how i did it. dycen's party.

Many of my friends have asked me how I did Dycen's 1st Birthday Party. This post is for the people who were asking.

I had a vision of a small carnival for Dycen & all of his little friends.  Some of you know but most of you don't,  my father-in-law is a pastor of a church here in the town we live.  I am blessed to have access to his gymnasium.

We reserved the gym many months before. I wanted each child to feel like they were at a real carnival and had to pay for everything themselves.  My husband designed the 'fake' money.  He cut & pasted it all. It was done through Microsoft Publisher. We went to Staples and bought green paper with a coupon we had from purchasing another item the week before. The paper came to $4. So simple. He put 12 little 'dollars' on one page and one afternoon, over chocolate milk, I cut them out. I cut until the scissor was indented on my finger. So worth it. 

I wanted to have a popcorn & cotton candy machine but that was not in my budget.  I wanted to have a big party but I wanted it to be affordable. I found pretty large bags of cotton candy at the dollar store.  I knew the children didn't need all that was in the bag. The day before the party, I opened each bag and separated the cotton candy into 4 different small bags.  So yes, that makes each bag I did for the kids cost 25 cents. 

I was talking with my girlfriend about popping my own popcorn because I couldn't afford a popcorn machine when she quickly said that the daycare she ran had so many small popcorn bags that I shouldn't buy any. She could give me as many as I needed. YES! Score!!! I asked her to hold 40 aside for me. Thanks Gina! I bought ONE box of popcorn, I believe it was $6 and we popped the popcorn before all the kiddos arrived and stuffed the bags. 

We had a tattoo table which the older kids LOVED. I bought 3 packs of 35 tattoos. I spent $1 on each of them. These were also purchased from the dollar store. The table cost me a total of $3!! I still have tons left over and I use them for rewards & treats. Works great!

The lollipop mountain was neat. I purchased 5 bags of blow pops at $1 each. Each bag had 15 blow pops in them.  The church had the mountain.  We colored the bottom of 5 random lollipops. If one of those were pulled the kids received a prize.  All prizes were $1 and under.  They were all purchased at the $1 aisle at Target or the dollar store.  They ranged from small footballs to coloring books to spider man cups to Elmo books and everything in between. 

I had banners made for each game that was played. The banners were all donated by a wonderful guest of mine at Longhorn.  The banners were made in all vinyl and can be used for many years to come! 

All banners looked like this in a variation of colors. 

The face painter was the biggest hit of all! I found her through a friend and she was the sweetest. She didn't charge me a dime. A nice tip was definitely necessary. 

The church owns the moon bounce. It's always the center of fun! 

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. 


oxox, jess





 

without the complex, the trying and the unplanned, the good just wouldn't seem so good.

And everything at this exact moment is perfectly still. I have the windows open & the beautiful breeze keeps blowing this one small piece of hair over my left eye. There is a small piece of me that is really annoyed but I forget that this is what I have been waiting for. I love that piece of hair, annoying or not. Keep coming breeze, I love you. The kids played today, they played hard. It was such a beautiful day to be outside. I realize I have said that sentence more than once in the past few posts. I love saying that and I am so glad the nice weather is coming and its coming to stay.

My morning didn't start off how I planned. But really, when does it ever? 

I couldn't find matching socks for Jordan. I forgot that I needed to go to the grocery store when I got off last night and woke up to find no milk for cereal, no waffles for the syrup and no bagels for the cream cheese. Scrambled eggs it was. 

I asked Jordan to put on his black shoes and wasn't watching him while he did it and didn't realize that those shoes were filthy and had dried mud all over them. I was feeding Dycen when I looked over his shoulder to see a million (maybe not a million but you know what I mean) small dirty footprints all over the living room and kitchen, not to mention small piles of dirt everywhere Jordan stopped. He didn't even realize it. 

I started to get mad but I never want him to go to school upset so I saved it for after he left... by that time I had gotten over it..  I strapped Dycen to his seat and Dominic was good in the toy corner with his puzzles. I began my unplanned early spring cleaning of the wood floors. Now that I look back... the floors look great, and I know that happened for a reason... I have been wanting to clean those floors but always find some small excuse why not to, and do something else... Now it's done and now I'm happy. To be honest... without the complex, the trying, and the unplanned, the good just wouldn't seem so good.  

The good was real good today!



I caught him red handed sharing his lollipop. That's real love right there.

And off he went with it, smiling and laughing. Sometimes you just gotta let stuff go and enjoy the moment... even if it's 8:30am. 

But when the fun is over & dominic realizes the only way to keep him away from his stick of sugar is sitting at the big boy table... baby gets mad. Oh, so mad! 

We met friends at this super neat park here in town.  Talkin' about love where you live... I LOVE WHERE I LIVE.

Friends in the making. 

I felt calm and present,  moved by the curiosity of my boys, inspired by the beautiful sunshine. High on life.. I love seeing my children happy. Happy to be playing with other kids and happy to be there. Just there. 

