My 2 Year Old!

Well, Lexi has been officially two years old for a couple weeks now! We had a nice quiet day at home for her birthday. We did presents and cake and watched a little Daniel Tiger. We actually went to another little girls birthday party for a few hours in the afternoon (Don't get me started on that!! Lol), but she had a great day and that's what was most important. 

Lexi's birthday trikey!

Playing with her jewelry box

Lexi got the movie Frozen for her birthday and we've pretty much watched it every day since! She loves it and is totally obsessed! She calls the abominable snowman in it "big tiger", because clearly anything that says "roar" is a tiger :)  She likes to act out parts of the movie. She'll tell me "go to sleep mommy" so then she can shake me and say "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" like Anna does to Elsa in the beginning. She also likes to stand at the back door and knock, then she'll say words from the "Do you want to build a snowman" song. She'll say "build snowman?" And then turn around, throw her arms up in the air and say "why?!" It's really cute! 

Just chillaxin' on the couch

Trying on mommy's shoes

We've been doing some different activities this summer. Our local movie theater has been showing free kids movies, a different none every week. So every Thursday morning Lexi and I go to the movies and share a box of gummies. We've seen two the the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels, which she loved. She still talks about seeing "the chipmunk movie" and how the "green chipmunk got scared!". We saw Turbo, which was a cute movie, but Lexi wasn't super into it. We've also seen two Ice Age sequels and she liked those. She still talks about how "the baby dinosaur cry!" and "the big dinosaur says ROAR!" and "baby catch a snowflake!". It's a fun time and she's done better sitting through a whole movie than I thought she would. I like that it's all kids and parents at the showings, so if she whimpers now and then it's not as big of a deal. I also love that it's completely free for both of us!! I pick up a 99 cent box of gummies at Walmart before hand, pack her sippy (no drink for me or else I'll have to pee 9 times!), and we have a great morning. 

Playing with playdough... an obsession lately!

A day at the beach

KJ and I took Lexi to Idlewild Park (south east of Pittsburgh) a couple weeks ago. It was her first amusement park. She did ok, but it wasn't a fantastic day. It was a two hour drive down that stretched into 2.5-3 hours because we had our first experience puking in the car. Fun fun!! She was watching Tangled on KJs tablet and I think she got car sick. So we had to stop and find a Walmart to get extra wipes, carpet cleaner to clean the car seat, paper towels, and an extra out fit. I had one back up outfit with us, but I was worried she would get sick again and then I'd have nothing to put her it. Luckily, that was the only throw up incident! 

Hand car with mommy

So we finally got to the park and it was 90 freaking degrees already. Omg it was a hot day! The big draw to the park for us was that they are remodeling part of it in order to put in a Daniel Tigers Neighborhood section. It previously was Mister Rodger's Neighborhood of Make-believe and now they are updating it for a new generation. But anyways, Lexi got to meet DT again, and of course, loved him. That and seeing trolly was the high light of the trip. KJ tried to take her on a couple rides, but she got scared. I couldn't go on a lot of them with her, so it was kind of hard. I was able to take her on the carousel, though, and she really liked that. She got to ride on a black pony, which she still talks about. 

We ventured into the water park, which wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Lexi actually did really well with the crowed kid's area and the water in general. She had a good time, but I honestly really did not. I hate those gross, over crowded changing rooms. And it was so insanely hot. And then I had to juggle Lexi, getting us both dressed, and our bag. Ugh. I hate water parks. 

All in all Lexi had a decent time, but I am not looking forward to taking a toddler to an amusement park again any time soon! As she gets older I think it will get better, but for now it's a huge pain in the butt. (Haha and I say this as we are tentatively planning a Disney trip for summer '16 when Lexi will be 4 and LO will be 18m! Oh fun times!!)

Samores by the "fire place"

Sol that's a recap on life with a 2 year old at the moment!

