Birthday party post: The actual party.

I promise that this will be the last party post! Is it sad that the party was on Saturday and my house is still a wreck? Someday I'll get things put back together.

Here are a few pictures of some of the party action... some guests, some presents, some cake.

Ben and I got Dylan a little red wagon which was a hit at the party. Everyone wanted a ride. Here's Dylan with Macey G.

And of course the bounce house was a huge source of fun. I didn't think that Dylan would give a hoot about the bounce house, but he loved it!

Aaaand the cake action. I was so pleased to see that Dylan was enthusiastic about his smash cake, rather than afraid. Little guy just dug in and ate almost half of the cake (or at least had half of it smeared on his body).

 I also made a photo wall with some fun props, but during 90% of the party there were people sitting in front of it, so very few people made use of the fun wall...

Now that the party planning is over, I need something else to throw myself into! I think that I'll have some mini projects to get me through the holiday season. This weekend I think that I'm going to do this fun Halloween wreath:

Birthday party post: The details

After months of planning and obsession, Dylan's 1st birthday party has come and gone. I won't try and deny that this party was mainly for me, but it was so fun creating an event to celebrate the first year of my Dylan Bug's life. I took tons and tons of pictures of the party, because I didn't want to just take pictures of the partygoers, but also focus on the details.

First things first, here is the invitation:

 My friend/amazing illustrator Meg was so sweet to design the invitations for the party. I told her what colors that I wanted to use, as well as requesting that Dylan's "D" be included and she had an amazing invite whipped up in a few days.

I had originally planned for the party to be inside, but on party day I realized that it would be so much easier to have it outside. That way no one would have to worry about food dropping on the ground, kids running around like maniacs, etc.

Here is a picture of the main treat table:

Aren't the tissue pom-poms fabulous? I had seen them used for a lot of parties on Kara's Party Ideas and I loved the look of them. Kara's party ideas served as inspiration for so much of the party. I was able to check out tons of adorable parties and pick little bits of a few parties that I loved and added them to my own party planning. A super-easy how-to for the pom-poms are found on Martha Stewart.

The "Happy Birthday Dylan" banner was just paper, glue dots, and ribbon.... and a whole lot of time. I think that things would be so much easier with a Cricut, but alas I don't have one. Sigh.

 Rather than doing a big cake or making cupcakes for the party, I decided to head to the best cupcakery in Utah County, The Cocoa Bean. I ordered mini cupcakes in Madagascar Vanilla Vanilla, Grasshopper, and Raspberry Chocolate Cheesecake. Yum.

I made the cupcake toppers with the help of a cut out stamp, lollipop sticks, and scrapbook paper. A little craft that did a lot to enhance the look of things.

I also made Cake Pops, which I found on Bakerellla.com. Fun treat without taking a ton of skill. Again, using red and blue sprinkles I was able to help tie things in to the beloved color scheme.

Dylan's smash cake was a huge hit. I was a little nervous how Dylan would react to a whole cake to himself, but he handled things like a champ!

Evidence of Dylan's smash cake enthusiasm:

 A final detail of the party? The entertainment.
I knew that there would be quite a few kids at the party and I knew that they would need something to do. I decided to do a little splurge and order up a bounce house.

I know, a little over the top for a baby's first birthday. It was such a great decision though- it was a huge hit! All of the kids loved it, as well as the adults! I would definitely recommend a bounce house for any party.

Get excited... I'll add party post part 2 within the next few days.

Birthday preview.

Birthday post coming soon!

A Vocabulary Lesson.

Vocabulary word of the day: Counterproductive

Definition:  producing problems or difficulties instead of helping to achieve a goal.

Use the sentence in a real life setting:
Eating a Reeces Big Cup immediately after a 60 minute spin class may be seen as counterproductive to my goal of getting rid of the rest of my baby weight.

This may or may not have actually happened yesterday.

Stuck.

Currently in a blogging rut. Lots going on, but can't form the thoughts in my head to blog. Stay tuned (all 5 of my readers).

I'm in love.

Old Navy

I'm already saving my pennies for this lovely. I just know that Ben will hate it, but I love this falltime trench so much that I don't even care.

Weekend recap.

1. Dylan got in big trouble for the first time on Saturday. What did he do? He bit the cat. Poor Oscar has shown Dylan a great deal of trust lately and was actually letting Dylan pet him. Little Dylan had to mess up a good thing by sinking his little teeth into Oscar's back... poor cat.

2. Ben and I watched The September Issue. It's a documentary on the making of Vogue's September issue of the magazine.... apparently it's the biggest issue of the year. It was way interesting to see what goes into making a high end fashion magazine and I didn't even have to convince Ben to watch it with me, because he was interested too.

3. We decided to try out one of Orem's newer Italian joints, Cafe Paesan. It seemed like an Italian version of Cafe Rio, with the same style of ordering and whatnot. Ben and I both had pasta- his with sausage and pesto, me with chicken and pomodoro sauce. It was good, but not great, although they give you a ton of food.

