Callie's Camping Party

Here it is! The long overdue post on Callie's camping themed birthday party. It was a ton of work (partially because I put far too much of it off too late) but it came together nicely and it was a blast!

The things that took the longest to deal with were the decorations and the gift bags. Luckily this theme lends itself to pretty easy food options but more on all that later. 

Decorations first, since it really sets the mood, as with any party, I suppose. Because we had just returned from a quasi-camping trip to Yosemite it was pretty easy for us to stay in the outdoorsy mood. I say quasi since we stayed in a lodge near the entrance. No tent required:)

So here is what we did. 

We set up our tent in the backyard and put our air mattress in it. It quickly became the poor man's bouncy house. It was awesome! The kids all had a blast in it! 

We also set up a sunshade and a kids tent we found on woot a few weeks before the party, but you can also find it here. We connected a play tunnel to it as well. One of the funniest things was watching Lucia manoever her way through that thing.

 I also planned to fill the kids tent with balloons with glow in the dark stars attached to some and some with led lights inside when it got dark but it didn't happen. First because I just ran out of time to buy the balloons. Of course I bought the stars and the led lights so I guess I'll have to do this theme again! And second, because pretty much everyone left before it got dark. I always take it for granted that not all kids stay up as late as Callie!

We also set up plastic campfires (toddler friendly!)

and probably, the ultimate kid  favorite, the fishing hole.

We borrowed this magnetic fishing pole and fish set from my mom but you can also find them here. We set it up in a kiddie pool filled with water.

Also put up these trail/camping signs from oriental trading. They are nice and big and look like the real thing.

I also bought some hanging mason jars with tea lights to hang in the trees but we ended up just putting them on the table. Added bonus? I found citronella tea lights! This bug food girl was very excited:)

An idea I had last minute was to put Callie and Lucia's bears out with a sign that said "Don't feed the bears: They're already stuffed." It was a hit:)  A lot of people mentioned it. On a side note, it made me realize that the girls don't have that many bears! Lots of other weird stuffed animals: meerkats, jaguars, chickens, peacocks, rabbits...everything but bears!

The great thing about this theme is if you have any hiking/camping gear just put it out in your backyard and call it decorations! We put out camp lanterns, camp chairs and bedrolls. I was hoping to find a tackle box to put the "live bait" and "catch of day" in but I couldn't find one that was cheap enough to rationalize buying it for a three year old's party:)

So I did this instead

My favorite decoration was the trail maps.

I found trail maps of where we have gone hiking and camping and pasted my favorite pictures of Callie from the last three years on them. Everyone loved it. It was quite amazing to see how much she has changed over the past three years! And it was quite a conversation starter:) That was one of the coolest things about this theme, it really became a conversation starter about camping with kids, where to go, what to do, how to go about doing it. I realized that there are a lot of families that want to go camping and be outdoorsy but it feels too overwhelming so they don't do it. But I really recommend doing it! It has been a great experience for our family.
Anyway...where was I?

I got some great paper decorations from etsy. I bought this package from a phenomenal seller (nelliev2)!! She was so incredibly helpful, fast and accomodating!  I even emailed her the day of the party and she got me some signs made within an hour! We used the camping banner that said Camp Callie, napkin rings, square signs to label some of the food, favor tags and canteen labels. She doesn't seem to have the package up there now for sale but I bet if you email her and ask real nice she will help you out:) I would use her again in a heart beat!! The tough thing about finding decorations like this for this particular theme is everything is either super boyish or crazy girlie. Apparently there is a thing called "glamping". Go ahead and look it up. It certainly wasn't for my girl.

Other things that I planned to do but didn't get around to it was to have personalized bug jars for the kids and hide glow in the dark bugs around the yard and have them collect them.  I was also going to use glow in the dark paint and splatter it inside mason jars for night time but again for the reasons mentioned above, it didn't happen. The biggest thing that we were going to do but didn't was to have an outdoor movie. We were going to project it on the side of the garage. We will definitely have to do this again when the kids are older and can stay awake!

The Food
This was the best part of this theme! The food is super easy. Grill up some hot dogs and corn. Slice up some watermelon. Make some pasta salad the night before. Cheese and chili for the dogs if you wanna get crazy. That's pretty much it! We also did a make your own trail mix bar.

I kept trying to find little bowls or bags that people could use for that but I struck out on that one. That was probably the thing that I spent the most time on food wise, trying to figure out what to put out for the trail mix bar. There are a lot of options! We did m and ms, dried cranberries, homemade granola, dried apricots, nuts, banana chips, cheerios, white chocolate chips, sunflower seeds.

