C's Toy Story 2nd Birthday Party

57. Give a gift a month

Two years ago I was given the greatest, most rewarding gift of my life: my son. I have spent the past few months collecting ideas off of Pinterest, making stuff, planning, prepping, and pouring my heart into the best Toy Story Birthday Party I could possibly throw for C for his 2nd birthday. He loves the Toy Story series and everyone in our house can probably recite the movies line-by-line (even the cat and dog!) so I knew he would love a Toy Story party. Here is a little look into his magical birthday party!

The guests were greeted at the door by Buzz Lightyear and several army men welcoming them into the house (Notice the duct tape trying to keep my mini etch-a-sketch up? Failed attempts included hot glue, packaging tape, and ultimately, duct tape).




Immediately upon entering the house it was apparent that the army men were keeping the party under control (or maybe actually trying to get a taste of the cake...) There were dozens of little green army guys hanging from the ceiling and making their way toward the kitchen counters or hanging out on top of the cabinets keeping guard. We even had a few parachuters caught in the act of dropping from the ceiling.

For the second year in a row we lucked out with beautiful weather for the party which is a great thing because the inside of our house is a little bit too small to entertain the number of people we invited. All of the food, drinks, tables, and entertainment were set up on the patio or in the backyard where we were able to enjoy the toasty upper 70's and sunshine.



The tables were covered with craft paper and Sunnyside Art Boxes were provided to allow the guests to draw and color while enjoying the party.

Rex did his part by acting as a paperweight so the tablecloth and craft paper wouldn't blow away before the guests arrived.

Other forms of entertainment included:

A cardboard town consisting of a jail, saloon, hotel, and a cardboard cowboy and cowgirl.

You can see the "photobooth" with Andy's wallpaper as a background. We provided various cowboy hats, Woody's vest, an etch-a-sketch frame, and other signs and faces.

Horse Wranglin could be found in the backyard where the kids could try to throw the hula hoop around the horse's neck.

And the can game where bean bags were used to knock over Evil Mr. Potato Head.

All of the guests were invited to dress up as their favorite Toy Story character and we had a few little ones and one very brave mommy join E and I in costume.

 Here I am with my Jessie inspired outfit including homemade cow print chaps, a red headband and a yellow necklace. My dear husband is the fashionable Ken standing beside me. 

The resemblance is uncanny!

C was supposed to be Woody in the yellow TWO shirt that I made him and a Woody vest that I also made for him. He could not be bothered to change into his jeans and put on his cowboy hat though. And, naturally, this the best picture I could even get in his outfit because my sweet little toddler NEVER STOPS MOVING.

The food all played into the Toy Story theme as well.



We had Bullseye's Carrots and Ranch, some watermelon cut into the shape of 2's, and Barbie's Fruit Cups.




The main course consisted of  Slinky's Dogs, Hamm's Burgers, and Woody's PB&J's (cut into the shape of cowboy boots, sheriff's badges, cowboy hats, and rocket ships), and additional sides included Mrs. Potato's Chips and Slinky's Pasta Salad.



In addition to the beer and soda (and eventually wine), we had some "Two InfiniTEA" iced tea. After the party was over and I was putting leftovers away I discovered that we forgot to put out all of the kid's drinks so the poor little ones were stuck with water or soda... Way to go...

I found these adorable Army Men Gummies on Etsy.com

Jessie and Woody were handing out Sheriff's Badges for the kids to wear and keeping an eye on Bonnie's Poison Jelly Beans.



I made some chocolate Mr. Potato's Mustaches and my fantastic cake maker made some red velvet cake pops to resemble the yellow ball from the movie.

Check out the beautiful job my friend did on C's cake. AMAZING! Please don't hesitate to ask if you would like her contact info! I have already placed an order for chocolate covered strawberries (including two that look like a bride and groom) plus cake pops for my sister's wedding rehearsal dinner. 

I still can't believe my sweet baby boy is already TWO!

The Happy Birthday sign was the first project that I worked on for his party =)

Even Lotso had a good time at the party! Thanks again to everyone that came to celebrate with us! We had a fantastic time and are grateful for the excellent friends and family that we get to enjoy these special occasions with!

Albondigas Soup, movie review, monkeys, and such

How in the world did I get so behind on posting this month?!

83. Try a new recipe every month

This month's new recipe is another Candice Kumai winner: Albondigas (Meatball) Soup. Albondigas Soup is a Mexican soup with meatballs in a chicken stock. Candice's version is a very low calorie option containing  veggies, ground turkey meatballs, topped with delicious avocado slices. My favorite part about her recipe is the addition of rice to the meatballs. I failed to cook my meatballs long enough so the rice was not actually cooked... but that added a nice crunch to the dish! :) This is definitely a winner.

95. Watch 26 movies we've never seen starting with each letter of the alphabet

IMDb - This is 40

E and I both loved Knocked Up and watch it all the time so we knew we wanted to watch the (not really) sequel, This is 40. For those of you not familiar with the movie, This is 40 is the story of Alison's (Katherine Heigl) sister Debbie and her husband Pete several years down the road when Debbie turns 40 and their kids are a teenager and a pre-teen.

Overall this was a pretty funny movie. There were some parts of the movie that made me entirely too anxious, probably because I saw my future playing out before my eyes (I'm hoping teenage boys aren't as frustrating to parents as teenage girls...) and some sex scenes that made this prude uncomfortable (because that's hard to do...), but overall it was a good watch full of drama.










65. Go to the zoo once a month

On the day that we were planning on going to the zoo, my cousin actually asked if we could watch her little 2 year old while they entertained a visitor in the mountains. It turns out she had never been to the zoo before! So on a nice cold, windy Sunday morning we packed up two toddlers and headed to the zoo. We started off at the lions and got a nice close look at the sleeping grown lions before heading over to show little N the baby lions. If you are a Denver Zoo go-er and haven't seen the babies yet, they are actually leaving the zoo in the next month to move on to their permanent home, so get going!

The wind was brutally cold so we speed walked over to the Primate Panorama hoping to spend some time inside the Great Ape building where we would be sheltered from the wind. Unfortunately, the gorillas were outside while their exhibit was being cleaned so our plan failed. After a little bit of convincing C who never wants to leave the gorilla house, we made our way to the monkey house and spent some time in there checking out the smaller monkeys. The lemurs were bouncing around and were a big hit for a few minutes.

Things went downhill from the monkey house. C was in a royally foul mood and screamed, cried, and complained the rest of the way around the zoo. At one point he ended up kicking off his shoes and throwing himself onto the ground in a full blown fit. At this point N and I abandoned him with his daddy while we went to see the fishies at the Tropical Discovery. E and C went back to the car while we finished up our zoo trip alone.

61. Dinner date with friends once a month

Our "dinner date" with friends was actually a lunch date with S & J at Corona's Mexican Grill. J taught E how to change the oil on his car and they followed up by changing the oil in S's car. After they were done we headed over to Corona's and enjoyed a nice toddler-free meal while C hung out with grandma. They have a Guacamole Tostada that I just had to try, and it was fantastic! I may have to come up with my own homemade version to enjoy whenever I please.

94. Buy flowers once a month for the house

This beautiful flower arrangement actually arrived on my doorstep last Friday. We recently suffered a loss in our family and my fantastic coworkers had this bouquet delivered to our home. I am grateful every day that I made the decision to switch to this company several months ago. I could not ask for a better work family.

Surprise Beer Tasting Bash!

42. Grow a plant from a seed

I am officially a plant growing machine! I started by planting basil and parsley in these adorable little pots from Ikea and hung them in front of the dining room window out of reach of the cat who would undoubtedly eat them if he could reach them. I am so proud of how big my basil is getting! I will be making homemade pesto with it in no time!

Next I decided to start my vegetables that will be planted in the garden when it's warm enough. I planted bok choy, swiss chard, rainbow swiss chard, and red bell peppers. My swiss chard and bok choy are growing fantastically and are even getting a bit too big for their windowsill in C's room, but my red peppers are still stubbornly refusing to sprout.

