birthday outfit recycle

here's a quick idea for recycling a cute but used birthday outfit.  first birthdays are all about the birthday boy or girl trying their first cake with lots of pictures right?  a friend handed down this cute onesie. but it had a few spots on the front my re-washing didn't get out.  Harry's birthday theme was shake, rattle, and roll so i decided some felt music notes could fix the stain and fit the theme. 

previously worn with love

I pulled out the Heat n Bond Fusible webbing and traced a few notes.  I used lightweight because that's what i had but next time i'd grab one of their heavier weight products to make them stick longer.  (i didn't have time to stitch them down.)  by party's end the felt was starting to pop.  but back to the outfit...

drawing notes on the webbing backing paper

If you're not familiar with fusible webbing, it is super easy to applique things onto outfits.  You need an iron, fusible webbing and fabric. trace the design backwards on the paper backing.

Here's the finished product:

harry's first birthday music onesie outfit

the spills began only a little way into the party. as you can see harry is now obsessed with watermelon. yes he wants the whole chunk and eats right down to the rind.

watermelon birthday boy

i knew the outfit was a goner when the chocolate musical note cake came out.  but letting him get messy is part of the fun for me in birthday number one.

first birthday cake

i snapped a quick after photo before tossing the special outfit in the trash.  no need to launder this one! glad we got to enjoy it for harry's special day.

birthday onesie post cake and watermelon

harry turns one

our youngest oak park baby is one!  

we celebrated on a lovely friday afternoon...seriously the weather was 82 degrees after days in the hundreds.

how many fingers old am I?

Harry loves music and always stops to listen to new tunes.  So we decided to shake, rattle and roll with an ice cream social for his birthday party. 

harry took two good naps and was ready to party when friends, family and neighbors arrived.

ready for my first birthday

friends and family arrived at 3:30 for the backyard bash.

grandpa chuck and grandma carole

Here are a few highlights if you missed it:  we created a shoe free baby zone in the shade.  it was cute how many big kids wanted to sit and play with the simple toys we brought outside.

in the baby zone

The ice cream lines were short thanks to the excellent service of greg and andy.  

jude and annabelle enjoy their cones.  notice all the blue waters

This fabulous kids water turned out to be the hit of the party.  the crayola water is blue and berry flavored.  but the grown-ups like that it was sugar free. another bonus- it costs less than $2 for eight bottles at aldi.

We had a busy day preparing for the party.  Thanks to Greg for taking several hours off in the morning to help the setup.  We managed to pause for a second during the festivities and get a picture.

proud mom and dad

for three years i stored the candle from jude's first birthday cake in our dining room drawer. jude was thrilled to have a chance to put it on his little brother's cake.

birthday brothers share a candle

but harry was not very interested in the whole cake and candles routine.

After a few finger licks with frosting he got down to business.

You can see the sugar rush setting in, or perhaps its birthday joy? nah...sugar rush for sure. but very cute either way!

first birthday first cake consumed all by myself

after the friends and neighbors said their goodbyes, we had a nice time opening gifts with grandma carole and grandpa chuck, uncle todd, grandpa scott, aunt jan and uncle burt.  i say we, but harry was pretty uninterested in the gifts.

birthday presents

grandma carole got the same card for harry that she gave jude 3 years ago. fun!

thanks to all the friends, family and neighbors who sent well wishes or came by for harry's festivities. he did great and this was the happy one year old at the end of his day.

older and wiser?

the birthday photo

family tradition- our annual birthday photo at-the-time-you-were-born- 4:57pm July 19th-  Harry turns one!
In this photo Jude is four. George is 11.

birthday boys

we are all tired and happy here in oak park after celebrating baby harry's first birthday party today!  our little man is one!  more on that tomorrow.  but first we need to share two things...or the mommy guilt may overwhelm.

mommy's laptop is back from dell.  it is on the mend but not completely fixed. the laptop loss has taken a  toll on time to blog and we temporarily lost access to our photos.  i am sorry for not keeping up to date with you but wanted to explain.

second-- i cannot blog about harry's birthday without first reporting on jude's big day (see above about mommy guilt).  he turned four in may.  as readers know i had an amazing time watching everything come together for his event.  so let me remedy the delay now. i promise to share harry details tomorrow.

come with me back to may when dinosaurs invaded our backyard. along with a bounce house.

birthday boy

it was triceratops vs t rex on the cake.  i pulled some ideas from a circus cake on parents.com.  here in no particular order are the top ways i learned not to mess up a cake:

1. circus peanuts

those cheap candies make great boulders or blocks on cakes. the peanuts also made a great support for the frosting waterfall.

