'Cool' Birthday Invite

Somehow it seems turning the big 0-5 warrants a shindig around our house ;)

It sure seems like Cooper has been counting down the days until his birthday since Christmas!

A long while back I asked him what he thought he wanted for his birthday and he said, "A party!"

Made me smile for sure :)

Last week he delivered the invitations and helped me with the details of them even.

I saw this cute paper popsicle idea and thought that the real deal would be even better!

So he helped pick out which popsicles he wanted and wrote his friends names on little tags himself.

It was stinkin' cute to see him hand these out to his little friends!

He's really been very involved in the details of his party- we're excited for it to finally get here!

If this is an idea anyone else could use and make their own, here is the basic portion of our simple invite you can grab as a printable- just click, then right click and save. Create a type layer in Photoshop with your own details for the bottom, or use a text box in Word too. :) I also did a pink one for the girls! Grab a bag of your kid's favorite icy treat, hole punch and tie with a ribbon and your set!

Just thought I'd share- isn't this the cutest little dingbat font for boys?!

I thought it was perfect for Coop and used it to create a divider on the invites!

You can find it for free here :)

Any dingbat makes for a cute little touch to these invites-

use a separate text box or type layer and add to your own too if you like!

I love how dingbats make it so easy to add graphics!

Anyhow, Enjoy! Next time I post, my #1 will be #5! :)

They are Loved...

... and It Shows :)

Visited my parent's for a bit of diversion while Stephen's been gone and it was a great trip. Grandpa's work schedule allowed him to be around a bit and he squeezed in ton of fun with Coop and Ry. There is something about being here that most always rejuvenates and motivates me. I sure hope our home does the same for the boys one day.

Ry started learning to pedal a trike while we were there!

I love, love, love proud little moments like these as a Mom!

Watching him try and be so excited, and in looking through these pics, the thought crossed my mind (it often does, actually, over all kinds of small moments) that he has... they have... been saved. Saved for these days, for when the world is the hardest to live in. And, so long as I don't screw it up through my hard knocks learning to be their Mom, they are up for it...

Storing Time

Stephen is gone to Casper, Wyoming, to live it up cover someone else's vacation time for work

for the next nine days... Because we knew he'd be gone for the next while, we spent these last couple of days trying to store some time with Dad where we could.

Taron and Keaton split their Mother's Day weekend with us and got stuck helping their Dad with a wicked aquarium project...

As a side business, Stephen takes care of commercial and residential aquariums and sells livestock and equipment for them. The boys were an awesome help to their Dad and are real troopers for pitching in! The little boys were certainly distraught that they only saw the brothers for the blink of an eye is about all!

Normally Stephen's "side" endeavors are pretty much his own, but I can pretty well say lately that I'm getting to be quite the little partner... even if I do kinda feel like a bull in a china closet all the while! After seeing him off on his plane, we got to pick up and deliver a cool fish order to a customer:

Kinda neat, eh? :)

Monday Stephen was able to take a break in the day

to pretend again to fish at a city fishing spot very near his office.

Black Guy makes anything fun and fine :)

Cooper got really quite good at casting himself and loved playing with the worms no matter what!

Yet, again, not even a nibble, but at least we went and Stephen made the effort

to do what they enjoy with them before he left :)

And the next time we pick up Taron and Keaton it'll be on our way to go camping, not working!

I know lots of families deal with Dad traveling for work a lot, and I am as grateful as grateful can be for Stephen's job, but I know I'm sure not cut out to be without him for the majority of things. Everything runs smoother and simply IS better when we are operating together. Do you ever kinda wish that you could really, truly live off the land out in the middle-of-nowhere and work for the sake of survival rather than money, just enjoying family and each other as though there was nothing outside? In theory I do... How did life get the way it is over the course of time?  What a rhetorical question, eh?!  Anyhow... We have some fun things planned and intend to see some of our very favorite people while Dad's away, but we will sure be glad when he's home too! 

Adorable 'Less Dishes' Mother's Day Gift

So it occurred to me that this weekend and into next week, we'll be getting to see not only our Moms,

but also our sisters and sisters-in-law that are Mom's themselves.

So, I searched my "Gift Ideas" pinboard and decided this pin would work well for a

Mother's Day gift on-the-quick that we could give to them also!

I seriously went from having the thought to put something together to having these totally completed

in very little time at all... The boys helped me stack them up, of course :)

A set of paper plates, napkins and cups!

One of our sets has bowls instead of napkins that works also.

Even if all my sisters end up doing is taking this straight out to the camp trailer,

they will undoubtedly be useful :)

Super, duper simple and could be done very inexpensively. Even if you went and got the stuff for these tomorrow, you could have it put together to give as a cute gift to a Mom in your life :)

Grab this printable tag to go with:

Spring Has Brought Me

I recently snagged this fun CD "Popcorn Bopping" at Seagull Book and we have been loving it! If you haven't pressed play up there yet, you really should :) I couldn't help but do another "shameless plug" here on the blog to share! If you want more of a listen to each song, you can click HERE. If you remember, we are a dance party kind of family, so this was a fun addition! It makes for a fun diversion during the day for the boys and I and no doubt would be sweet on a road trip!

In other fun type news...

While Captain America, Iron Man and the random treasured kids meal toy have become new favorites for my action figure loving little man, "Black Guy," seen here, is still number one. I sure love and appreciate that Ryder plays pretend- he talks his guys to each other, flies them around the house, searches with them for monsters in the closet and begs me constantly to play along! To which I often do and the guys are introduced to each other for the thousandth time, several times in a row :)

Is there any more fun treat for kids than cupcakes with sprinkles?!

(Popsicles might be starting to win the battle around here lately, actually...)

And there is any way to keep yourself from smiling when you see

the job they do at decorating their cupcakes themselves? :)

Or when they eat to this point and then ask

"Mom, could you just put some more frosting on this please?" :)  

Boredom Busters Boy-Style

Ask an Idahoan about the weather and you'll very likely hear the funny adage, "Give it a few minutes and it'll change," in response! It's true, I daresay, too! Awhile back we had some amazingly warm weather and since then it's been teasing us with plenty of sun, but cold wind to go with it and rain mixed in. So, while we've gotten outside quite a lot lately, we've had to hang inside plenty too. These are a few of the fun, super simple little things I've come up with for the boys to keep them from killing each other or watching Toy Story on VHS even one more time! :P

Like most boys, they love to jump! They fly themselves off of beds, chairs, stools, counters, etc, with confidence as though they had wings! I recently grabbed some larger sized scraps and clipped the edges to look like a "POW!" or "WHAM!" burst form a comic book. Then I taped on some plain string and hung them from the beam to our front room. They jumped off their small chairs and the step ladder to try and whack the burst at the same time! It was so simple and plain, but they loved it! It occupied them off and on through the weekend in fact! 

Then another afternoon I grabbed my roll of cellophane (any wrapping paper roll would work) and bound it to the edge of a kitchen chair to create a Hot Wheels tunnel:

I braced the opposite end on a bar stool and used big tape rolls to keep it in place- so simple and quick! They loved running as many cars as they could, as fast as they could, down this tunnel!

Don't ask how many outtakes I have trying to get this picture of a car zooming out of the end!

They enjoyed seeing them collect in the bucket and then start all over again :)

This next one we tried just recently, having just seen in it in the current Family Fun magazine:

I bought these pool noodles at Dollar Tree and then put them together to form a target for the boys to throw soft balls, or other straight noodles, through. We're anxious to get this staked outside in the yard to play with it outside, but it was nice to be able to brace it between two chairs and have it work inside too :)

And a few parting shots, just because... :)