11 months.

My man is now 11 months, which really is just beyond me. I still picture him as a 6 month old, but alas, he's quickly turning into a toddler. Dylan is absolute riot and has such a funny personality. Here are a few things about Dylan Danger:

- now standing on his own with no problems
- started taking steps (6 is is the most so far) but I wouldn't quite call it walking... he still has a ways to go
-eating more grown up food and is getting less interested in his bottle
-stands up in his crib and shouts "Mama" when he wakes up and is ready for me to get him
-says mama, dada, baba (bottle), and issy (kitty)
-plays peek a boo and so big
-ridiculously mischevious... he's always getting into everything and doing things that he knows he shouldn't do
-getting cuddly and loves for mama to snuggle him

Reason #283 why I love my husband.

Because I hear him rapping the words to the book "Snuggle Puppy" to Dylan at least once a day.

Not a book that you'd expect to hear rapped.

You all know that I love my Dylan...

Just remember that I say this out of love...

This smile:

Kind of reminds me of this:

Add it to my wish list...

Did anyone else know that there were thermometers that could read your temperatures by putting them on your forehead? Yeah, neither did I. I was just perusing the Target website (as I do on a near-daily basis) and found this little gadget.

Taking Dylan's temperature has always been a fight... he wants to know what is in his ear and tries to turn his head to see what's going on. Trying to hold his head in place results in screams. Another issues that I have with our current ear thermometer is that it always says that Dylan's temp is between 97 and 98 degrees... even when I know that he has a fever. An inaccurate thermometer is pretty much good for nothing, right?

Anyway, I think that I'm going to have to order this Mobi thermometer... I'll have to justify it as an essential healthcare need for Dylan. That should work on the husband, right?

Home improvement weekend.

This weekend was a very busy one. We didn't go out a lot, but we were able to get started on a lot of house projects. The first big project was yanking out some of the scary bushes in our front yard. Things quickly went from looking like this:

To this:

Our house looks naked! We weren't really planning on yanking everything out this weekend, but when Ben started with the chain saw to trim the bushes they started looking absolutely terrible, since the majority of the greenery was getting trimmed off. We figured that we should just do what we were planning on doing in the future anyway and yank them out. We're going to plant some more bushes in the near future.

I started paining the guest room. I'm not quite finished with it, but here is a picture of the ghastly before:

Yup, a small, wood-paneled box. Vom.

I did some gardening too:

We finished out the weekend with a Labor Day picnic. I'll post some pictures soon!

Birthday party inspiration.

Get ready, the birthday party fixation begins now!

Tough guy.

Now that Dylan can stand on his own with no problems he is ready to show mom how tough he is. 

Grrrrr.

You want a piece of me?

I will cut you.

Just kidding mom, I'm not that tough.

Dear Taylor Momsen.

Taylor,

I don't know you at all. I've never watched an episode of Gossip Girl in my life. What I do know is that you are 16 years old and you act like a bratty child who thinks that she is an adult. Some of the things you say are quite atrocious. Think about the way you act and the things you say. No one wants to be Lindsay Lohan part two before you are even legal.

Sincerely,
Me

ps- less is more with the eye makeup

Top 10 Tuesday.

As fall is quickly approaching, I am getting way excited for all the fun that fall time brings. Here is a list of the top 10 things I am looking forward to this fall.

1. Pumpkin Spice Steamers from Starbucks
These are so delicious! Most people take these in latte form, but if you are Mo like me then you will probably lean towards the steamed milk. Part of me wishes that Starbucks would have PSS's (that's pumpkin spice steamers-- not protective supervision services for all you DCFS folk) all year round, but then I guess I wouldn't feel such excitement over fall time flavors if they were always around.

2. New seasons for tv!
I have been waiting and waiting for the next season of Glee, 30 Rock and The Office... as much as I enjoy Bachelor Pad, it definitely doesn't make up for missing my favorite shows.

3. Sweaters, sweaters, sweaters!
I love the comfy feeling that sweaters can bring. I'm already scoping out some ideas for my next sweater purchases:

Old Navy

Banana Republic

4. The cool, crisp feeling that fall brings. I love the falling leaves and the smell of the outdoors.

5. Heading to HeeHaw Farm for our annual corn maze visit. I have a feeling that Dylan will love seeing the farm animals!

6. Decorating my house with all my fall decor- pumpkins, leaves, etc

7. Having soup for dinner and truly enjoying it. During the summer I prefer not to eat soup, since it's so hot outside. Is that strange? 

8. Knowing that the holiday season is on its way! Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, anniversary, New Years.... it's a crazy three months.

9. Getting Dylan dressed up for Halloween. I know that he won't remember, but I'm still way excited. Here are a few costume ideas I have for him:

How cute is that?!? A little giraffe! God bless the Gap for their adorable ideas. Curse them for their expensive baby costumes.

10. Ordering my 2011 planner! I'm a freak of nature, I know. I just get so excited for my new myAgenda planner. 

Friends, what are you looking forward to this fall?