party planning | Revolution of Love

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.(Welcome back, Jen!)

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When It Rains It Pours – Yesterday was a crazy day with everything happening at once! First, as you may have seen in this week’s {pretty, happy, funny, real}, we had a problem with the drainage of our washing machine. The water flooded the laundry room and poured out onto the carpet. On a “normal” day I would be in the kitchen and could see/hear if something was amiss in the laundry room but Matthew just happened to have (excuse the TMI) an explosive diaper and it was so bad he had to be put in the bath tub immediately. So while I was busy in the back of the house taking care of that, the flooding happened. Luckily Brian came home soon after and between the two of us we were able to fix the drained clog and clean up all the water but the carpets were still sloshy.

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Plug Your Nose – Yesterday I woke up and as I walked down the hallway I was met with a horrendous stench – it was the smell of “wet rags” but multiplied since that whole section of carpet that was waterlogged. We called the guys who have worked on our carpets before and they just happened to be in our area and came over within an hour. They pulled up the carpet and inspected the damage. We have to replace the carpet padding but thankfully the floorboards weren’t damaged and the carpet doesn’t need to be replaced. We have to keep the blowers running over the weekend, which will be interesting with little kids in the house. On Monday they’ll be back to clean the carpets and get the smell out. I hope it works because right now it stinks to high heaven in here. Ew.

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My sweet JP.

What? – Yesterday, I also had to take John-Paul to get his hearing tested, a normal procedure when you start speech therapy. It turns out that he is having trouble hearing from his right ear. There is fluid in his ear and they are not sure if it is because he’s been nursing a cold for a couple weeks or if it has been there for awhile. I have to go back in a month for him to take another test. If the fluid has drained then it was most likely from his cold. If the fluid is still there then they’ll have to insert tiny tubes to help it drain out. It could also be part of the reason he is not speaking well. He may be having trouble hearing correctly. Either way, we just have to wait and see what happens at the next test.

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Patience, Please – There were a number of other mishaps to happen yesterday but it would take too much time to explain now. Suffice to say that I am glad it is Lent because every time I was about to ~~lose it and go postal~~ get slightly perturbed I turned my mind to Christ and begged for his grace. It was a good lesson for me to have a better attitude while carrying these little crosses.

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More Lent Ideas – Speaking of Lent, my sister EL had some fabulous Lenten projects and ideas. I especially love the Lent wreath she made. If you need a little inspiration, go over there and check it out Lent Crafts for 2012 and Portable Outdoor Stations of the Cross.

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Bella at her 4th Birthday Thomas the Train party.

The Martha Stewart of Party Planning– And speaking of my sister EL and great ideas, she also posted about my nephew’s Thomas the Train birthday party. I did a Thomas party once for Bella when she going through her Thomas phase but it was not nearly as cute as this one. So if you are thinking of a Thomas party, then visit Thomas the Train Party for some great ideas.

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I Heart Magazines – Lastly, I was so bummed when Faith and Family stopped publishing their magazine and I was unconvinced that Catholic Digest would be just as good. This week I received the new Catholic Digest and I’m happy to say that I looove it! I haven’t finished reading it yet but what I have seen so far is great! There are articles from some of my favorite Catholic women – Hallie Lord, Danielle Bean, Simcha Fisher, Rachel Balducci, Lisa Hendey, Kate Wicker, Daria Sockey and many more. Brian was a little bummed because he said it was a women’s magazine, even though I told him there were some articles for men. I don’t think he was convinced but in the meantime I’ll be enjoying it. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here. (By the way, Mom, if you aren’t already subscribed I’m sending you and the fam a gift sub. 🙂

That’s it for today. Have a wonderful weekend!!

For her 10th birthday, Bella wanted to have an Angry Bird party. She was eager to make her own invites and draw some posters for the party. I went online and found a lot of cute ideas. I wanted to share what we did for those who are planning an Angry Bird party of their own.

INVITATIONS

Bella made her own invites.

PARTY WEAR

Bella designed her own t-shirt to wear to the party using a blank white tee and fabric markers like these. (This would also make a great party craft.)

DECORATIONS

We saw these great angry bird balloons at Tip Junkie.com. She has a free template you can print and cut out to make your own balloons, as we did here.

A close up of the welcome sign.

Bella made a poster for the door of her room.

We kept the table simple, using bird colors for the placements. Since Bella loves candy corn I sprinkled some around the table like bird seed.

I made name cards for each guest. (After printing the name, fold the paper in three sections to make it stand up.) I used the Angry Bird font which is the “Feast on Flesh” font. I downloaded it from here. (I got the Angry Bird Birthday Party picture from The Party Animal-blog.org. There are also tons of great party ideas!)

At the end of the party we gave out party favors in Angry Bird bags. We used the same template as the Angry Bird balloons. They came out really cute so they were great décor as well.

GAMES

Get Those Pigs Game

We covered a few shoe boxes in brown paper bags for the main structure. Then we added some foam blocks and green pigs for a fun game of toss. We originally wanted to make sling shots to launch Angry Bird stuffed toys but it never happened. We figured throwing an Angry Bird would work just as well. The only downfall is you have to quickly rebuild each tower after it’s knocked down so keep some distance between the kids and the tower so they have to try a few times before they get it.

Egg Hunt

We originally planned some kind of treasure hunt but changed it to an egg hunt. It is the same concept as an Easter egg hunt and we used plastic Easter eggs. However, the object of the game is to find and gather the Angry Bird eggs before the green pigs get them. We had baskets filled with green “grass” to be filled with found eggs. Brian hid the eggs out in the backyard and the kids had a blast running around looking for them.

Dance or Game Music

The kids got a kick out of the techno Angry Bird music we had playing during the games. You can download it from Itunes.

Card Game

For a quiet game, we found this Angry Bird card game at Amazon. The little boys were too young to sit and play with it but the girls had fun.

Play Do

We are big Play Do fans in this house so we thought making play do angry birds would be fun. Here are two of Bella’s creations. Since we didn’t have black Play Do we used a permanent black marker for the eyes and brows.

The girls also used the Play Do to decorate their angry bird toys as DJ’s. LOL!

DESSERT – CUPCAKES

I saw these cute cupcakes at The Crafting Chicks.com and thought they would be perfect. They looked fairly easy and fun to make. However, instead of making them myself I thought I’d have the kids make their own. That way we had a craft-game and dessert covered at once – killing two pigs with one angry bird. 😉