Leo's Lego Batman Party!

Leo turned 3 on February 25th!
I can't believe he's already 3! Every mom who ever says something about her kid's birthday has to say that right? But seriously. Wow. 3 years.

If you know Leo or have been around him for more than a few minutes you'll know he loves Batman! Combine that with his newfound love of Legos and the Lego Batman movie coming out we decided to do a Lego Batman party! 

We are now in our final year of residency (yeah!) so money for extra things like birthday parties isn't abundant, but since we skipped the party last year and Leo is now much more aware of things like parties and actually has little friends - we decided to have a party!

The total cost of the party was really low when compared to having a party at a party place, especially considering we had about 40-50some people and fed everyone lunch! I'd say total I spent around $100 and I'll share what we did.

It was such a fun day and amid all the fun I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wish I had, but that's life. 

First, the major expense we were able to avoid was the cost of renting a space.
A couple years ago our church had a big "block party" and the teens built an awesome lego table and people donated legos to the church! When I decided on the theme having it at our church was an obvious choice. Since we are members there was no charge for using the church gymnasium (and all the church's stuff - tables, chairs, etc.)  Of course when using something like your church it's proper etiquette (at least I think it is anyway) to drop a little extra in the offering plate on top of your regular tithe.  Anyway!  Having a party for a 3 year old in a big gym was great! We set up about half of the gym and left the other half open for wild kids to run free! It was perfect!

Next the decorations were practically free. I saved all my cardboard boxes from crackers, pasta, mail, etc. and a friend saved me several large boxes from her office and we covered them in primary colored wrapping paper that I purchased at Dollar Tree, Party City, and Hobby Lobby. I found a large roll of red at Dollar Tree because it was Valentine's Day, smaller rolls of blue, green, and yellow at Party City for .99, and a large roll of good quality black paper at Hobby Lobby for $5 with 40% off coupon!
I cut out circles and glued them to the tops of the boxes to make them look like Lego bricks and used them as centerpieces (but seriously a 3 year old's party doesn't necessarily need centerpieces, lol) and with the black boxes I glued on yellow squares to look like a city skyline.

Other decorations were things we had at home - Legos!

Walmart carries Lego themed plates, napkins, cups, etc. for only .99 each! And I used the plastic cups McDonalds gave out in their Happy Meals as a holder for forks and spoons!

One thing I did spend a little money on was silicone Lego brick and men shaped molds! I found a set of 8 on Ebay for $12! I had the intentions of making crayons and chocolates and then decided on just crayons because I didn't want kids to get confused and eat the crayons! ha!
Thankfully I changed my mind because I found that after I used a mold for crayons the wax was very, very, very hard to remove entirely so the chocolate probably would have tasted like wax.
I tried a couple different methods of making the crayons but the best was melting them in the molds in the oven. I bought about 4 boxes of 48 crayons at the Dollar Tree, removed the papers (it is definitely easier to do if you soak the crayon in water for a couple seconds first!) and broke them into pieces, lined them in the molds, placed them on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at about 200-250 (I'm not big on specifics, haha) until they were totally melted - maybe 10 or so minutes. Then let harden on the counter until solid and then put them in the fridge to cool them completely.
They turned out so cute and was seriously one of my favorite parts of the party and planning!
I printed off a couple different coloring sheets on my home printer (so yeah no idea how much that cost.... but like paper and ink we already had you know) of Lego Batman and of a plain Lego man and scattered some different shapes and colors of the Lego crayons on the table.
I also put a few crayons in little clear bags (40 for $1 at Dollar Tree) and gave those out as party favors.

The majority of my party budget of course went to food. I invited A LOT of people to the party. Man, kids parties are hard. First of all we had it at our church and we have so many friends and people we love at our church so they all got invited.  Then I have a lot of friends from my mops group and that's the bulk of Leo's friends so I invited just so many people.  I didn't get a final headcount but I think we had about 50ish people there! 

I made a facebook event to invite people (oh so saved on invitations too!) and made Lee an admin also and a couple days before the party he got a little nervous and was like uhhh how do you plan on feeding all these people? haha clearly he was super involved in the party planning.

My original plan was just like oh we'll just grab some hot and ready's from Little Caesars because it's cheap, right? Well the week of the party I got an email from Pizza Hut that they had 50% off their entire menu when you ordered online! So I called and confirmed I could order 10 pizzas and get the discount AND have them delivered and they said yes!!
So our menu was pizza, macaroni and cheese (that I made), chips, watermelon, rice crispie treats that looked like Lego bricks, and of course cake!
For drinks I stuck to basics and had tea, lemonade, and water.
2 of my sweet friends actually ended up bringing lemonade and a large fruit salad to the party which was amazing and so helpful! Making a mental note to always ask my friends if they need help with food for their kids parties ;)

And then the other expense was the cake, which I made so it was pretty cheap.
I made a shot in the dark post and asked if any of my friends had Batman cookie cutters and was shocked that one actually did! So another $10-15 saved!
I saw the cake idea on facebook and practiced the technique on valentines day and it didn't turn out too bad so I just went with it! I do not recommend making your kids' birthday cakes. Just buy them at the grocery, haha, but if you're like me and likes the challenge, saving money, and how happy it made Leo.... it was all worth it.

