Monster Jeans

I LOVE Pinterest. I am getting the best ideas from there. This being one of them. My sewing machine is not thin enough for me to sew Monkey's holes in his jeans. When I saw this idea I thought it was perfect. He loves all his new Monster Jeans!

Dr Suess Day

Anyone who's anybody has definitely heard of good ole Dr Seuss. The kids school always celebrates "Read Across America." The kids love it because it is an entire week of fun activities at school. On the last day the kids got to wear their pj's to school. I forgot to get a picture of them but it was really cute.

The night before I packed them a Dr Seuss lunch that I had seen online a few years ago but never ended up doing. This year I was determined to do it. I had to switch it up a little but it was pretty much the same idea.

This was the little note I made to put inside their lunches.

The lunch consisted of hard boiled eggs (dyed green), cubed ham, pink yogurt drink, blue jello, fish crackers and marshmallows. The kids all said they had so much fun with it.

Each class was to have a parent bring in cupcakes. I saw a similar idea on Pinterest and tried to make them with a little twist of my own.  

These things had some serious frosting on them.  

I had so much fun doing this for the kids. And to make it more special for me is that they LOVED me doing it for them :) 

Leprechaun Trap

Its that time of year again!

Monkey's class had to make some leprechaun traps for St Patricks day. The leprechaun's always seem to come out this time of year and make a mess in the classrooms.

Monkey was determined to catch one. We weren't sure what we were going to do but then we got this idea of a leprechaun falling into a shoe. Perfect! And most importantly, easy!

Monkey got to work. He went in the backyard and found the perfect sticks for the ladder.

He wanted a rainbow on his trap to lure the leprechaun in. We decided to make one come out of the shoe. He added some cotton balls and jewels and....

Ta-Da! A leprechaun trap!

Monkey's teacher had asked me for some ideas on what to do with the class. I found this one idea on Pinterest and thought it was perfect. The leprechaun left a note for the kids saying sorry for the all the mischief he had caused this week and left each child a "shiny lucky penny."

Umm....I went to 5 banks trying to find brand new pennies and apparently they don't have them? Weird, I know. So basically I had to shine all of them MYSELF!

Monkey loved his lucky penny.

Now back to the leprechaun traps. As we were working on Luke's, we all started laughing at the progression of the kids Kindergarten traps.

This was Lola's trap. We obviously had no idea what to do and when we brought it to school we noticed that apparently we were the only ones that had that problem. All the other traps were big and amazing. Poor girl. I still don't even know how this was suppose to catch a leprechaun.

Big Guy's trap got a better. We knew we had to really think about how the leprechaun was going to get trapped. The trap door on top was perfect! Big Guy made the ladder, rainbow and told me where to put the glue so he could place on the stones and felt where it needed to go.

And then there is Monkey's. See the progression.

This week Bear actually decided to make a new trap. A few years late but at least its to her liking now.

Thank goodness we never have to do this again!

Pokemon Birthday Party

This year when I asked Monkey what kind of birthday party he wanted I wasn't surprised when he told me he wanted a Pokemon Birthday Party. I went to work on the invitations right away. I wanted them to look like a Pokemon card.

Here was the end result. Here was the front of the invitations.

The back.

Next thing to work on was his birthday banner. I decided to make Pokeballs with Pikachu's. I like the way it turned out. 

As far as the decorations I went to the dollar store for some inspiration. That's the place that inspires me. Why? Because its cheap. Luckily I did get some ideas. I made pokeballs out of dollar store paper plates and felt. I also went online and printed up some pictures of some Pokemon characters. Then cut them out and hung them up.

The garland hanging from the fan was those plastic hockey balls with holes in them. I just covered them with colored duck tape and black electrical tape to make them look like more pokeballs.

This was suppose to be a Pikachu head. I went to Wal-mart and saw this big yellow ball. I thought if I added some stuff to it, it might actually resemble Pikachu. (the random Clifford was because Monkey was star student and got to take the class mascot home.)

