Star Wars Party

My son loves Star Wars. As a 6 year old, his experiences are more along the Clone Wars lines, and less the days of Ewoks and Chewbacca. So, when it was time to celebrate his birthday, he asked to have a Star Wars party. And since I refuse to completely fall into the commercialized visions of how my party should be, I decided to explore the blogosphere for some inspiration...this is what I found:

The Ultimate Death Star

The woman that wrote about her party inspired me to do a very similar party. Imitation is a form of flattery, yes? Let's discuss:

My son's birthday is in October, so the orb of choice was a pumpkin, and with so many people carving death stars out of pumpkins, I thought, hey, why not?

Um, I am no pumpkin carver, like this dude is.

Here is my son's party in all it's glory: 

The Death Star pumpkin in all it's glory, accompanied by Federation Fruit (with dip), and pretzel light sabers - pretzel sticks dipped in colored candy melts. These were to die for by the way. I can't believe I've never made them before. They taste like yogurt covered pretzels. Yum!

My aunts bake great cakes, and can be pretty creative. They were troopers when I asked them to tackle Yoda. They even used a glow stick for his light saber. So clever. 

Though, we did find that Yoda's head, removed from his body, transformed him into E.T. 

Beeeeeeee Goooood.............

Food with a little creativity paired with family and friends makes a great party. Have you ever stepped out of your normal to make a party fun for someone? 

Be Mine, Valentine

My son Angelo is in Kindergarten. Which means just about every day I'm given some sort of permission slip, reminder note or something of some sort of activity he is participating in. Of course, with it being February, the activity is the infamous Valentine's Day party.

Oh, I remember my elementary school Valentine's Day parties...hoping you got a 'special' valentine from that cute boy in class (it never happened). Decorating your mailbox and then taking turns with fellow classmates passing out valentines. Oh, and there are treats. Always treats at these parties.

Source here, here, and here

So, as a parent, I was initially excited to get the letter home that Angelo is having a Valentine's Day party. However, I was a bit disappointed to find that for the most part, everything must be store bought. Well, Boo! Each parent is allowed to choose what they want to contribute to the party.

Since baking on my own is out of the question, I decided to go for party favors. There are 26 kids in Angelo's  morning Kindergarten class. We've been asked to make things simple, so I searched for something that would be simple, but cute, and different from anything store bought. The result? I went to Michaels and made favor bags.

(pictures by me)

Each bag contains a coloring/activity sheet, 2 crayons, a scratch-n-sniff sticker and a little bag of Hershey Kisses. The bags were simple - Ziploc bags with a construction paper wrap stapled to the top, embellished with foam stickers.

I think it brings a touch of home-made to a cookie-cutter party. What have you contributed to your children's party?

Something old, something new...

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." I figure, a time honored tradition hasn't led too many people a stray, so why not? 


My new was traditional - I bought my wedding dress new - very easy. I loved wearing my white dress for my wedding, but it felt, well, common. How do you stray from traditional without straying too far away from my traditional wedding?

Why, my shoes of course! Payless Shoes has a line of dyable shoes that happened to work perfectly for what I needed. I chose to make these bad boys the same blue that I put throughout my wedding and reception. Periwinkle is a difficult color to make matchy-matchy with everything, but who knew - shades of the color work really well together. 

Metzer Photography

Something borrowed - Oh, you have to love Mom. Well, I love my Mom. She is a very religious person, and during any of her travels, carries several rosaries, all of which I'm sure she used at some point during her trip to Washington for our wedding. The conversation of whether or not I had all of my elements for the wedding. I sheepishly replied, "Well, I have new and blue." She pulled out several rosaries and said, which would you like? I chose this one pictured, periwinkle and absolutely beautiful. She initially told me I could borrow it, and it would be my old and borrowed. 

We wrapped it around my bouquet, and throughout the day it reminded me of my Mom and her incredible faith and love for our family. Today it hangs in our son's room as a constant reminder of my Mother and her faith in God and in us.

Did you take on this wedding tradition? How did you make it work for you? 

Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop

My high school math teacher had that saying posted in his classroom. I remember looking at that sign daily. We had quizzes often, and if I didn't know the answers, my eyes would wander upward. I wasn't looking to cheat, I think I was hoping I would get some sort of answer from the Math Gods, and they would help me get through the quiz.

I've been married for over a month now. And I have idle hands. I feel like I should be crafting something, or trying to figure out what to do with a tablescape. I've spent the last 11 months of my life trying to figure out the minutia of my wedding. Now that the wedding is over, the gap in time between getting home from work and crawling into bed at midnight is well, gaping. I feel lost, and I find myself circling our apartment wondering what in the world I'm supposed to do next.

Is this bizarre? Probably.

What do I do with myself? Well, besides the regular post bride activities (writing thank-you notes and trying to get my house back to normal), I'm still reading the blogs I used to read (I call it wedding porn these days), and I'm trying to find ways to reinvent myself. This, I think, is proving to be incredibly difficult. Where most self-reinvention should be enlightening, I'm finding this forces me to look back at my wedding critically, looking at every detail and how I should have executed it differently. And, though this is a great exercise to grow as an event planner, it's a horrible way to reflect on your own wedding. In fact, it's down right depressing, and I'm sure incredibly unhealthy.

It's been a serious wake up call. But, I think it's teaching me some valuable lessons. First, the wedding isn't the have all-end all. The wedding is just the tip of the iceberg. I plan to have many amazing years with my husband, and eventually I'm going to replace wedding crafting time with new, fun and exciting adventures with my family. Until then, I'll be recapping my wedding, and hopefully I can extend some helpful party planning tips to you through my successes and failures. Don't get me wrong. I love my family, and would do anything for them. This is less about them and more about my ability to transform from bride to wife. It's a strange and lovely journey - I hope you join me for the ride!