It was such a fun party and we have such great friends.
Stuff like this just leaves me feeling so overwhelmingly thankful.
Thankful for that precious 3 year old boy of mine and thankful for all the people in our lives.

Happy Birthday Leo!

Leo is TWO!

My sweet little tiny 8lb, 21 inch babe is now a whopping 33lbs, 38 inch toddler!! He's so tall!  I'm a little glad that he is finally 2 so people will stop looking at me like I'm insane when I say he's not yet two.  Now all they get is 2 and they're satisfied for the most part. haha

I just started a new label for the blog - Leo year 3.  We're embarking on his 3rd year. What?!

I feel like I pretty much covered all the highlights of Leo's personality and development in the 23 month post.  Not a ton of change in the past 3 weeks, haha.  Although I swear he learns something new every single day.  He's learning where all our family is from (Ohio, Canada, and Florida mostly) and working on his numbers.
He's a pro at the number 2 now since we got him a giant #2 helium balloon for his birthday pictures.
Today at the car dealership we were reading a newspaper and I was quizzing him on his letters and numbers and it said 2016 really big and he said - number 2! Octopus, 1, and ummmmmmm what's that.  He's so precious! He said octopus for 0 :):) I don't even use the word octopus when I go over the letter O with him, but it is on a puzzle we have so he's clearly paying attention!

I have a whole list of cute things he's said lately that I'll do a post about soon.  I'm keeping a running note on my phone. lol  He's so inquisitive and observant.  It blows my mind.  And he has a great sense of humor!
Clearly I'm obsessed with this kid, but I just love being his mom.

Highlights around Leo's 2nd birthday would be that he spent 3 entire nights and about 4 days away from Lee and I while we went on the residency retreat cruise!
I was so nervous about leaving him, but knew my mom would take great care of him.  He did so well.  He really is amazingly adaptable. Mom said the first night at bedtime he kept asking - is Mommy coming? And then he woke up in the middle of the night (which isn't very typical) but after that he was completely fine for the rest of the weekend!
Lee and I had a great time relaxing on the cruise ship, going to karaoke every night with the other residents and laughing until our sides hurt, and eating way way too much.  We spent one afternoon in Nassau - which Lee and I had both been to before so we just did a quick walk around and got Leo and my mom a souvenir and then headed back the pool deck of the ship.  Then we spent the day at Royal Caribbean's island Coco Cay laying in the sun.  It was so nice, but I don't think cruises are necessarily my ideal vacation.  I'm more of an adventurer and cruising is definitely convenience travel.  I'd rather go to a different country and just be there.  But when I'm offered a super cheap (and free for Lee) cruise, I'll be there! haha

The day after we returned from the cruise my mom, Leo, and I headed up to Orlando and spent two days at Disney!! Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  It was so much fun!  These annual passes to Disney have been so great!  We've definitely got our money's worth already and I'm hoping to go a couple more times before baby and then this fall with all 4 of us!

Leo's actual birthday, February 25th, we actually spent the entire day at home.  He had Batman cereal for breakfast, watched a Batman tv show, painted, helped decorate, then once Daddy got home from work, not until 7 pm... :( we had pizza, cake, ice cream, and presents!

We got Leo Magformers for Christmas, but then I found a great deal on the train table so I decided to keep the Magformers for his birthday.  They are so much fun! Basically they're plastic and magnetic shapes that you build with.  Lee and I both like playing with them too!  I already want more! haha I think they'll keep him entertained once baby brother is here too!

The day after Leo's Birthday we had to say goodbye to Lee for a week while he went on a medical mission trip to Honduras!  It was a very busy week for us! But that's exactly how I like it!


Pictures - thank you thank you thank you to my friend Amber for helping me edit these pictures after I text her feeling discouraged and complaining about how awful they turned out.  She saved them!

Happy 2nd Birthday my Leo!!!

Leo's 1st Birthday

When I first started thinking about Leo's birthday party I first was truthfully was only concerned about pictures.  I didn't think much about inviting people or decor or any of that.  Is that terrible?