Lots of Love, 

KJsbabe

A Daniel Tiger Birthday Party

We had Lexi's 2nd birthday party yesterday, the weekend before her actual birthday. It went pretty well! Lexi had a great time, and that's the most important thing. We did a Daniel Tiger theme, of corse! Last year I tried to make all the decorations and invitations myself. They turned out well, but we're really time consuming. So this year, I still make them myself, but took a short cut... Printables!!! Best thing ever! I found a great invite on Etsy that came with a bunch of other personalized printables, like the banner. PBS also had a lot of free printables and activity ideas on their web site. And Pintrest, of corse, had some great DIY decorations. Printables saved me so much time and they looked great! I'm really happy with how they turned out.

For kid favors I did sand buckets, bubbles, play dough, sidewalk chalk, gummies, and chocolate covered "tiger tail" pretzels. I makes a bunch of the pretzels for adult favors, too. 

One of the Pintrest ideas I really liked were different activity stations. With two year olds I wasn't even going to attempt an organized game. So I set up different play areas so the kids could just run and play and do what they wanted. I labeled our play set as the "Clock Factory Park" and the sand box as "Jungle Beach" to keep in the DT theme. Then we had Lexi's play house, bubble mower, water table, and car out to play with, too. My SIL got her a play grill for her birthday, so KJ put that together for the kids to play with, also. I think everyone had fun! 

Lexi is finally starting to come out of her shell a bit. She's not so shy around new people any more and she's starting to interact pretty well with other kids. She's still a watcher, but she's interacting a lot more. We had a couple little kids at her party and think she really enjoyed playing with them. 

All in all it was a great party! It was kind of nice doing it early and not on her actual birthday. I was running around like a crazy person most of the morning and wasn't really able to spend a lot of time with Lexi, so it was nice to get the crazy put of the way and we'll be able to spend her birthday focusing on her. 

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

I feel like I'm going to puke...

Happy 29th birthday to me! :D

Seriously, I'm so excited I couldn't eat my birthday cake tonight because I thought I was going to throw up!

(I was going to put a picture of a birthday cake here... But they seriously all look gross... Blah)

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is Lexi's birthday! Can you believe it?? It's crazy that I have a one year old now! Welcome to toddlerhood! 

The birthday party went really well this afternoon. This morning I noticed Lexi got one heck of a birthday present... Her top two middle teeth decided to make their big entrance! Fun fun! (And that explains why she was so fussy while doing errands yesterday...) I expected her to be a mess, she even bit her tongue at one point :(  , but she was a total champ during the party. 

Things were a little hectic getting ready. KJ asked his sister if she would be able to come over like an hour early to help set up. We thought she was going to, but she couldn't make it into town early enough. So it was just the two of us trying to do everything and wrangle Lexi at the same time. We were even up until 2am the night before making food and decorating and we only got done just in time.


 

The only thing I would have done differently would have been the cupcakes. I love making everything from scratch, and the recipe I used came out wonderfully. I will definitely be keeping that one around. But for the decorations, I tried to make my own marshmallow fondant. Big mistake! I wanted to save money and making my own was the cheapest choice.

Three options I should have done instead of making my own: 

A) Bought the fondant I saw on clearance, in the colors I wanted, for $6 and gone from there. 

B) Paid $70 for 3 dozen cupcakes from a bakery (I priced it out, but just couldn't justify the cash... Now I can!)

C) Nixed the fondant all together and just done colored buttercream frosting.

Any one of those options would have been 10x better than making it myself. Never again! And it's not even that the recipe was hard or complicated. It was very straight forward. It was just very time consuming and a total bitch to kneed and dye. And quite honestly, my decorations didn't come out looking all that great. Yeah... Never again.

We had a good turn out for the party, lots of family came. All we basically did was eat, do the smash cake, and open presents. We had it from 12-2pm and two hours was just the right amount of time. Lexi was pretty subdued with her smash cake. I didn't think she's go crazy with it, but she really just wanted to squish it. She squished the frosting, the cake, and the decorations. She tasted some, and I think she liked it, but didn't eat a ton. Hey, whatever. 