Lastly, now that I seem to be addicted to growing plants, I picked up this little strawberry plant kit from Lowe's. They are just starting to sprout but hopefully will kick it into overdrive soon and bear lots of juicy little strawberries for us to enjoy!

57. Give a gift a month
61. Dinner date with friends once a month

This month I combined the give a gift a month and dinner date with friends because the dinner date with friends was my gift of the month. E's birthday was at the beginning of the month and while perusing Pinterest for genius birthday gift ideas I came across the idea of a beer tasting party. I immediately knew E would love it and started coming up with a plan to throw him a surprise beer tasting birthday party. His best friend was going to be out of town for his birthday weekend and I knew she absolutely had to be there so we planned the party for a few weekends after his birthday making it even more of a surprise. I spent a month planning and sneaking around behind his back secretly buying serve ware, foods, and tasting and buying beer.

J invited E to see a movie a few hours before the party was supposed to start. I suggested that they go to the movie then pick up S on the way home and we could all have dinner at our house. So it all worked out. E met J for the movie and I got going on the party prep.

I love my little Crate and Barrel serving bowls!!

I didn't manage to get any pictures before the party so I don't have any of these fantastic roast beef sliders from nobiggie.net that flew off the counter and into everyone's stomachs. Seriously though, next time you need a quick easy meal when you are entertaining, make them! I served them with some baked french fries/wedges, chips and salsa and guacamole, fruit, and mixed nut and pretzel party mixes.

I love C's cup of milk on the table with all the growlers....

My sis went with me to pick out the beer on the Tuesday before the party. We told E that we were doing random wedding stuff in preparation for her wedding so he didn't even question us.  We decided to go with a local microbrewery theme and bought only beers brewed by Colorado microbreweries. We went downtown and tasted a flight at Wynkoop Brewery, The Great Divide, and Prost Brewing. I would like to mention that I do not like beer. At all. So the fact that I tried a dozen different kinds for him just proves my love for my husband. We ultimately ended up with a growler of:

Wynkoop

B3K Black Lager

Colorojo Red Ale

The Great Divide

Colette Farmhouse Ale

DPA Classic Pale Ale

Prost Brewing

Pils

Dunkel Amber Lager

In addition to the growlers that contained the beers used in the tasting, I picked up sampler cases from New Belgium Brewery, Left Hand Brewery, and Boulder Brewery. Another party goer brought a wide variety of other Colorado beers. Needless to say, we had a ton of leftover beer and E is still reaping the benefits.

The whole tasting was pretty informal. I had numbered some plastic cups 1 - 6 and my sis poured a small sample of each beer one round at a time in the corresponding cups and sent them around the room to the guests. I provided some really simple beer tasting sheets so people could take down notes about each beer and give it an overall score. The party was a success and everyone seemed to have loved the idea of a beer tasting party. 

Oh! And I'm sure you are wondering if E was surprised! The original plan was to have everyone park in the backyard so I could close the gate and he would be clueless about everything until he walked through the door. However, mother nature screwed that up by dumping a decent amount of snow on the ground all through the night and on through the afternoon of the party day. Most people just ended up parking wherever so as soon as they pulled into the driveway he knew something was up. I guess his first thought was that I was throwing a party while he was out at the movie... He still had no idea why everyone was there even after he walked in since his birthday was already long gone. So my answer is yes, he was definitely surprised.

94. Buy flowers once a month for the house

I couldn't find any flowers that were just screaming "perfect" at the store so instead I picked up an Easter Lily since Easter was just around the corner and all. So we are driving home from the store and I decide to look up how to take care of an Easter Lily and one of the first things I see is a giant warning to never bring an Easter Lily into a house with a cat because they are toxic to cats. Oops... So our lily has been travelling all around the house, getting locked inside the laundry room when we are gone. Lesson learned.

64. Go swimming once a month

We finally made it to the pool, cutting it nice and close to the end of the month. C had so much fun that we actually ended up going again the following night. We bought some dive rings in an attempt to get C to put his face in the water on his own. He came pretty close but only managed to get to about his nose. We are getting closer though!



No, Dad! I'm not ready to leave!!