

It's an Angry Birds Party!

One might say Elijah is slightly obsessed with Angry Birds... Ok, I digress... he is a lot obsessed with Angry Birds, to the point that we can get him to do pretty much anything (except eat wet food) with the promise that he would be playing Angry Birds in the near future.

That being said, it should come as no shock to you that when I asked Elijah what kind of birthday party he wanted, he said, "Angry Birds!". As so it was...

The invites were sent out and the planning began

The prep took a little bit of work and imagination since they don't sell Angry Bird party kits.

For decorations we used:

A Banner - Made by Joyce at Scrap For Joy

Balloons from Party City

And different colored tableware

(I forgot to take a picture of the food table)

Once things looked festive, we were ready to get the party started:

Bird houses were set out for painting when the guests arrived

and smocks (purchased at the dollar store) were hanging, waiting to be used

Each child had his or her own paint

(this was in case any of them don't like their colors mixed)

Each child got to pick which bird house he or she wanted to paint

Then the painting started

Some were very precise and only used one color on each section

Some used more than one color on a section

Some didn't care and just mixed all the colors together for a nice effect

Delia and Caleb weren't old enough to

enjoy painting, yet, so they just watched

This is the finished product.

Don't they look great?

After the painting project, it was time to eat. We didn't really have any food named for anything. The closest were hot dogs (king pigs in a blanket). We also had chips, dip, potato and egg salad (half point), macaroni salad, chicken nuggets, fries and a lunch meat platter... that I like to refer to as "the aftermath".

Dessert was a little more festive.

I made cake pops in some of the Angry Birds colors.

(Joe helped me coat them)

I bought the red and green sticks from

ACMoore's Christmas clearance rack

The cake pop maker made so many I

had to have an overflow plate to display them

I also made Hershey bar wrappers as favors

These are the leftovers for the adults to enjoy

Everyone enjoyed the food

After we ate, it was time for the kids to burn off some energy

So we had an egg hunt

We put slips of paper with random numbers on the inside

(ranging from 5-15)

The orange eggs were the "golden eggs"

so they had higher numbers in them

(ranging from 20-45)

After all the eggs were found, my mom and I went into another room to add them up and find a winner.

Meanwhile the kids threw plush angry birds

to knock over these little guys

They were shaker boxes found at ACMoore (for $1.69)

Joe spray painted them light green and we cut out these Angry bird balloon faces

The eyes and snout were adhered them with permenant tape adhesive

The kids had sooo much fun knocking them over

Afterward I announced the winner... it was everybody! So each child got to pick a prize from the prize table in the order their score was in the egg hunt.

Then it was time for present opening and the kids could roam about

playing with whatever they wanted. The toy of choice

though, was the train table Elijah got for Christmas

Who would have known?

Caleb and Delia had a great time together

And Andre dropped in for a little while too

Before the kids left they got a bunch of goodies

and they also took the bird houses home

I tried to make the Hershey bar peep out through the bag

Even Caleb and Delia got one, but theirs had

special baby things in them.

I had a hard time coming up with favors

so I looked on Pinterest and found these

The kids are too little for gumballs, so I filled

them with multicolored M&Ms instead

Then we adhered the cut out circles from this printout

and glued them on with Tombo Mono

The tags on the bags are from that website too

The wrappers were made using an Angry Birds desktop

background that I edited to fit my purpose

After the party Elijah played with some of his toys

This picture composition was completely by accident

but I thought it summed up the party nicely

Angry Birds, the number 4 and nuggets.

He even received some Angry Birds to put on the wall in his room

They are removable, so he can switch them around anytime he wants

It seems like everyone had a great time

and we enjoyed having everyone over



I know Elijah had a wonderful day because he exclaimed that evening, "This was the best birthday day ever!". I can't believe my "baby" is 4 years old...

One Little Word... Ok, Maybe Two...

For years I have seen people pick their One Little Word(OLW) to focus on for the rest of the year. I have never really picked one before, but a few times I might have thought "I wonder what my word would be" then 6 seconds later I was thinking about something else.

This year I think I'm gonna try it. In fact I'm going to break the rules and have chosen two words... to make up for lost time. ;-) But seriously, I thought of the first word and to tell you the truth, it did not sound fun -at all-. It was one of those words where I was like, "This is going to be really hard, but it -has- to be done."

That word is

I feel like my life is almost haphazard. I never know what the day is going to bring (to some degree). That used to be exciting, but now that I've reached middle age(hah), it is not that exciting anymore. In fact I feel like I need some sort of structure. Along with that I feel like I need to organize the house and my time better also.

See how depressing and tedious that sounds? So I picked another one. It the kind of word that makes you want to put a pep in your step. It is 



I want to enjoy life. Enjoy my kids while they are little, cause they grow up too fast. Enjoy trips, enjoy hanging out with people, enjoy crafting, enjoy everyday life, enjoy everything. After 2011 being so tiring, it will be a refreshing change.

I have lots of plans involving these two words. I hope to share some of them and their progress as the year progresses. But, for now I am going to go back to organizing my list and prepping for Elijah's birthday party, so I can enjoy myself as it is going on. :-)

Until next time...