These Pikachu heads were actually yellow eggs from the Easter section at the dollar store. I just added some ears, yellow confetti paper and drew a face on them. Perfect. The table scape was a big felt Pokeball.

The final tablescape.  

Monkey wanted a Pikachu cake and so that's what he got. This cake was 5 layers high. The ears were sugar ice cream cones and the arms and legs were Twinkies. The cheeks were red fruit rollups cut into circles. 

The present area.

More Pokeballs and a homemade felt Pikachu glued onto poster board for Monkey. He loved it.

As far as the games I found a great blog online that gave me the idea for the "Hunt for Pokeballs." I found some ping pong balls at the dollars and colored them red and black. Then we hid them around the house and the kid who found the most won the prize.

The next game was "Pass the Pikachu." The big Pikachu head was perfect for this. Although half way in we realized that we should probably take the ears off since they were almost poking kids eyes out. Other than that it was perfect.  

When it was time to leave, everyone got a party favor. Each favor had a homemade coloring book. I love making these. They are cheap and easy. Each guest also recieved pokemon cards. These can get expensive but I bought 100 used (but like new) cards for $9. Also each favor had a personalized Pokemon card that I made and had laminated for them. I asked each parent to email me a picture of their son/ daughter so I could personalize each card. I found this website online that allowed me to make these. Then I found another website that if I plugged in the child's name and favorite color in, it was give me their "Pokemon name" and bio. It was perfect. Here were my kids cards.

The favors.

Beyblade Birthday Party

This year Big Guy wanted a Beyblade party. In case you don't know, Beyblade is the hottest craze amongst kids right now. It's all about these metal top things that battle against each other.

I had no idea what to do for this party. There were no decorations anywhere except online which I didn't have time to order. I even tried to convince my son to change his theme to a Nerf Gun Party. That worked for about a day and then he was back to Beyblade. I had no motivation or inspiration for this theme. I was struggling big time. I even watched like 3 episodes to try and get some ideas. That ended up being 1 & 1/2 hours of my life I couldn't get back. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me.

Once we decided we were going to have a Beyblade tournament I started with the invitations. I tried to play on the wording in the cartoon.

The front. I photoshopped Big Guys face on the front.

The Back

Next was the birthday banner.

As far as the decorations I tried (tried is the key word) to make Beyblades with paper plates and felt. Then stuck them on the walls and cupboards.

Unfortunately I forgot to get picture of the table scape with the cake when I was done. But I did take a picture of the table beforehand.

I made this beyblade out of felt

In fact I forgot to get a picture of the cake but I did take one when it was in the fridge.

The tournament area that my Love and I put together.

I put these wire cube things around the stadiums to make it look like the cage fighting arenas from MMA.

The tournament rules

Each guest got a tournament lanyard when they got to the party. With these, I just found the clipart online, had them laminated, punched a hole in them and then put some yarn on them so they could go around each childs neck. 

My Love and my brother-in-law has some referee shirts and refereed the matches.

The tournament begins.

  

It finally came down to the final 2 competitors.

After cake and ice cream we had an awards ceremony. I found some certificates online and just printed them out. Then bought a dollar strore trophy which I printed out a tag and stuck it on.

The final results.

When it was time for each guest to leave Big Guy gave them the favors that I had put together.

Each favor had a beyblade coloring book that I made by downloading coloring sheets, some crayons, a squishy hand to represent the "let it rip" saying, a medal and 2 lollipops.

****UPDATE 2/21/2013***

If you would like to purchase the Clip Art for this Beyblade Party you can click on the "Buy Now" button and I would be more than happy to send it to you. 

KEEP IN MIND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THE CLIP ART INSTANTLY. I TRY MY BEST TO SEND IT WITH IN A FEW HOURS BUT THERE ARE SOME INSTANCES THAT YOU WILL RECIEVE IT WITHIN A DAY OR SO. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN ORDERING. Thanks!

Included in this file is

*Arena Signs

*Certificates

*Lanyards

*Tournament Rules

*Lollipop Tags for the Favors