2nd Birthday: Sesame Street

Somehow ButterBean is 2 years old! He is growing up so fast and each day more of his personality emerges. He is one of the funniest people I know!
His love of all things Elmo/Abby/Sesame Street prompted the theme for his 2nd birthday party: Sesame Street! I had so much fun planning this party!

Decorations were easy because it seems that every party store has a section dedicated to Sesame Street. Any bold primary colors work for this party! I picked up some plates, napkins, balloons, and table cloth at Party City. Michaels provided some cute little cardboard cutouts in the scrapbooking section. We had the party at Gatsby's work since our house would not accomodate the amount of people we expected to come. 

The food was the most fun to make. I made the same turkey sandwiches that I made for his first birthday (big success both times). We also had Abby Magic Fairy wands -- fruit on bamboo skewers

Burt & Ernie veggie sticks with Ranch dressing

Big Bird popcorn puffs (ButterBean gags on  the hulls of popcorn, so we had to get the puffy kind)

Goldfish crackers in honor of Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy. I considered getting ButterBean a real goldfish for his birthday, but I decided I didn't want to take care of one!

Elmo and Big Bird crackers and Sesame Street juice boxes were picked up at Babies R Us on a diaper run, but you can find those lots of places. 

For dessert we had Cookie Monster Cookies and Elmo cupcakes. 

The kids played Oscar's Trash Toss, which was just throwing crumpled news paper into my tiny compost bucket that looks like a mini trash can. Running up and down the hallway was another favorite!

 ButterBean got more presents that we know what to do with! It's time for a toy purge in this house!

I had a great time with this party and most importantly, I think ButterBean did too!

After the party ButterBean insisted I put a tie on him!

party favors!!

Camping

This weekend was our much anticipated camping weekend! We borrowed a tent, bought a camp stove, and planned all of our meals. One thing we didn't anticipate: RAIN! Looking back, I can't believe that I didn't think to bring rain gear. I had s'more ingredients, tooth brushes, and an air mattress, but umbrella?...no! I'm definitely a camping rookie! 

Planning: FAIL

We got to our muggy campsite by the St. Croix River and pitched the tent and relaxed. ButterBean thought he was extremely cool sitting in his own chair and sipping his water. He got a little too confident and face-planted off of his chair on to the gravel, resulting in a scraped nose and lip. So, within 15 minutes, he had already become filthy and scraped up! He was loving it though! 

Child safety: FAIL

Later in the evening our friends arrived with their 18 month son. We spent significant amount of time trying to get a fire started with wood and newspaper, which resulted in smoke, smoke, lots of smoke. We got charcoal...smoke. Lighter fluid...smoke. Finally we got a little fire going, which got stronger by 10pm, just in time for s'mores!

Fire making: almost FAIL

Under a beautiful starry sky, we all went happily to sleep. At about 1 or 2 am I heard thunder and rain and saw crazy lightning through the tent.  "That's ok" I thought, "I love sleeping during storms!"Then at about 3:30 I woke up again to the air mattress jiggling and my husband shifting around in the tent. "The rain is coming in!" he said. We had left the fly of the tent open to get a breeze. The floor of our tent was covered in water (thank God for the air mattress!) and somehow I had slept through half of my pillow getting drenched! I went out of the tent door to close part of the outer fly resulting in more drenching. The rain, thunder, wind, and lightening continued. At one point our tent started caving in on my side. "It's caving!!!", I screamed! For those who don't know this: I HATE being wet in the rain! The whole situation was so comical though that we couldn't stop laughing!! Gatsby and I met in a torrential rain, so it brought us back to 2003 when we were sitting in a mud puddle in Toronto waiting to see Pope John Paul II.

As I was lying there I was tallying the things I had left outside: paper towels, paper plates, dishes, newspaper, OUR SHOES, chairs....yep, we were going to be wet for a looong time!

Water-proofing: FAIL

We stayed in our tent until ButterBean woke up at 7:30. It was still raining and ButterBean was not going to be cooped up in a tent for much longer. We drove into Stillwater and found a breakfast place where we warmed up with pancakes and hot chocolate. We looked crazy: ButterBean was barefoot, our hair was everywhere, and we were half soaked. I contemplated buying a sweatshirt (yet another thing I forgot to bring). The rain let up at 10 am, however, at this point we made a collaborative decision: abandon the camp site and move the party to our house. So, we went back and started packing up our sad, soggy mess. 

Camping: FAIL

We showered, dried off, washed out our tent and set it up to dry, grilled our kabobs, and camped out in our living room. We played games, laughed, and feasted on banana boats (see below). The boys played together the next morning while we munched on our breakfasts and lounged.

Living Room Camping: NAILED IT!

Fun Memories: NAILED IT!

CAN'T WAIT TO TRY IT AGAIN!

Banana Boats:

Cut a center strip out of the curve of a banana. Wrap the base in tin foil so it can stand on its own. Fill the center strip with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees until melty. Then top with marshmallows and broil in the oven until browned.

What a Wedding!

Yesterday our family went to our friends' wedding and I felt like I fell into a Pinterest board! The bride had thought of every cute detail imaginable! I wanted to run around taking pictures of everything, but then I remembered that I am not a party or wedding blogger and really don't need all of those pictures. And, I was chasing a 16 month boy and keeping him from jumping into the lake.

All those little pink and grey balls: handmade by bride- she had to have made 100 of them at least!

Our table

 The reception was held at the bride's parents' lake home. Their neighbors were kind enough to let them use their property as well. So, there were two tents, one for cocktails and one for dinner, both decked out with twinkling votives, gorgeous pink flowers, and pink and grey accents galore. Their grand entrance was coming in on a pontoon and dancing up the dock as they were announced. She had the photo booth with hats and moustaches, adorable pink and grey striped paper straws for mini individual bottles of pink champagne, hand made wood signs for each area, signature cocktails, and on and on. It should have been in a magazine! I loved it!!

And to top it off -- splendid dessert table!!

I didn't get a picture of the whole thing because it was quite the popular spot and got crowded quickly! There were brownie cheesecakes, white chocolate macarons, candies, pink cake, and individual jarred pies!

Too cute!! I had a raspberry pear pie, but there was also sour cherry and strawberry rhubarb. Ok, I had a macaron or three as well! 

What made the desserts even more special is that all of them (except the candy)were hand made by the bride's cousins. Eleven siblings in that family and the girls all made the desserts, while the boys help construct tents and dance floors. Butterbean made friends with one of the boys and was doing everything in his power to get his attention for the rest of the evening!

ButterBean dancing by himself on the dancefloor - he wouldn't let me dance with him, the little stinker!

Butterbean lasted well into the night, rocked it on the dance floor, and got oodles of compliments on his cuteness!! We all had a great time seeing friends and relaxing on the lake! Fabulous night!

Our nice weekend

This was last weekend - it's taken me a week to get to write about it
After having finished the grueling month of July, we had a very nice weekend together as a family

We went to a friend's birthday party where plenty of people fawned over ButterBean

It was super muggy, so the pants had to go!

"Star" of the party (besides the birthday guy of course)

We enjoyed a delicious BBQ with my family: Beef kabobs, grilled shrimp, and salad.

ButterBean was able to swing for a couple minutes before we ran inside to prevent ourselves from melting in the heat

We also had a BBQ with some dear friends P&T. They made us bacon cheddar hamburgers (organic, no less!), grilled corn and asparagus, watermelon, and key lime pie! I waddled out of their house waaaay to full!

Nice weekend!