Mod Mischief

As Axel's birthday falls so close to Halloween, I was hoping to save a little sanity by working his Halloween costume into his party theme. He was really excited about his upcoming Rocket and Groot party, but, three-year-olds being the fickle creatures that they are, on the day of the party he insisted that he would be the Flash and nothing could convince him otherwise. Now that Axel is getting older he has strong opinions on things, like how his party should be, which can be a little challenging for me, but on the flip side he is able to help out with the preparations which is a lot of fun. This theme worked well for the skill levels of a preschooler since nebulas and starscapes don't need to be precise and actually look best a little messy. My little helper and I had a great time baking and decorating galaxy star sugar cookies and painting the photobooth backdrop. His pride in the projects was so heartwarming, I'm smiling just thinking of it.   We als...

  I hope you are enjoying the long weekend! We've been having lots of fun with Easter stuff now that Axel is old enough to be excited about bunnies and eggs. Axel helped blow out and dye the eggs. I'm impressed that we only broke one! We used food colouring, water, vinegar and a bit of olive oil to get some pretty marbled eggs. And it was easy enough for a two-and-a-half-year-old (with a bit of supervision). We decided to cook a turkey and invited a few friends over for dinner. I really need to host dinner parties more often, they're so fun!   I set the table with cute napkin bunnies ( thanks Martha Stewart !) and flowers in some stuff from our silver tea set collection.   Since we have a huge collection of bunny ears for the Billion Bunny March , I had enough for everyone at dinner. This morning Axel hunted for eggs around the house (the ones we dyed and a few chocolate ones too). I think Chris and I had as much fun hiding the eggs...

Axel's second birthday party was this weekend and it was a lot of fun! *evil villain laughter* Our little guy is crazy about balloons, so we went with an Up themed party. We built an almost-full-sized Kevin (the bird from the movie) for the photobooth and laser cut felt wilderness explorer badges for all the guests. In addition to a bunch of helium balloons, we filled a play pen with balloons for a little ball pit that was a huge hit. The goody bags were filled will little tubs of playdoh, Up finger puppets , balloons and chocolates (Kevin's favourite treat). For food, we served hot dogs (like Russell gets on the Spirit of Adventure), cake by Klondike Cakes ,   jello sky parfaits , fruit, veggies and other snacks. We were so impressed by how our friends really got into the theme and enjoyed the photobooth!

Welcome to the future! Today's the day that Marty and Doc traveled to in Back to the Future 2. For Axel's birthday, a few weeks ago, we threw a party inspired by hover boards, flying cars and all things 2015 (you might remember the flying DeLorean invitations we made during the Instructables Makerspace Contest). The incredible cakes were made by Klondike Cakes . Unbelievably, they tasted as good as they looked! We were so busy trying to get work done on the kitchen, the decorations and party prep were very last minute, but we still had fun with it. Axel wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with the smash cake.

Our friend Andrea had a lot to celebrate this weekend: she was turning 30, just got engaged and was about to leave Ottawa to teach in Korea! bow ties and shades in honour of Psy She threw a great big birthday/engagement/going-away party on Saturday. Chris and I helped her set up a photo booth ( just like we did for prom ) and it was a lot of fun. At Andrea's request, we made masks with some famous Korean faces to add to the photo booth props.  We just printed the pictures, cut them out and then glued them to cardboard and bamboo skewers - it was super easy and good for a few laughs!

Saturday night, we invited our friends over to watch Six String Samurai . This movie has pretty much everything you could possibly want in a film: Buddy Holly, Slash, cannibals, post-apocalyptic wastelands, martial arts, soviet soldiers, rock and roll... We set up the living room as a theater and somehow managed to cram in seats for 17! We covered the walls with sheets and put all the movie props we could scrounge up from around the house out on display. We made up a drinking game to go along with the movie and Chris built a wheel for people to spin to choose their drinks. It made a delightfully perfect ticking noise when it was given a spin. Everyone got a bag of popcorn and we premixed the drinks and kept them on ice in a cooler so no one needed to go to the kitchen to top up their glass.

Sally glamour shot It's become a bit of a tradition for Chris and I to host a slideshow party after we return from Burning Man ( you can read about the last one here ). In addition to showing off the pictures from our travels, we try to give our guests a taste of what it was like to be there. This year that meant PBR, pickletinis and Indian tacos. We used The Pioneer Woman's fry bread recipe and the results were pretty tasty, although nothing we could make at home could really compare to food served out of a sketchy roadside trailer. Midway through the shots of scenery and roadside attractions, we stopped the slideshow to show a little video of what it was like to be stuck at the side of the road waiting out a tornado warning... It was a fun way to surprise our friends with the news that Chris and I are getting married! Clearly I didn't know which hand the ring is supposed to go on

Our friends Mike and  Erica are having a baby! To celebrate we got together with some friends to throw them a Settlers of Catan themed baby shower. Lots of geeky good times were had. so much yummy food! There was tons of delicious food including fantastic Settlers of Catan cupcakes by The Litttlest Cake Shop . cupcakes We wanted to keep the games fun for everyone, be they girls, guys, family or friends, so we set up a bunch of different activity stations and let guests choose what they wanted to do. onesie decorating station We got a bunch of plain onesies in several sizes and I broke out my collection of fabric paints and iron-on letters so guests could make one of a kind onesies for the baby. pieces of Erica & Mike One of my favourite activities was the "What will Baby look like?" game. We cut out photos of the future parents' facial features and let people mix and match them on a blank baby head. The results were both creepy and hilar...