 

"Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero."  -Marc Brown

My sweet friend, kelly & her son jaidon. Thanks for spending the day with us. Between her three boys and my three boys... our rants & stories are so real. I somehow, even though we don't know each other well, feel so connected with her. I feel that somehow we share a common bond with the craziness our lives lead. She knows. She knows how I feel.  I love it and I love how much she understands.  oxox 

he will always be my baby, even when he doesn't want me to hold him anymore. my baby, my sweet, precious baby.

cheers to playgrounds, sunshine & making new friends. 

oxox, jess

we were present. all of us.

I wanted to blog yesterday but I could barely keep my eyes open after our guests left.  I am sure the more I do this... the better I will get. It's crazy that when I don't, I feel guilty. 

Yesterday was the 1st drop dead gorgeous day of the year. It was 82 degrees with some serious wind. It was perfect. I started to think about how all I wanted was spring to come & yesterday  felt like summer but I DEFINITELY wasn't complaining...  

I did something yesterday I have never done before. I let jordan stay home from school just because. I didn't have a reason. Well, deep down I did have a reason... I wanted us all,  jordan, dominic, dycen & I to spend the day together. I wanted us all to be present. To be there enjoying the weather and celebrate the past year of our lives. It has been such a change for all of us and I wanted to celebrate. 

Happy 1st Birthday Dycen Carter!!

 

We celebrated by doing all sorts of fun stuff! A lot of the day was spent talking about Dycen's Carnival Party. It was a success! All of the kids had a blast... 

Enjoy some of my favorite pictures. 

And of course... my FAVORITE FAVORITE!!

Jordan had his first scrimmage right before the birthday party. Oh my gosh was that awesome! I was suppose to leave half way through the game but I couldn't. I needed to be there. There was NO WAY I was leaving... I called my girlfriends from the game and told them I was going to be late to the church to set up. 

It's a good thing I didn't go... he scored his first touchdown and after running through the end zone holding his pointer finger in the air, he turned around and looked at the side line. I was right there... jumping up and down, screaming and yelling like a crazy woman. He looked at me with such a proud look and wanted my approval... it was a moment I will hold on to forever. He smiled for the rest of the game. It was perfect. I was present.

Now back to yesterday... we started out at the park & had a picnic. Lunch was over and everyone was ready to go play. We cleaned up our area and headed for the playground. Dominic ran up to me holding himself... 'Mommy, I gotta go, I gotta go... ' ummm.... i immediately when into panic mode.  Everyone and their mother was at the park. There was kids, dogs, babies, EVERYWHERE. There was no bathroom. What was I going to do? We went to the van and I opened the door for something to jump out at me to help me out. It did! Our car had so much left over stuff in it from the party there was a water bottle staring me right in the face. I quickly dumped it out. I had jordan stand behind dycen's stroller, got between our car and the one next to us and prayed that he would aim right in that water bottle. IT WORKED! I was so relieved. Nobody saw, everyone was happy, we didn't have to find the furthest tree and try not to make it obvious on what we were doing. :) Off to the playground we go.... :)

Jordan couldn't resist the open field. He ran back to the car to get his football. We played catch and ran around like crazy. Moms were swinging their kids in the swings, waiting at the end of slide for their babies, sitting down reading a book while their kids play, chatting with the other Warrenton moms... oh not me, I had my sleeves rolled up and tackled Jordan like it was my job. I threw Dominic in the air and almost dropped him because Dycen came up behind me and wanted a piece. It was pure adrenaline running through my veins and I ate it up... I had to, because at any moment I was gonna tip over and run out of breath. Reason #143 why I need to get in shape. 

We spent the rest of the day with Melissa & Tre. We played 500.  (You have 1 thrower who throws the football to the rest of the group and calls out numbers before they throw, and the first person to 500, wins!)  It was so fun! It brought back so many memories from when I grew up playing with my brothers. 

Since Dominic & Dycen couldn't play... they just hung out on the side lines. It feels so good to be outside.

Then we switched it up to a little kick ball.  That was harder for me because at that point dycen really didn't want to sit down in the leaves and watch us anymore. He was hungry and tired and well... just wanted some attention. First time I ever played a sport with a baby on my hip. GREAT WORKOUT! 

I lit the grill up and the immediate smell of springtime came over our backyard. Spring is here, memories are to be made! T-bones, corn on the cob, pasta and rolls were on the menu. We ate outside, loving every minute of it. What a wonderful day of celebration! What a wonderful day it was. I was present. My boys were present. My family was present. My friends were present. 

& I can't leave out Dominic's idea to feed the deer. Mind you, we have no deer in our backyard. Yes, those are oranges on a stick. The imagination of children is limitless.

Cheers to you Dycen Carter Tapscott! I love you more than words can say!!! 

Happy Tuesday y'all & most importantly, happy birthday sweet boy!

oxox, jess