Another thing that didn't happen because of time was s'mores. I found this idea to make personal s'mores makers that we will have to try another time. You take a small terra cotta flower pot, line it with foil and put charcoal briquettes inside and voila! Your own mini s'mores maker!

The Treat Bags
The goodie bags took a decent amount of work/time. The biggest item was the s'mores to go bags. It was a small cellophane bag with two marshmallows, two graham crackers and a mini hershey bar. We tied them with silver twist ties then attached the labels with multi colored yarn. I love the labels that I found on etsy. There was a little drama with that particular seller, but it seems that she just doesn't answer email very quickly. And like I said earlier, I waited too long to get some of these things done...But anyway...My father in law was a huge help to me! We put these suckers together pretty fast since a certain birthday girl really wanted to eat all the marshmallows (even if she kept calling them mushrooms!).

We put the s'mores kits and the other goodies in plain brown bags that I found at Michael's and attached the labels we got from etsy. The other items in the bags were mini flashlights, mini binoculars, camping rubber ducks, bandanas and mini canteens that said "I survived camp callie" (again from that amazing seller on etsy!) 

The bags were a big hit. The different colored bandanas made it fun for the kids to choose their favorite as they were leaving. It helped to alleviate some "I don't wanna go home!" tantrums:)

So that's about it! I'm very glad to be done with kids' parties for another year! Next year we will probably do the girls' parties together cuz this mama is wiped out! And no, I have no desire to be a party planner, even though I was asked many, many times over the course of these last two parties. But thank you for the compliment!
Enjoy!

Saying goodbye to nursing

Yes, this one is about boobs. If you're uncomfortable why don't you scroll down and read about Lucia's rainbow birthday party:)

I am slowly but surely weaning Lucia. This is uncharted territory for me even though I also nursed Callie for a little over a year. But in that situation I became pregnant with Lucia (oops!)  and Callie decided she was done with it. I had read that sometimes the pregnancy hormones changes the taste of the milk so sometimes they lose interest. Plus, I knew I would eventually lose my milk anyway. 

 I am definitely struggling with this one. Lucia is a great eater and loves cow's milk so there really is no real need for her to be nursing in terms of nutritional value. Whereas with Callie I really had to work to get her to drink cow's milk. I had to mix breast milk with the cow's milk and slowly but surely she accepted it. Like I've said before, these two girls are awfully different from each other!

I will admit I enjoyed nursing Lucia, but doing all the bedtime shenanigans with two kids by myself when Bill is on business trips is not conducive to having a relaxing nursing session. In addition, I didn't want her to get too used to nursing in order to sleep. Especially since we have finally been blessed with a baby who sleeps! She is also getting to the point where she is super distracted and biting every now and then. A few weeks ago she bit me so hard I was bleeding. So I decided to stop. Especially after I realized that for the past FOUR YEARS I have either been pregnant or nursing! I think it is time to get my body back. Or at least be able to wear a real bra! You know, its the little things in life! I packed up my pump in style and prepared for an easy transition. Cue the dramatic music...

I didn't think it would be too painful since we were only nursing once a day (before bed) but oh boy...was I wrong! The pain was unbelievable! Bill was told point blank that if he even tried to touch me he would die. I was just praying to not get any plugged ducts, because there is really only one cure for that! Nursing! She didn't ask for milk for the first two days, so I thought, Ok! I am uncomfortable but at least she doesn't seem to be missing it. Then night three hit and she was pretty upset and I felt so guilty! Was I stopping for my comfort? Was I depriving her because I am lazy and just don't want to do it anymore? No. I reminded myself of all the reasons we were stopping and the fact that we nursed for 14 months! That's not too shabby especially given how many don't make it 6 months. I comforted her in other ways. I held her and we read some books and had some water and she calmed down. 

An added bonus of stopping nursing, sure you may be in some pain but good lord...how do I put this? You have boobs that women pay damn good money for! I didn't completely realize it until Bill had taken some pictures of me and the girls playing in our friend's pool for a birthday party and OMG. Hello! And no, I will not be sharing those photos here or anywhere else! 

One of my big concerns was working. I was due to sub a class a couple days after stopping and I was afraid I would start leaking in front of a class of APUSHers while I talked about the tensions between the US and USSR during October 1962! I didn't think to buy some breast pads but I found one left from when we first brought Lucia home. So I had to predict which side would leak. Luckily I chose correctly! Phew! 

