Polka Dots

Yes I'm still here!


I haven't wanted to have blog turn into a place where I complain so I've been taking a break. Life as I've mentioned previously is rather busy right now and the Little Guy is not dealing with the separation from mummy too well.

So back to somethings to brighten your day. I was so surprised and happy - actually happy is not enough - ecstatic to have the Little Guy's recent birthday featured at one of my - and many, many others - favourite party blogs: Party Perfect. Thanks Sara - you really made my day!

How gorgeous are these:

A recent purchase from my favourite Bed, Bath & Table. I've started to add to my Easter bits and pieces and these mini wooden pegs are part of the Morgan & Finch Easter collection. Not sure what I'll use them for yet but I'll find a use for sure - they are too cute not to use!

Keys

We are currently back in the land of the non-sleeping child so chronic lack of sleep in our household in the moment - team this with working full-time and sadly my blog has been neglected yet again this past week.

But I have decided to try and do some small quick posts over the next week regarding storage, organisation etc including dvd storage and important household information.

First on the list: KEYS

For a long time it has been bugging me not having a designated place to put my keys when I come home. We do have some 3M hooks on the side of the fridge but I've been looking for something that would work for our study which is where I enter the house - internal access door from the garage.

So while I was in my favourite homewares store Bed Bath & Table on the weekend purchasing a lovely tea box for my Nan I found this beauty:

Which is now installed right next to the garage door for me to hook my keys up as soon as I enter the house.

And for only $14.95 I am tempted to go back and purchase another one and find a different use for it!

The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party Part Three

Public Holiday - relaxing day at home, so while the Big Guy was at a friends house and the Little Guy was asleep I had time to prepare the last post for the Little Guy's party details.

As the Little Guy's birthday is in the middle of summer we expect the weather to be warm and sunny - but this year although it was warm it definitely was not sunny! It rained the few days before the party and we had some light showers on the party day - so our plans to have some shade and tables set up on our grass area has to be scraped and instead all the tables and chairs for the children and adults plus the food table had to be set up in our screened sunroom. We were a little pushed for space but it worked out in the end. I hired a child's height trestle table and chairs from a local party hire for a grand total of $15.00! Money well spent as it is the perfect height for all the little guests to enjoy their lunch.

As the Little Guy is only 2 and most of his little guests were under the age of 5 I decided that structured party games was probably not a wise choice so instead we set up a blow up pool on the grass and the kids had a great time splashing about in it:

And the kids helped the Little Guy decorate his Puggy House cardboard cubbyhouse:

At the end of the party each little guest received a thank you gift bag:

On the front of the bag is a football jersey with each child's name and a number for their age - for the babies who have not yet turned one I used a star. I created this online at ImageChef and printed them on label sheets so I could simply peel and stick onto the front of the bag. For an added touch I secured a football brad to the bag once folded over. I bought these from Eyelet Outlet who ship to Australia very cheaply.

Inside the bag each little guest received:

(The baby bags contained the bath toys and rusks). The Moon Pies - which are similar to Wagon Wheels but much sweeter - are from USA Foods, the wooden games are from My Wooden Toys, and *I think* the mini frisbees, blowers and glasses are from Big W.

Well that rounds out my posts for the Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party. There are of course many more small details of the party which I have not specified so if you would like details of anything please let me know.

Work, Home & Play

Part 3 of the Little Guy's Birthday Party is still to come.

I've just finished week 2 of working full time and am feeling a little like this:

Photo source

All is going well but I am definitely finding it challenging to find the right balance of work, home and play and as such my blog has fallen down the priority list - but not off it!

I know that it will take the Big Guy and I a while to get into the swing of things but for now we are super excited that we have a fully toilet trained for daytime 2 year old - including naps!

The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party - Part Two

The food and drinks post!

The food table:

I (and my helpers!) made some sandwiches and wraps to serve as well as other yummy treats including mini iced donuts, chocolate and vanilla meringues, antipasto goodies, potato chips, marshmallows and cookies & cream hard candies. You should be able to spy the printable cupcake topper circles decorating the glass jars.

I iced the cake in a messy but simple icing and my wonderful sister Mrs R made the awesome little footballs to decorate with. Each football was actually a cake pop - yummy cake and icing mixed together and coated in chocolate! Each little guest was served one with their slice of cake and they went down a treat. The cake stands are from Sharnell Dollar Designs.

I decided I wanted a backdrop to the food table that was a little different so I (or should I say the Big Guy!) painted a piece of backing board with chalkboard paint and I drew with the help of the Big Guy a football play (i.e plan for the players where to run to and throw the ball). Also we pegged up a couple of recent photos of the Little Guy and also an end zone 'painted' with the Little Guy's name which I created here.