The food went over pretty well. At our parties, I always try to serve food that is flavorful, healthy, and interesting. I get so board when I go to a cookout and all they have to eat are greasy burgers and uninspired potato salad. In today's world of Martha Stewart, the Food Network, Rachel Ray, and now Pinterest, you can do better than that.... But I can always count on KJ's mom's side to be unadventurous eaters. I had a platter of deli meats (honey maple ham, cracked pepper turkey, buffalo chicken) and cheeses (Vermont cheddar, provolone, roasted garlic), a variety of buns (chibotta, poppy seed, wheat) and spreads (spicy brown mustard, yellow mustard, chipotle mayo, garlic and herb mayo). I thought everything sounded really yummy and covered all the bases of what people like. But of course, KJ's grandma complained that I didn't have Isley's chipped ham (I think Isley's is a Pittsburgh thing, but is super greasy, cheap ham. Their commercial says, "chipping the ham makes it taste fresher... Hammier" *barf*), American cheese, white rolls, or full fat plain mayo. Umm, yuck! Live a little grandma! It's not 1950 any more... Ugh, I get so annoyed by her... For many reasons other than boring sandwiches.

This child got so many gifts! A few of her favorites were a FP Little People Happy Sounds Home, Leapfrog My Pal Violet, FP Little People building blocks, and Leap Frog Pottsy. I seriously love the Pottsy toy... "I like it spicy!" lol

KJ and I got her a table and chair set, some soft play fruits and veggies, a step stool, and I made her a rag doll with matching dresses.

It was a really nice day and I'm so happy to say, I have a one year old :)

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Party Prep!

The KJ house is in full prep mode for Lexi's first birthday and Pintrest is helping out a ton! I've gotten so many good ideas for easy decorations and dishes to make. We're doing a "Little Birdie" theme. I had a hard time coming up with a theme at first because, I mean, Lexi is only 1. It's not like she has all of these outside interests and hobbies. She eats, sleeps (on occasion! Ha!), and plays with her toys. I don't let her watch a lot of TV and even when I do put it on she's not super interested in it. So, I went searching for some inspiration and found the perfect cupcake tree in all the right colors... And our birdie theme was born! 

Here's the invitations I made:

I want to make the majority of the food "Lexi friendly". Meaning things that she can eat and incorporate some of her favorites. So, the meal plan is sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad, sweet potato fries with dipping sauce, cheese and cracker tray (MIL is bringing), and homemade cupcakes. I'm also going to make a healthy smash cake. Drinks will be blueberry punch, iced tea, and bottled water.

For decorations, I wanted something inexpensive and easy, but still with a lot of pop. I found these great tissue paper pom-poms and made up a bunch to hang around. I made them in pink, white, purple, green, and yellow.

KJ and I went to Ikea last month and I scored some napkins and cups on clearance that just so happened to go with our color scheme. I also made some birthday banners. One says "Happy 1st Birthday Alexis" and the other is of her monthly photos. I'm really happy with how they turned out. 

I still have to make Thank You notes, but that will be a project for next week.

I think we'll have an ok turn out for the party. It'll be mostly family. It seems like Saturday is a busy day all around. All of our friends with kids who we invited were busy doing other things that day. I'm bummed there won't be any other babies for Lexi to play with at her party. I really need to find this girl some more friends... I was going to make up these nice favor bags for the kidos with healthy squeeze packs snacks and an age appropriate toy in them. I was also going to do a "toddler food" tray with cheese, graham crackers, dried cranberries, and blueberries. But I guess there's no need to do that now :(

Here is my to do list for the rest of the week... You know how I love lists when I get stressed! Haha!

To do for Lexi's party:

Wednesday:

Clean fridge

Wrap presents

Clean up basement

Finish chairs (my chalk paint chair project, more on that later!)

  Wax

Thursday:

Clean up deck

Weed

Wipe down door

Vacuum everywhere 

Touch up paint in living room

Friday:

Clean bathrooms

Take pictures and get printed

Make fruit salad

Make pasta salad

Prep fries

Make cup cakes and smash cake

  Bake

  Frost

  Fondont

Go shopping

Dust

Saturday:

Wipe down tables and chairs

Vacuum

Put up decorations

Bake fries

Arrange meat and cheese tray

Arrange condiment tray

Make dipping sauce

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe