Adventure 10

The Night Cirucs by Erin Morgenstern is probably one of the most enchanting books that I have ever read. After reading it about two years ago I wanted to do some kind of Night Circus themed party. Then a friend of mine started a book club and she had read the Night Circus too. We discussed doing The Night Circus for one of the months in book club. A whole year went by and I decided to do it, décor and all.  I spoke a little bit about it in Adventure 5. The book is full of wonderful ideas to make it all come alive but so is pinterest. I came across this pin for playing card garland. we happen to have a ton of playing cards that we don't use (these round ones being one set) so i taped them to some red and white bakers twine and hung them behind the food table.

Crepe paper in black and white was a dream.

 there were two other book clubs, Delicious Reads and Things I Love, that i kept coming across on pinterest that inspired quite a bit of our book club.

 

 

after reading through the book a second time I kept thinking that we needed to have a fire pit like in the book. we had a black plastic caldron from Halloween and some wood and Christmas lights and I was able to make a fire to keep the circus alive.

 

 

if you look closely there is even a book at the bottom of it just like Marco put in his fire to keep connected to the circus. I came across these two pins that helped inspire my little pretend fire.

Here and Here.

 

 once you walked into the door you encountered the Fortune Teller's tent where you could pick up your fortune (in the form of a paper cookie.)

i saw this and this and this pin that helped me make them a bit.

 

this was my den and where the conversation about the book took place. (the main circus tent)

 

along with the Fortune teller's tent you could stop at the Bedtime Stories tent where you could open bottles and jars that may take to different places. 

before walking into my kitchen you encountered The Wishing Tree

 not all of the ladies made new wished ignited by old ones but some of them did

 

once in the kitchen you got to be in The ice garden, where there was rock candy and ice water.

 

 

here is the main food table. I knew that Chocolate mice was going to for sure be on the menu, as well as popcorn and some sort of caramel dipping sauce.

I attempted to make mini caramel apples, (scooping apples out with a fruit baller) that was difficult to do, I wasn't getting round balls and then I dipped them in the caramel and put them in mini cupcake liners. peeling the liner away from the caramel was difficult and the paper stuck to the bottom of the apples/caramel.

I purchased the popcorn containers at hobby lobby.

 

cups were a no brainer, I used the mason jars that I had on hand and the black and white paper straws that I already had as well.

the punch was equal parts, apple juice, cranberry juice and ginger ale (which was a big hit)

 

I had hoped that the chocolate mice would come out  looking more like these.

they were not very easy to make but my husband assured me that they did, indeed look like mice and while they weren't as pretty as the ones in the link they sure were good.

I used yellow cake mix and vanilla frosting and the milk chocolate candy melts.

the tails were the pull apart twizzlers and some of the mice have the almond slivers for ears.

 

chocolate mice were getting difficult to make so I made a few cake balls to put out which were quite a bit easier but still difficult. (I should add at this point that this was my second attempt to make cake balls. the first one was a complete fail I didn't even get to the chocolate dipping part.)



 

and then, the book club could not be a book club without these ladies.

the Reveurs

if you saw my earlier post about the circus being canceled because of the weather (this was a rescheduled event) there were about five or six other ladies that would have been here if not for the crazy March weather we were having. I am grateful for these ladies that were still able to make it even though we had to reschedule. it was a lot of fun.

 

Adventure 10

 

Closed Due to Inclement Weather

 

stay tuned for Adventure 10 to be posted later this weekend.

Adventure 9

Snow days

Over the past two weeks we have had maybe one full day of school because of snow days.

here is my snowflake princess

 

there is just something magical about falling snow. it was so much fun to watch it falling and then go be able to go out in it.

 

 these pictures starts the second snow day that we had. it didn't start to come down until around 2 and it snowed until 10 that night

 

 this is the next morning after the 8 hours of snow

 

and we played in it pretty much all day

it quickly started to melt that day and then it was still around the next day even though everyone went back to school. it was fun but I am ready for warmer weather.

and guess what.....they are calling for another snow this week. oh how I wish it would all just go away

Adventure 8

The Gift.

Gifting adventure. YES! a gifting adventure. My nephew turns 10 today. 10! 10! 10! it seems like he was just born. I can't believe that he is in the double digits. One thing about my nephew that i love is that he loves "little things"

he has since he was tiny and it has stuck with him. i love that about him. he doesn't care what other boys are doing or are into he just loves his little things and his pockets are always filled with some.

i saw Ashley Ann from Under the Sycamore post something on instagram about this super awesome site and came across this cool tiny/little photo books.

that was the main item that i wanted to give him but added the cute little squidlets (as they are called by the shop owner) you can check out her cute crochet animals at her shop here, the mine craft mystery box and the tiny dinosaur.

check out these tiny books.

are they not just the cutest thing that you have ever seen. i made one of just him. pictures of him doing things that he likes to do. one of all the people in his life, family, that loves him so much and then one of different things that he likes, baseball, legos, minecraft, the space and rocket center, four wheeling.

i mean seriously! are they not cute. Barbie even loves them. and i wish that i had done the one other cool thing they do. they have a magnet in each one and can stick to the fridge. super cool.

here is one of the tiny plush octopus things that we gave him.

i made sure that everything was wrapped up in tiny boxes of course and than tagged it with a tag that said. We love every "little thing" about you!

his birthday was at the stake rink. it has been for the past couple of years and it is the only time that we ever go and it always brings back memories of the skate rink that i used to go to when i was a kid. there are lots of fun and fond memories tied to the skate rink. 

this year was slightly difficult because Golden boy was in a wheel chair. read more about why he is in a wheel chair here.

we explained that he couldn't skate before leaving for the party but there was still lots of tears once we got there because he still wanted to skate. they said that it was fine for him to get out there in his wheel chair but it just took him a while to work through it all and he was out being pushed by his cousin, the birthday boy, who he loves dearly and enjoying himself.

 

little girl also had a great time. she had to use this walker thing (which i think is genius) but she really didn't want to use it. she wanted to try so badly to skate on her own but kept falling and i didn't need another broken/fractured bone in the family.

 

adventures in skating once a year is always fun times. maybe next year i will actually get out there and skate.

Adventure 7 and 7.5

"never a dull moment" should be writing in our home somewhere. why? because it is so very true. on Friday night Golden Boy went to a friends birthday party at a local trampoline place. the jump time was an hour and a half. I think the he and the other boys spent pretty much all of their time in the dodge ball arena. it was fun to watch. when their time was up they called them all off the floor. Golden boy took the trampolines across the floor one by one and halfway across came down wrong on his foot and sprained it. neither the hubby or I saw it but we were told he was hurt and raced to get him off the floor. the next morning we took him to the orthopedic and got xrays  

and we were told that he would need to wear a boot. he has had a good bit of rest and some ice and elevation and the boot for compression but he still can't put any pressure on it. I am hopeful that tomorrow he will try. so that is our adventure 6.5

this adventure was just too good not to share it.

I wish it was good like we bought an rv but it is good like we went to the rv show and it was great because it helped us to narrow down what we want and don't want in a first camper trailer.

this would our first family rv show (when I was a little girl my parents took me and my sister to rv shows a good bit, so I was pretty excited to take my kiddo's the their first one)

this shot of little girls is in an R-Pod RV and it had bunk beds (which I think is a must for what we want) but the other bed was just a table bed. I wish I would have got a picture of the full rv thought because it was precious. so our list of wants for a camper

small (a lite)

bunk beds

at least a toiled (a shower would be nice but not a necessity)

a small kitchen

a table

a bed for the hubby and I

the rvs that we looked at that I drooled over were 5th wheels. I never really knew that to expect with a 5th wheel. I just knew that you would need a big truck to tow it and we didn't have a big truck so that wasn't really something that we were looking at.

but oh my the awesome-ness of some of the 5th wheels that we looked at.

let me say just how much I love this picture. Golden boy has loved him some ninja turtles but I am thrilled that little girl not only got in the picture but stood right between with for the picture and smiled her big beautiful smile with very little hesitation

this right here.........can i have it. it won't fit all four of us but my sweet hubby assured me that we can have one when we retire. i mean look at that arched door way.

it pretty much has a tabl/bed, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom (toilet only)

i die........look at the greatness of this little guy. i am drooling.

this......outside kitchen

i saw these in so many rvs and it is something that i never considered before but would totally love.

finally after the RV show......we parked close to a train track and Golden boy is quite taken with anything that has to do with trains so a walk (well he was carried) across the tracks was a must.

Valentine's

Pinterest is just swarming with cute ideas for valentine's day.

I posted earlier about what little girl and I did for her classmates.

below are some ideas that I came across for teachers and for golden boy's class mates.

lets start with the teachers

 

I came across this pin that my sister actually pinned to make for her hubby. (he is a robot and building stuff kind of guy, it is pretty awesome)

I loved it so much and remembered that I still had some small nuts from my sister's baby shower.

the pin is actually a compilation of valentine goodies that links you to the original source. kind of what I am doing there. so here is the original link for the "I'm 'NUTS' about you" pin. I just loved the way they came out. they are for golden boys teacher and his hearing and speech specialists/therapists.

 

next we have the valentine's for little girls teachers. she has two teachers in her class.

I stumbled upon this pin and just loved the idea.

Wal-Mart had a double pack of the original burt's bees so I grabbed that.

the link opens you up to a free printable to make this and instructions on how to go about it all.

I don't have a colored printer so I improvised. I had the letter stamps that I got in Targets $1-$3 section last year, sharpies, card stock, ink pads and washi tape. after writing and stamping and taping the card stock, I had my daughter finger print some little yellow thumbs on the card and then we turned them into cute bees. I wrote Happy Valentine's Day! on the bottom and presto! they are completed.

this last one for golden boy's classmates is a compilation of two different pins that I found.

this one  and this one

I found the air heads in the dollar section of Target. I got two bags of them and they were just the right amount for all of his classmates and for he and little girl to each have one too.

I took the idea of the cut out heart from the first one (but instead of printing "Love is in the Air" on the hearts) I had wrote them and then took the idea from the second one, covering up the 'Head' word on air head with some paper and tape and then writing "Love is in the...." and the word Air from the "Air Head" is there. he addressed the back of them with to: and from:

there were other air head ideas like this one and this one.

in the end I love the way they came out and I think that he does too.