On the children's table (which will feature later) we served fruit, lamingtons and pretzels plus for lunch I made these little lunchboxes up for each little guest:

Inside was half a chicken sandwich, half a vegemite sandwich cut into the shape of a football, some puffy rice crackers and cheese. And I also used the cupcake topper circles again on drink cups for the children:

If you would like to know any further details about the food table or decorations let me know.

Next post will be all about the little guests - their table, party activities and thank you gift bags.

Lastly here is another gorgeous picture of the birthday boy testing out one of his presents:

The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party - Part One

Last Sunday was a cloudy sticky humid summers day and the day of the Little Guy's 2nd birthday party.

I decided to style the Little Guy's party with a football theme - Amercian football (the big guy used to play, the Little Guy's godfather plays and he LOVES playing with balls especially footballs!). I'd seen a few different types of 'event ticket' style invitations on the web and decided to create by own version in photoshop to send out to all the little guests:

The tickets were placed in a little pouch with some 'terms and conditions' on the reverse (i.e request to bring swimmers, sunscreen hat etc for playing in the pool).

For the decorations for the party I ordered customised party printables from The Two Savy Sisters which included amongst other things cupcake toppers (which I used to decorate a few different things), a banner (which I forgot to take a photo of), smalls signs which I placed on the kids table and a door sign:

Blog post Part Two will show the food table and other features of the party but for now here is a sneak peak at the cake:

The Week of Water

I had intended to blog this week about the Little Guy's birthday party which was held last weekend but the flooding and devastation experienced by the people of Queensland this week sidetracked those plans and it did not seem right to post about a cheerful happy event when those in Queensland and their friends and family are experiencing such heartache.

I've seen so many images of the destruction caused by the flooding and this one stopped my in my tracks:

photo from here

It looks like the scene from a Hollywood movie - but sadly this is just one of many photos showing the just what a huge amount of water can do.

And I think this photo is the most powerful I have seen:

photo from here

There's something about the way that soldier is holding the little girl that is so tender and beautiful.

I'll be back on the weekend with all the details of the Little Guy's birthday party.

Party Mode

A busy start to 2011 in this house - I've been in party mode for the Little Guy's 2nd birthday party which is this weekend and also the Big Guy and I have been making good use of the days the Little Guy is at daycare and have continued the massive declutter/donate/throwout/store in roof job in our house and I'm pleased to say we are now done! Nice way to start the year - everything in it's place especially since I start back at work fulltime this Monday.

I'm not one for making new year's resolutions but I did decide to do something for myself - something I think is going to be very important for me this year as a full time out of the house working mother and wife so have started a running program with a friend and hopefully in a couple of months I will be able to announce on here that I can run 5km non-stop!

Will be back next week with all the details of the Little Guy's Party.

P.S - My blog is looking very 'unpretty' at the moment - I am working on a re-vamp and will hopefully have it up soon.

Merry Christmas!

The last couple of days have been filled with last minute Christmas preparations, shopping and wrapping.

We've had a slight change for Christmas Day and now have some extended family joining us for Christmas brunch - we'll total 16! Some of my last minute preparation for our tables today included adding some Christmas ribbon to my candy jars some and some cute Christmas circles from A Little Delightful to our cups for brunch (the cups with lids and straws are for the kiddies and will also feature at the Little Guy's birthday party in a couple of weeks).

Signing off for a few days now for Christmas and a little trip with my family.

Merry Christmas!

Reindeer Food

Here is a quick and easy gift for the special little people in your life:

The cute bag topper is from Crafty Carnival.

Ingredients for reindeer food:

- 1 cup of oats

- 1/2 cup of white sugar

- 1/2 cup jelly crystals (I used half red/half green)

Now Santa will be sure to stop at your house Christmas Eve!

Christmas Gift Packaging

Some Christmas packaging for you today:

Homemade rocky road with a cute candy cane ribbon from Spotlight

These little treats are for my work collegues this week:

Bag topper created in photoshop using this free digital scrapbooking kit from Two Peas In A Bucket.

And I finally finished the gifts for the Little Guy's daycare staff:

The little name tags were also done in photos shop using this free Christmas digital scrapbook paper from The Shabby Princess.

I still have a couple of gifts to wrap to go under the tree but otherwise I am all finished for Christmas gift giving.

Christmas Card

This year I wasn't sure if a Christmas card was going to make it's way out of our household and into the post. The Little Guy is very challenging to photograph at the moment - he loves the camera and wants to hold it. Luckily on Saturday morning I gave him a christmas decorative sign to hold and managed to snap a few good shots. The photo card is based on a Becky Higgins template to which I made some text adjustments and the end result was this:

Last year I designed a photo card and adhered it to some blank cards and wrote a personal message inside. But this year pressed for time I have just sent out the photo card itself. Hopefully next year I will have the Christmas card ready much earlier!

And here is another great shot I captured of our gorgoeous Little Guy: