It's so fun celebrating Creed's birthday now that he really gets what a birthday is.  I love seeing him bursting with excitement of the tiniest birthday details.  I wanted him to have a surprise right off the bat so I picked up twelve star-shaped balloons and stuck them all over his room at different heights (a trick I learned from Candice when we decorated with tons of balloons for New Year's Eve)

 Creed was so cute when I woke him up for preschool

 He asked if he could keep the balloons up forever, and when I explained that would not work, he said we should at least do this every year for his birthday because he loved it.  I'm pretty sure he actually woke up before I came in to wake him for preschool and he pretended to be asleep so he wouldn't spoil the surprise.

 HE got the be the helper at preschool which is a pretty big deal.

 My friend Wendy offered to stay with Ollie during his nap so I could take Creed to see a movie.  He chose The Lorax in 3-D and I knew who he'd picked when I told him he could bring a friend.

 When Lydia's mom dropped her off, she joked that Lydia's dad said this was like a chaperoned first date.  It turns out Creed and Lydia took this date seriously.  I looked over during the movie and Creed had lifted up the armrest, slid over, and slipped his arm around Lydia. They watched the whole movie like this

We went to get cupcakes afterward. They sat down while I was paying, and when I tried to join them, Creed whispered, "Ummm, Mom, we're on a real date here so can you just take that extra chair away so we can sit by ourselves?"  Haha!

 Then they walked to the car like this, and he even insisted on walking her to the door when we dropped her off.  How does he even know to do that?

 Larry got home shortly after the movie and it was time for presents.  I picked out a magic set for him.

 He got the Mother Gothel Doll he's been asking about for ages (Seriously, I don't know another kid out there who would beg for that)

 And the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world?  A Rapunzel doll soft enough to cuddle with at night.

 It is his prize possession!

 We slipped a Wii game in there too, and he seems pretty happy about it.

 And then, the Grande Finale: With a little late night help from my dad, we put a pulley up in the living room.  It is without a doubt the most played with item in out house.

 I bought this pulley over a year ago, and we've been waiting for just the right moment to give it to the kids. I just wish I'd thought to spend that year looking for a pretty plastic bucket that wouldn't scratch our wall. So far, it hasn't been a problem though.

I know the whole setup looks a little crazy in our living room, but when it's hoisted up, you don't even notice it in the room, and it's on a hook so we can easily take it down if our kids ever stopped playing with it long enough for us to take a break from it.

As you might expect, we now have a permanent pile of random odds and ends up in the loft. It's amazing what you can find to send up in that bucket.

Larry had plans to take the boys to Mr. Cheese's while I was out that night, but Creed just wanted to stay home and play with his pulley and the swing we surprised him with in the basement so our evil plan to put Chuck E Cheese out of business is working.

Oh boy, we adore this kid!

Ollie's birthday party was thrown together last minute after we switched from a farm theme to dinosaurs since he really loves dinosaurs, and it turned out to be so easy and fun.  On his birthday, I used some craft paper and sparkly gold craft foam that I had on hand to decorate the kitchen with dinosaurs so we decided to stick with gold dinosaurs for the party too.

 I spray painted a few plastic dinosaurs from the dollar section gold and added party hats to match one that I made for Ollie

 And we used one to top the giant chocolate cake that we picked up from Magleby's Fresh (I've been dying to try making a cake topper since I saw the idea here.)

 Dinosaur Footprints led guests up to our front door.

 And once the guest arrived, each little cousin got their very own dinosaur tail and we had a dinosaur stomp.  Their little dinosaur tails swishing made all the grown-ups smile. Thanks to my friend Wendy who helped me hastily put these together the night before.  I used this great tutorial except I used faux metallic leather (you should have seen Larry's eye bulge when I walked if with that fabric. He thought I was insane)

 The only other thing we did to decorate was change the chalk canvas in the living room to match.

 Ollie thought it was pretty great.

 We snacked on Bagels and fruit, Ollie's favorites.

 And then he couldn't wait to dive into that chocolate cake.

 Even though he is only two and didn't really need a party, it was nice to see him enjoy being the center of attention for a day.

And we loved  having an excuse to get together with our family. (Doesn't my niece Lucy look adorable in her scalloped dino tail?)

 The next day Ollie put his hat and tail back on and he was ready to do it all again.