2. food spray paint.  

i coated the boulders with my other new favorite cake decorating product- food spray paint.  it made them look old and the rest of the cake have grass.

birthday cake wars: triceratops vs t rex 

3. the crumb coating

after minutes of expert research online i learned the magic of crumb coating the cake.  bake the cake then freeze it. pull the frozen cake out and spread a thin layer of frosting over the entire thing.  work fairly quickly or it may thaw and get more crumbly.  put the crumb coated cake back in the freezer.  later you can take it out and put a thicker, pretty frosting layer on it. it sticks like glue and tiny cake crumbs do not get into your pretty frosting layer.  also when i frost i now run the spatula right off the top edge a little, leaving a glob of frosting.  then i smooth the globs straight down the side. it makes a nicer top edge.

dinosaur cake after candles out and wishes made

note, party hats are very popular with the four-year-old set. i was unprepared and only had a few grabbed from our storage box. there were tears.  don't let this happen to you.

jude's triceratops party had guests digging for fossils.  i found a great kit from lakeshore learning DinoDigKit.

digging for fossils!

for jude the most popular activity was the bouncy house.  the picture below shows how and his two friends from preschool spent most of their time.

wrestlemania

we had a quiet book corner with stories on dinosaurs (thanks oak park library). this is also about the only picture we captured of harry that day.

and then there is the pinata. learn more about how amazing finding this green and orange triceratops was in the earlier post here:  the pinata story   it was a hit!

one of the cute moments came just after kids had their turn to take a swing.  jude's friend owen told his mom this was the best birthday party ever! (probably because at three and four, most of them haven't seen a pinata, let alone been encouraged to hit something really hard with a stick with the goal being to break it!)

dino bites

we also served pizza and tyson dinosaur nuggets.  to boost the health factor i added a big bowl of apples, some grapes and carrots to the table.

it was a fun day for our four year old.  he is still enjoying the generous gifts and fun memories.

now for the hardest part-- opening the packaging on toys

Hottest 4th Ever

We can sum up harry's first fourth of july as parade, party, fireworks and freakin hot!  chicago broke a record with 102 degrees.

Oak Park, IL fireworks 2012

eleven month old harry still managed to look cute in the 'first fourth' bib.  mommy's been holding onto this one since jude was an infant.

cute on number two

harry's first fourth of july

oak park, illinois, has a lot of advantages.  lots of people, small footprint.  which means we can walk to the parade and see neighbors and friends along the way.  today we met up with friends Catherine, Gigi and Andrew to watch the celebrities like uncle sam!  bonus: jude got one more day out of his fourth of july hat.

stars and stripes forever!

After wishing for an ice bath but settling for ac for a few minutes, we were off to a thankfully indoor potluck and playtime.  jude, harry and four girls under seven.  jude watched his first princess sing-along dvd. we hear he was not impressed.

lunchtime with dad

can i get some AC?

We had the yearly dilemma of bedtime and fireworks.  we believe in the benefits(thanks weissbluth) of early bedtimes and well-rested kids.  this year we put harry and jude to bed as normal (6:45 for harry, 7ish for jude) except jude enjoyed a chance to head to bed in his clothes.

the plan was to get them up at 8:30 to head to the stadium for fireworks.  harry got some rest but mister jude didn't sleep.  the experiment did give mommy and daddy a quiet hour to recover so it still felt like a win.  sadly daddy used his hour to confirm that mommy's laptop hard drive is a goner.

but back to happier times... here are a few shots from the fireworks adventure:

jude and mom on the way in, all smiles

during the fireworks. less smiles, more hiding

we tried to use the peltor kids ear muffs, basically noise cancelling headphones, for harry.  jude got them from greg's co-workers as a baby gift(i heard gwyneth uses them for her kids).  they worked like a charm on infant jude- he slept through two years of fireworks.  tonight mister harry would have none of it. he cried when they got near his head.  jude eventually slipped them on which made his fireworks experience a bit better. though he still saw more of dad's back than the show.

thanks greg for doing the heavy lifting while mommy got to lean back and ooo and awe.

happy fourth friends. happy birthday america.