Our COW party!

This year, Emma's birthday party's theme was COW! Yes, cows! Oh I had so many ideas, but only few of them came true. But I didn't stress. I had so much fun crafting and creating. There is lots to share so let's get going shall we.

 

Invites were cows, of course! The nose of the cow was felt which added that extra specialness in them. It was hubby's idea and I totally want to give him the credit as I thought it was awesome! Not many people have had cow themed birthday parties so as I was thinking of the text I searched a lot of cowboy parties and took some ideas from them.

Because of all last years presents were noisy and flashing plastic toys I had to step in somehow this year. Hense the text at the bottom. I absolutely hate all those type of toys and don't really want them at our house. But how do you tell that to your family and friends? Any ideas?

I admit that I did slip up a bit with her outfit. She looks more like a Grease girl than a cow girl. It's the skirt.. I thought it was very cowgirly when I got the material, but somehow it just doesn't work. I still love the material and the way it turned out, just a bit wrong theme. Oh well, I'm sure we can get many more uses out of it this summer. And it was so easy to make! Yes, easy was the way I went this year.

Couldn't find any boots, but her aunty did her hair which was so pretty and fitting for the occasion. Thank goodness for awesome aunties!

As the guests arrived they were greeted by a line of cowboy scarfs. Everyone got their own. I got 5 different patterns so that they didn't all have the same. All the kids looked so cute with them on and I think my own cowboy was pretty darn handsome too. I made a few bigger ones for us parents.

I also made some buntig to hang around the place. All made from old things like sheets, mens shirts, table cloths and so forth. So very well recycled and it didn't cost me much more than time used for sewing and cutting.

I didn't make it in time to get good shots of our food. That's ok, at least it means that people were enjoying it. I think the coolest thing we did this year, concerning food, was our milkshake bottles. And of course that's the one thing I didn't get any pictures of, so I'll explain. We had a white metal bucket (you can see it in the furtherest corner of the table) filled with ice and full of glass bottles that had milkshakes in them. Flavours were chocolate, strawberry and spearmint. Oh it looked so cool and tasted even cooler! It was a massive hit.

My favorite food was the frozen banana pops, so yummy! We are going to make them all summer long. I also made little custard jars for everyone, and instead of a one big cake we had lots of cupcakes. On top of Emma's cupcake there was a cow with two candles on it. One of those silly ideas of mine according to husband, but yet he kindly did what I asked and I think it was groovy.

Loved the food! I put the most effort in it and it was gooood. Three different types of vegetarian pizzas, quishes, coctail sticks, home made dips, milkshakes...

We didn't have many games since all the kids were aged 3months to 3 years, but I did want some sort of activity. Photo wall was the answer! It was a massive hit, so much fun and guess what, so easy to make! We just got a big cardboard box (this one used to have a washing mashine in it), I drew some cows on it and then painted over. Then hubby cut the holes for the heads and ta da!

Notice the chicken who wanted to be a cow. Or then it was just trying to get away from the dog. I kept the heads that were cut off so that when there were three or two people getting in the photo, the extra cows were made to look like cows. I love this picture of the three little cousins, all doing their own thing.

For a party favour, all the kids got this little bag that had a small chocolate milk and a set of farm animal stickers in it. I didn't want to give any candy to the little children so that's all I could come up with. And hey, they got their scarfs too!

Oh what a happy day it was! I felt so blessed that we have so many wonderful people in our lives who care about Emma. Many came from over 2 hours away just to celebrate with her and that means so much to us. She was the happiest little girl I have ever seen and she fell asleep in my arms at 5.30pm. It really took all her energy. I think it was a perfect day!

Little miss quilt

August means only one thing for me. It means birthday planning for our little girl and then the actual event in the end of the month. So that is what I have been up to for the last month. My friends say I go far and beyond over her birthdays, but I don't care. I really had fun this year planning Emma's party.

But I'm not going to share anything to do with this years party yet. No, first we have to go back to last years celebration! Do you remember what we did last year? We had a little miss theme that you can read more about HERE. And as I was thinking of ideas for this year, I realised that I haven't shown you guys the most exciting thing we did on her birthday last year. The quilt!

I wanted Emma to have some sort of memory of her first birthday and for some reason a quilt came into my mind. So I made these squares and printed different little miss characters on them. I made my own stencils and wrote the name of the character underneath the little miss. Then I took a few with me to Finland when we went for a visit in July 2011. That way my family and some friends got to also write a little message for Emma.

On the actual day all the guests got to write little something for her. Then it was pretty simple, I just sewed them together and finished the quilt. On the other side I just printed one row of little miss sunshines. This is my first ever quilt and I realised that binding is not my thing. Or I don't have any idea of how to do it. Next time I might look for some instructions. But hopefully after many years Emma will read these messages and feel the love out of them (and won't mind about the binding).

Above some of my favorite squares. Emma's aunty Suvi and uncle Lassi got super creative and made a song for her. Her grandpa in Finland made a nice poem for her and then her two cousins on different continents drew very nice pictures. Warms my heart when ever I see this quilt.

Disney nostalgia

I'm not too into any of this character stuff that is going around in the stores, but we do have couple of lovely little girls in our lives who love Minnie Mouse. The other one of them just turned 3 and I had to make something Minnie for her. And the other little girl will get her bag a bit later.

Truth is, I was only going to make one bag, but I wasn't happy with the first one, so I made another one. Works great as I now have one present made in advance, and that never happens. I also bought some books to put inside as I thought these bags would work great as library bags.

You can find the stencil HERE. I just drew the image on a clear sheet and cut it out with nail scissors. I made two different sizes.

Then on the morning of the birthday, I went to our local small op shop. Looking for something totally different, I came across with this old memory game. It was in such a good condition, had all the pieces, and lets face it, it just went so well with the bag, don't you agree! $2 later I was on my way home with a big victory smile on my face. I gave it a good clean and wrapped it. Oh I do have to admit that before wrapping, we did have a game with Emma. Oh the flow of nostalgia, all these images from my childhood. It ended up being a bit hard to let it go and give it away.

Huffed and puffed

Our whole family is huffing and puffing.

Me for many reasons.. because I can't keep up with this little tornado, because I want things done my way (or it's the high way for the rest of the family) and because I am in pain at times and feel like I've run a marathon

Hubby, because he has to deal with my moods. No, I wanted the carrots cut differently! No, that's not how you cook sushi rise! No, I didn't want the egg in heart shape, I just wanted it normal and flat. I do feel for him and apologize after I've gotten over my issue. And he tries so hard, poor thing. 

Daugther, because she would want to do everything that is not allowed.

So we're going slow, taking each day as it comes, stay in our pj's until lunch time (that's for me and Em) and try to giggle and be happy as much as we can. Just being. No point stressing.

Swimming bag

Teddy bears riding on turtles, sharks swimming fast and friendly wales waving... All these things are found in our new swimming bag. 

It was another material find from an op shop. This one used to be a curtain, now it is our new swimming bag. We love swimming and go to the pool once a week. So we really needed an extra funky bag, I thought. It ended up being a bit too big, but I'm sure we'll need all that room after we get this next baby along.

Love our special times at the pool with my very talented swimming girl. Oh and to wrap things up, a song that we watch and dance to almost every day at the moment. It fits into the theme plus it's our favorite and so catchy.