At this point it has been a week and Lucia isn't asking for milk anymore. I am still a bit uncomfortable but it is getting better. One of the funniest moments was when I went to Safeway to buy supplies for our memorial day bbq which included ice. Of course I forgot the damn ice and remembered after I had unloaded all the groceries into the trunk. Cursing my forgetfulness I went back in and picked up my 2 20 pound bags of ice. I didn't want to put them in a cart so I just carried them. And oh...the relief! A nice young man offered to help me carry them out to my car and I very politely said no thank you. But if he had insisted he would have had another thing comin! That was the best I had felt in days! Running has been a struggle but I have kept up with it for the most part. 

So now I am left with some very nice memories of nursing Lucia. She was such a gentle nurser, unlike her older sister! Callie wanted to do it herself (shocker!) so it was pretty much a wrestling match for several months. But the biggest "problem" with Lucia's nursing is that she would be smiling so big that she couldn't keep suction. Saying goodbye to nursing is of course bittersweet because Lucia is most likely our last child and nursing was so important to me for both girls even though it was such a struggle at first. I am so glad we perservered and stuck with it. I know that I gave them my best and that is something I can be proud of.

Callie is smarter than me

Yup. She is three and she totally schooled me a few weeks ago. It was one of those A HA! moments that I will hold onto for a long time. It was after her birthday party (and yes, I am still working on that post!) and we were opening presents with a few friends still hanging out, namely Tia Viv. She is very important to this story! The pictures were cycling through on our Apple Tv, which Callie loves. She loves pointing out people and relaying the stories that she remembers, most of which begin with "'member yesterday when..." even if it was a year ago. A picture of her from the hospital came up and she said "Mama that's when you were born." I was already in the middle of smiling and saying "No...Callie that's when YOU were born," when Tia Viv looked over at me astonished and I can't tell you exactly what she said but she clued me in to hey, callie is right!
 I basically wanted to smack myself on my head and say "DUH!' She is so right! That is when I was born. That is when my name changed and so did my world.
This is a reminder to me of why as a mom you can't just push aside people that don't have kids. I explored this a bit over two years ago with this post. Yes, sometimes they won't understand why you can't come out as often or you will be embarrassed by Callie constantly talking about how she went pee in the potty and how proud she is that she wears panties now but they have a perspective that is outside of my own and is pretty damn smart. So well done Tia Viv. You are definitely a keeper.

My Big Girls and How I Wish They Would Stop

Recently I've been ruminating on the passage of time. Mostly because my tiny, chubby baby Lucia just had her first birthday last week. I'm still pretty much in denial. I just don't how it could've happened. I mean, hell, I feel like I was just pregnant yesterday. The other reason is that Callie seems to be aging at an alarming rate. Especially when I look at this picture.

I mean, look at that face! Look at that sassy girl! Where is my baby? She gets so annoyed when I call her my baby too. She always retorts "I'm not a baby mama. I'm a big girl! Lucia is a baby." And she is completely correct. She is a big girl. She is potty trained now (for the most part). She is communicating and repeating new words and ideas at such a fast pace it is mind boggling. Yesterday I sneezed and she said "Bless -- Gesundheit Mama." I'm pretty sure I got whiplash when I tried to look and see who said that from the backseat. Last week she walked into the living room and told Bill "This is real. This is the present." Is she some sort of pint sized existential philosopher? We are in serious trouble with my little wild child turned thinker. She has recently started taking gymnastics classes, which she loves and I find great joy in watching her experiment with new things. She is fearless, which we always knew. But she is so strong and determined with these new physical feats. She has also recently become obsessed with the idea of taking dance classes. So we start soon! 

We recently went to the Monterey Aquarium 

and she has now found new things to like and talk about. It used to just be the animals or exhibits that we would talk about but she loves the otters, the octopus ("We saw it breathing." I couldn't tell you how long we stayed at that tank watching the octopus' lungs fill up with air) but especially the sharks. 

Lucia, since her ear tubes surgery is becoming a non stop talker. Well, she kind of always has been, but to hear her "talk" is amazing. Whatever she is saying, she is very serious about it and wants to convey something very important to us! She is already far more verbal than Callie was at her age. Callie was much more mobile and physical. They are so different from each other but they are finding places in common to enjoy. It is such a beautiful thing. Sisters. 

Of course there are fights and hair pulling and scratching and pushing but there are moments of pure bliss and love. Sometimes I laugh when I think about how scared I was when I was pregnant with Lucia; that I was inflicting this person on Callie and how unfair it would be to our relationship. But it is the opposite. Our hearts just get bigger and bigger. Callie is so proud of Lucia and how good she is getting at walking. She likes to walk slowly alongside of her. 

