Happy Birthday!

Well, last week was a busy one.  My shop, The Nesting Spot, turned the big 2 last Sunday and my son turned 4 this past weekend!

The shop’s birthday actually coincides with Josiah’s due date.  Both of my kids were very warm and cozy inside me and didn’t want to come out so he was induced a week later.  What an adventure it has been to be the mother of a boy these 4 years.  Definitely an adventure.  He has probably made me feel some of the most intense emotions of my life…both in love and anger.  It is hard to believe that he is already a whoping 4 years old.  In some ways it has gone so fast and in others it is hard to remember life without him.

When I asked him what type of party he wanted this year he was adamant that he wanted a snake party.  I tried to give him lots of options but he really wanted snakes.  I wasn’t super excited about that since there are no commercial snake party items to help out, but we went with it.  We ended up making our own invitations which I will share once I can figure out where the pictures went.  I also made a pdf of the pattern so you can make your own if your child demands a snake party.  We ended up doing the party at one of those jump castle places so we didn’t have to worry about the unreliable weather and the kids could be entertained easily and not destroy my house.  Another good thing about having the party off site was not having to worry about decorating.  So, the only places we saw snakes were the cake, invitations, and the little gifts we gave the guests.

I ended up sewing little snakes for the kids plus I added a couple other Target dollar section items.  They were really easy to make, the hard part was sewing about 20 of them.  I made that many to cover all the little baby siblings etc. that would show up to the party.  They were very cheap to make also since I used up scrap material I had.  It also made me happy that I saved all my tiny felt scraps from making animals.  That wool felt is expensive so I don’t want any to go to waste.  I used safety eyes for the first time.  It really sped up the process.  The only oops I had with them was making the hole too big to insert some of the eyes and I didn’t realize it until I had already inserted the back part which can’t be taken off to my knowledge.  This meant I had to get more eyes and cut more fabric.   I also used those little clear plastic pellets for the first time to make them more of a beanie animal.  I stuffed fiberfill up under the eyes and the rest was the little pellets.  I bought a 2 lb. bag at Walmart and it filled all 20 snakes.  I liked using the plastic ones instead of rice or beans so that they could be washed after little hands and mouths are all over them.  I just imagine beans or rice getting all soggy and nasty if washed.

NEWS FLASH!  As I am writing this a skunk was just discovered in our garage eating our cat food.  Luckily it ran out without incident.

Ok, back to snakes.  Here is a picture of the cake.  Luckily, my friend Melissa asked if I had taken any pictures of it before it got cut to eat.  The holes by the head are from the candles that had just been taken out.  I used a bundt pan to bake two cakes and then cut them in half and alternated the curved pieces.  The head and tail pieces were cut to appropriate shapes.  I used m&m’s to make a design on top.  I also used a little piece of red paper for the tongue.  I had read that people use fruit roll ups for a tongue but didn’t end up getting that.  Also, some people have put green cocunut around their snake to look like grass.  That probably would have been good to cover up my imperfect frosting skills.  It was pretty easy to make except for with all the cutting of the cake made for lots of crumbs.  I am certainly not great with cakes but it is fun to try.

The party went great.  The kids all seemed to have fun and I think the moms all enjoyed it too.  For food we had fruit, veggies, chick fil a mini nugget roll things, cheese and crackers, and juice and water.  It was  a lot but I wanted to make sure there was something for everyone.  My son isn’t a huge fan of the chicken nuggets so he would eat the bread and give me the chicken.  I love them so it wasn’t too big of a hardship.

The last couple nights have ended with epic light saber battles between son and father.  Josiah has become a huge fan of all things star wars recently.  We’re not totally sure why since he has never seen the movies.  He was given his own light saber at the party and Ken was given one a few years ago so now the two of them can go at it.

We actually had his party the day before his birthday so we decided to continue to celebrate on his big day.  After he was asleep, Ken and I snuck in his room and hung up streamers everywhere and layed balloons all over the floor.  It is a good thing he is such a sound sleeper because it is hard to be quiet while hanging streamers.  The only downside to the plan was the fact he woke up 3 times during the night yelling for his blanket to be put back on.  I kept thinking he would see it all but he never did.  Poor Ken had to crawl through the room each time to get to his bed.  We also made him a special waffle breakfast and then let him open his presents from us and his grandparents.  Here is a picture of his room later in the day.  The balloons are not all visible and the room has become a mess but you get the idea.

It was a good weekend.

To celebrate my shop’s birthday I gave a discount to all my faithful facebook followers.  So if any of you reading happen to not be facebook fans, go ahead and “like” me so you can get future discounts.  If you go to my shop, below the banner is a button to like me on facebook.

Now on to the next events…the holidays.  I told myself I’d sew an advent calendar this year so I need to get on that quickly.