I mean I thought a lot about him turning one and not really being a baby any more, although I think that I might have had an easier time with this transition than some others due to the fact that Leo has never acted much like a baby.  He's always been in a hurry to grow up.  Even when he was itty bitty he didn't want to be snuggled and held constantly.  I think that's also part of why I'm holding onto breastfeeding because it's the only time of the day that I get to hold him and get his undivided attention. But anyway.
I'm also really embracing Leo turning 1 because he is honestly more and more fun each day.  I love that he looks me in the eye with an intelligent look and communicates with me and is such a sponge learning something new literally every second.
I love holding my sleeping baby and kissing his squishy little cheeks, but I also love helping him develop into an independent person with a purpose.  I still can't believe that I actually get to be this little boy's parent and Lee and I get to have such an influence in his life.  It's a lot of responsibility.
whew.
back to the party, right.

So I knew my sister Molly would be here and I thought about inviting like 2-3 other couples we know and somehow it began turning into this entire event.  I started inviting everyone. haha.  We have been so blessed with a great church family here - a lot of whom have become like family, so there wasn't any way I could not invite them to Leo's party.  They feel like he is their grandson or nephew.  Then Lee began talking about it at work and before I know it I get a text saying that he invited the entire residency program.
To our house.
Our little condo.  With seating for like 10 people, maybe.

AND we had to have the party on a Tuesday evening, which is weird right?
But because of the dates my sister was here, Lee's schedule, and church on Wednesday night we ended up with a Tuesday... and you know what?  It turned out awesome.
We had plenty of food (pizza, fruit, veggies, chips, cupcakes), almost enough space for everyone - people in the kitchen, the hall, and all over the living room floor.
We ended up with like 25-30 people here and it was so much fun.  My sister and niece, church friends, Lee's co-workers (even his attending and program director came!), and our neighbors. Everyone came because they love Leo and were excited to share this life event with us and it was awesome.

His party was sort of a music theme, but really just his cake was a drum, haha, and I used primary colors.

Happy Birthday my Leo!!! 

Birthday in Grenada!

I haven't updated in quite a while... I have been really busy, I've started babysitting a few days a week for a family & there's Limes & pool day & my sweet husband & my friend Chris is having a baby (maybe today!!) & it was my birthday & I've been building a website (not for a purpose really... it's just so much fun & I love doing it so I made a website! someday soon I'll share it.... ) and then there is another obsession that recently entered my life......... Dexter. dun dun dunnnn
I can't say that I suggest the show to others -mainly for violence, nudity, and language reasons....... but other than that, it's amazing! A friend gave me the first 3 seasons to watch and I've been hooked.. every evening I can be found staring into my computer doing 1 of 3 things... covering my eyes because something scary is going on, rolling my eyes are dexter's stupid sister, or laughing b/c it's so clever.

so anyway.......... this past Tuesday I had the pleasure of celebrating my 23rd Birthday in paradise.
The day started out with a surprise on my computer, Lee left a note and a bracelet we had saw in the mall for me :)  We also had a funny moment the day before when I came home from the store with a bag of Sunchips (b/c we don't buy chips often b/c they're expensive) and 2 LLBs and I said "Look what I got us for my birthday!!" and Lee said...... "are you serious" and he goes to his closet and pulls out a bag of Sunchips and Mt Dew! hahaha he knows me so well! :) So we had lots of chips and pop!!
Lee had class & lab all day Tuesday so in the morning I went to Grand Anse Beach with Amber & Sarah (another Sarah.lol) and then we had lunch at the Owl with Michelle, Alfonso, Sonia, and Adriana.... and during lunch there was a 22 degree halo that formed around the sun!! it was incredible! Lunch was so fun and delicious and my friends here are so sweet.. they made me cards and brought a flower and bought me lunch :)

After lunch and a trip to the store I went to Adriana's because she baked me a cake!! It was the first cake she had ever made! It was so sweet of her because otherwise I would not have had cake at all!

Afterward I went home to get ready to spend time with Lee after his classes and I found another surprise on my computer!  When he came home for lunch he left a necklace I pointed out to him a few weeks before at the mall hanging on the corner of  my laptop :)

We went down to Spiceland Mall to get smoothies!!  Unfortunately I decided to try something new and ended up not liking it, Sour Sop -yuck and Lee got grapefruit... so we ended up switching.  We drank our smoothies in the field next to the mall where some local club teams were playing cricket.  I don't know anything about cricket, but it was fun to watch for a while.

We headed over to Grand Anse Beach, which is just across the street with plans to take a walk and watch the sunset... however, so after getting on the beach I realized my camera battery was dead and I really wanted to take pictures.... so we hopped on a bus and came home to get my spare battery and ended up watching the sunset from campus, which was beautiful!  Lee was so sweet even though I knew he was thoroughly frustrated with having to go home to get the battery... but it was my birthday!  We then got BACK on a bus to go to La Boulangerie for dinner.  Luckily it was a Tuesday so buses were running very frequently and we only traveled in about a 2 mile radius.

a flower Lee picked for me

It was very busy, but so fun and so memorable - and my first 'married' birthday! Hopefully Lee and I have many many many more birthdays together... but I only have 1 more in Grenada.