 He wears that tail all the time and everything is cuter when you have a tail accompanying you. (And yes, we totally ate chocolate cake for breakfast the next day, and we didn't even touch half of the cake)

Planning a surprise this Easter?

My friend Lisa always has some wonderful surprise up her sleeve so I love doing the same for her. Last year, her birthday fell around Easter. As I was brainstorming, I kept turning to these hollow chocolate eggs that I had on my mantel.  When I saw them at Costco, I knew we could do something fun with them (Costco has them again this year).

We ended up using them to make a treasure hunt for Lisa, leading to her birthday gifts.  Larry and I made up the clues on the spot so we could look for clever hiding places in her apartment (like behind a hollow clock hanging on a wall, buried in the sandbox, inside a box of food in the freezer, hidden in the pocket of some jeans in a stack of pants in the closet, and under the hollow base of a globe). We were giggling maniacally the whole time we were putting the hunt together.

 We left a note just inside of her front door after we carefully poked holes in the bottom of the eggs and slipped clues into them and hid them. I was worried about the eggs falling apart when we poked holes in them, but we didn't ruin a single one and they looked perfect once we wrapped them back up.

 Thanks to Larry, some of the clues were crazy hard, but we knew Lisa and her husband Tyler love a good challenge and by the end of the night, they found her gifts.

I think this would be so fun to do with older kids to lead them to their Easter baskets or any Easter surprises that are too big for their baskets.  Sheesh, why doesn't Creed just grow up already!

Larry's birthday Hullabaloo!

 Mr. Ford had a birthday yesterday. I knew he wouldn't have much time for celebrations on his actual birthday so I surprised him with Spoil Larry Day on Saturday.  In the morning I handed him nine little envelopes with cards directing him to his plans for the day.

Larry's the kind of guy who will say he just wants a hug or dinner together for his birthday, and with all the chaos that has ensued this last year, I'm afraid he's been gypped on Father's Day and our anniversary so I wanted to make up for it.  

I almost asked for a day alone for my birthday to do whatever I like because as much as I love my children, it's almost impossible to try on new jeans or have a relaxing lunch with them in tow, and it's nice to have the opportunity to do things like that once in a while.  Larry always wants to spend his birthdays as a family, but I knew he needed a chance to do a few things on his own too so I tried to plan the day to be a mixture of the two.

I had a few letterpressed little cards from Sycamore Street Press so I wrote an activity on each one and Larry had to complete it before he opened the next one. Most of them were simple things that I knew would please him like, downloading some new songs for the soundtrack to his day (his I-tunes wish list is a mile long because he sticks to an agreement that we made when he was in medical school to only buy one song a month) and a few apps in case he got stuck in line anywhere.

The second one was to meet up with us for brunch.  Third was get a haircut (he's been saying he's needed a haircuts for days, but we've just been to busy). Fourth, stop a Barnes and Noble, browse all you want and don't come out without a new book.  And so on.

I made a reservation for him to get a massage, but the night before he mentioned the circus was in town and he really wanted to take the boys so I cancelled the appointment and bought tickets to the circus instead.

Larry was right, the boys LOVED it!

 Ollie was enraptured by any animal act, but he especially loved the elephants.

 Since yesterday was Larry's real birthday, we couldn't let it go unnoticed.  He woke up to a note on the bathroom mirror (thank you chalk ink pen)

 He worked and then met us a Creed's last soccer game. We had just enough time to go out to dinner and end the night with a stack of Larry's favorite cookies from Flour Boys & Dough Girls (have you had their chocolate chip shortbread cookies?  SO GOOD!) before we tucked the boys into bed.

It was simple and sweet, but I think a good time was had by all.

You've had a birthday, shout hooray!

I turned 31 yesterday.  30 was a wonderful but trying year full of multiple moves, job decisions, renovations, and Ollie's seizures.  I'm looking forward to a little more stability this year, which will hopefully afford us a few more adventures because we have some plans up our sleeves.

The day was filled with simple gifts that made me smile.

Delicious chocolate cake that my mom made (this is what was left of it)

 Thoughtful gifts from friends.

 And this was my favorite gift from Larry because if I have the pleasure of spending hours a day playing cars with the boys, I should at least be able to be the car I want to be, right?