Bad Blogger!

I am a baaaad blogger. So bad, that I've managed to skip over blogging about any details about my wedding and well, got married. Whoops.

Well, miraculously I suddenly have some time on my hands (hmmm...could be my lack of DIY projects that I had to have for the wedding) so I'll hopefully take the time to recap the wedding and the projects and my forward movement into wifedom. Yep, that's a word now.

Wifedom - the institution of having a permanent life partner with duties that include dishes, cooking and keeping the Mister happy in bed. 

Um, ahem. Anyhoo...

I'm happy to be back; I was happy to plan, and I'm more than happy I'm married. Please join me to recap my months of insanity!

And a peek at the wedding?

Picture Courtesy of Metsker Photography. She rocked the house.

I promise to come back soon with many more details about the best day of my life so far (minus the birth of our son. Bringing a new life into the world is hard to compete with, you know?)

DIY Part Deux

Okay, my first attempt to make petal holders...FAIL. Ugly. And didn't make sense. They were awful. But! Let's not let that get the best of us, shall we? No, instead, I did what any other girl does when she's all out of ideas! I look to the interwebs and poof! I found what I wanted!

But, before we go there...let's recap. This is what I wanted:

Beautiful, aren't they? 

This is what I made...

Definitely not what I wanted. So, I read somewhere that you can make cones out of doilies cut in half. What? I can do a half DIY and still make it my own? Oh, I'm sold.

I bought these babies at Party City. I could wander that store for hours. But, that's another story. A pack of 48 was plenty enough for me. 96 of these guys is more than enough for our guests.

Easy peasy: Take a doily and fold it in half.

And then let all your anger out with a swift chop with the guillotine! Er, I mean, the paper cutter.

Roll the half-doily into a cone shape with the lacy part on top.

Tape it together ( I taped in two spots because I'm just well, an over-killer), and voila! A petal cone!

Tada!! And with petals inside: 

Ahhh...I feel so much better about this project now. And it was incredibly easy - like used half of my attention easy. I got to watch District 9 while making these bad boys, and now they're a part of my filling hall closet I call the "wedding closet."

I am now living proof that you don't have to be completely crafty to make nice things! Apparently, you just have to be a good Googler!

Have you ever found better ideas on the internet to fix your own DIY disasters?

Make new friends, but keep the old...

One is silver, the other gold.
A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long I will be your friend.


Life comes full circle, you know? With all of the wedding planning happening, with all of the cyber-shopping and perusing (read: snagging and making my own) ideas for the wedding, I've been blessed to find there are some things falling into place.

First...I have a secret (shhhhhh.....) Okay, really, it's no secret, but it's not something I talk much about. Many moons ago, I was a married woman. For about, a year. Yah, I was young and in love (read: not ready). But, like all decisions that are made hastily and without much reason or experience, we changed our minds and decided marriage wasn't the best idea. Well, not the best idea for us. Thankfully, a decade later and a ton of heartache, er, experience under my belt, I'm finally ready to let go of the notion that marriage isn't for me. I am getting married to my best friend. Finally.

So, why is this so important? Why does this matter? It was 10 years ago woman! Let.It.Go. Right?

Right.

But, sometimes something in the pit of your stomach makes you want to see a sign that says it's right. Deep down I wanted a sign that would close my past, and open the door of my new life with my husband.

Ask and you shall receive...

Two events happened to remind me that God exists, and sometimes we just have to be patient - the signs come. After a decade of moving on with my life, the other day I ran into my ex-husband at the grocery store. I was shaking, and I was with my son, and I did not look the way that I would have hoped to look if I happened to run into my ex. You know, wearing your best outfit and looking fabulous, wishing someone from your past would run into you. It wasn't one of those days. Oh no, it was frumpy sweater and hair-pulled-back-in-a-clip day. And in your mind, when this moment happens, you hope to be witty and say something profound. But you don't, because even though in your mind you've prepare for this moment, you really don't. In fact, I rambled on about absolutely nothing. I did however get out the one thing I knew I had to say:

This is my son. And I'm getting married to his father this summer. 


Now, it wasn't like a let me rub this in your face kind of moment. It was an, "I'm okay. You're okay" kind of moment. He showed me pictures of his daughter, and we moved along. But with that moment, I was able to put all of those insecurities that come with getting married to rest. I am making the right decision. This time, it is right.

But, after such an experience you can lead yourself to believe it's okay to forget about your past; that the person you were is not the person you are. Not so. Through a crazy coincidence and a little luck (read: Google) I found my old best friend. She and I grew up two doors down from each other, and we spent many summers swimming in the lake we lived on. I have been passively trying to find her for years, and only recently was I lucky enough to find her. By strange coincidence, she's here in state for a few months, and after over 15 years of not seeing her, we've had the opportunity to rekindle our friendship. It's a blessing. She is a blessing.

Why do these events seem related to me? I've been given a glimpse of my past from two very different perspectives. Both remind me of  where I've been and where I'm going. It's allowed me to step back for a moment and reflect on what I have, what I left behind, what I thought I lost, and what I've found.

I have a blessed life. I have amazing friends that are more like sisters; they are my world. But my life wouldn't be the way that it is now if I didn't experience my past. Good and bad. My friendship growing up taught me to love and laugh uncontrollably, and to be a friend without judging. My failed marriage reminded me that sometimes we need to trip and fall a couple of times before we can get it right.

These lessons have made me the friend, the mother, the lover I am today. And the introduction of my past into my present? They're here to remind me that life is good. God is good. And things will only get better.