I find myself wishing my girls would just slow down for a while. I am really enjoying their personalities and vitality and excitement. It makes me so thankful that I have been able to be a stay at home mom with them. I haven't missed a thing with my girls and it is so special. Seeing Lucia take her first steps last week was amazing and to see Callie get just as excited as I was created a gorgeous moment that I will treasure forever. I know they are going to grow up and stop calling me mama and hanging on my every word and hug. And I'm sure I will lament the growth of my babies, as I am already starting to, but that just means there are new adventures around the corner! That is the curse of the mother I suppose. That they grow up just when you start enjoying them! 

Look at my big girl! 

Valentine's Day 2013

This is an incredibly belated post and hopefully I didn't forget too much!

I got awfully excited about Valentine's Day this year. It felt like the first year that Callie was really going to "get it" ! And boy did she ! Some of my favorite memories are of waking up on Valentine's Day, walking to my spot at the table and seeing heart shaped pancakes and a heart shaped box filled with goodies. It seems like such a small thing but it was an amazing feeling. I'm not even sure if my mom knew what those little holiday moments meant to me, but I'm pretty sure she does now! That feeling is what I want for my daughters. To know that I put forth the effort to start their day with something special. Anyway, here is what I did this year.


I had been scouring pinterest for weeks planning events, games, food, etc for Callie until I dumbly realized she would be at school that day. So that left food for the most part. When she woke up I wished her an enthusiastic valentine's day (even though the night before had been pretty gnarly with multiple wake ups by both girls). Her smile was worth it:) Before she got up I had cut strawberries into heart shapes (not terribly hard given their original shape, and even easier with a fondant cutter) and made pancakes into hearts as well. I use this pancake mold from norpro. Word to the wise, even though it says it is nonstick, spray that sucker with pam anyway. This whole pancake is kind of a big deal for me. I can cook a great many things, even some pretty complicated things but pancakes had always foiled me. In fact, I pretty much avoided making them until Callie came along loving the damn things. So I have gotten a lot better! So, thanks kid! Plus, I have learned that Lucia freaking loves pancakes too! So I'm doomed to a life of saturday mornings glued to the griddle. There are worse things right?

I also made Callie a strawberry smoothie. Very easy, a pint of strawberries, a cup of yogurt (I used greek nonfat), 1 tablespoon of honey and half a banana. It did turn out a bit thick so I might add some juice next time. I put it in a special valentine's cup I found at safeway of all places.

Then it was time to take Callie to school, but first I attempted to get a picture of the girls together. It proved quite difficult as Lucia has been under the weather and wanted mama. Getting her to sit or stand next to Callie was definitely a challenge!
Then Callie was off to school with her valentine goodies. The teachers had requested healthy snacks or small toys like stickers or pencils, that sort of thing. We opted for popcorn, stickers and bubbles. They assembled everyone's goodies into special bags with the names on it with hearts.
I spent the rest of the day prepping for our dinner. I also picked up Callie early from school and we went for a nice hike at Rancho.

The plan for dinner was tomato bread soup with heart shaped grilled cheese. My heart shaped cookie cutter got quite a workout!

And some bubbly for mama:) 

I also experimented (successfully) with an eggless mousse. I wanted eggless so that Lucia could have some too.  Although she ended up filling up on grilled cheese so I guess I could have done a more traditional mousse, but oh well!
But it came out beautifully! Here is my recipe


Strawberry Mascarpone Ricotta Mousse
1 cup whipping cream
8 ounces mascarpone
16 oz ricotta cheese
1 pint strawberries
zest of 1 meyer lemon
Whip your cream in your mixer until stiff peaks form. Put aside in another bowl. Mix ricotta, mascarpone, 1/2 cup sugar and lemon zest. Throw your strawberries in your blender and make a puree. Add to ricotta mixture. Then fold in your whipped cream. Put in your serving dish of choice. I used some martini glasses for us. Refrigerate for several hours.

See? Easy! And so good. It was like strawberry cheesecake in a bowl!

I topped them with puff pastry hearts. Again, easy. Thaw some frozen puff pastry dough for an hour. Get out that heart cookie cutter again! Callie loved helping with this one. A friend sent me this recipe and thank god she did, because I was planning on something much more complicated! Actually my original idea was to put the strawberry mousse in between the layers of puff pastry  hearts but the mousse recipe made so much it seemed silly! In retrospect, I might just do a bunch of hearts and put the mousse in there.

I also printed out some pdf pages for Callie to color while I got everything ready. This one with elephants and the eiffel tower was fun but of course, Dora won the big prize with Callie:)

Lucia's Rainbow Party

My big birthday girl

We just finished up Lucia's birthday party last week. I still can't believe she is a year old! But that's another story.

Callie getting a squeeze in!

I decided to do a rainbow/st. patrick's day theme since her birthday was so close to St. Patrick's Day. We held the party the day before St. Paddys. I scoured that oh so dangerous place, pinterest, for months for ideas.

First, the food! I found a ton of ideas online for sugary treats but I wanted at least a few healthier options. About an hour into the party we also had tacos from our favorite taqueria. They went fast of course!

We had popcorn in a black kettle for our pot of gold

And a rainbow of fruit with fruit dip (marshmallow cream and cream cheese)
This tray got demolished multiple times by the kids so I'm glad I took a picture before the party really started! We also did a tray of veggies with colorful bell peppers, tomatoes, celery and carrots. 

Also had a rainbow plate that I found on sale at Pier 1 where I put a collection of dried fruit (lots of nice colors!). I found a rainbow of licorice from Sprouts, and jelly beans from Costco. We had pita chips and hummus. And of course a rainbow feather boa for decor!

I found some solid colored melamine bowls at Costco that were perfect! 

Then of course there were the cupcakes!

Callie trying so hard to be good! 

I'm ready mama! Cupcake me!

Callie showing us how big girls eat cupcakes: just eat the frosting! 

The top of the cupcake was covered in gorgeous glitter! They were amazing!  Seriously, if you need cakes, cupcakes or donuts check out Kathleen DeManti's  FB page. She did our wedding cake too! She creates the most beautiful goodies!!




The Outfits:)
I found Lucia's tutu and onesie on etsy in a shop called Chic Somethings. The tutu was nice and full. The onesie came with another tutu that we bought for the invitation picture from a shop called TickleMyTutu. She makes incredible tutu sets. But be warned, if you are going to order from her make sure you have lots of time! Her lead time was 4 weeks but I would definitely order from her again. Great stuff.

Lucia gets a little help from the Grandmas to model her new outfit!

Callie's sparkle rainbow shirt is from an etsy shop called Spunky Sparkles. It was $20 and Callie was SOO excited about it! Her St. Patrick's skirt was $12.

Decorations

I found a lot of rainbow decorations on Oriental Trading Company's website as well as at Party City. The great thing about doing it close to St. Patrick's Day is that not everything had to be rainbow. I found some inflatable balls and other decorations. I used black kettles with gold candies for centerpieces. The rainbow floral garland was one of my favorite pieces. 

We also did a lot of balloons! A cool trick I found on pinterest was to tie the strings around a golf tee and stick them in the ground. It looked very cool! 

For the tables we did a bunch of solid tablecloths with beads, mini hats and gold chocolate coins. The mini hats were a little bit of a let down, they were adult sized not kids sized, but I just tied a loop in it and they fit ok. 

Activities

We had lots of active possibilities for all of the toddlers at the party, so we had our slide

And of course the trampoline was a hit as always...

 a rainbow tunnel, 

a craft table and a pinata. 

The pinata was ridiculously huge. Thank god we had a bigger kid come to the party or it would've taken all day for the 3 year olds to pop it open! I filled it with bouncy balls, beads and other toys.

After what seemed an eternity, it was open! 

We also had a parachute, 

multi colored cones from Melissa and Doug (which were ridiculously popular! Who knew?) and twister. 

No one really played twister, but it sure looked good! Maybe next year:) 

Keeping lots of outdoor bikes and toys was helpful to keep all the kids entertained

For our craft the kids made rainbow crowns. 

Big sister Callie and her friend took it very seriously! 

They had a blast! Before the party we cut out the center of plain white paper plates. The kids used small glue sticks and attached tissue paper to the crown. 

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They were so colorful and some kids made more than one! 

Callie showing off her crown. Excuse the blood coming out of her nose, but that's Callie! Smacked her face into the bar on the trampoline!

I kept some fun items for the kids to play with like this hat and glasses. Found them in the dollar bin at Target. 

There were other things I had planned to do but they just didn't happen. I bought a white tablecloth and I was going to have the kids do potato stamping. Also planned to set up a photo background with St. patricks and/or rainbow fabric. But all in all, it was a huge success! The kids all had fun and so did the mamas and papas! 

Last but certainly not least...The Treat Bags

I had a blast ordering goodies from Oriental and Party City for the bags. There were clappers, rainbow sunglasses, head boppers, St. Patrick's activity/crayon packs, beaded necklaces with shamrocks (these also made great pinata filler). I put everything into tie dye bags. And what's more amazing? I actually remembered to pass them out this time!! Unfortunately I did not remember to take a picture of them, but they were super cute! 

So there you have it. Our rainbow party in its entirety!