Angry Birds Birthday Cakes

As I mentioned in my previous post, my son is having an Angry Birds birthday party.  Of course, this means I've been on the prowl for the perfect Angry Birds birthday cake.  And OH, have I found some cute ones!!

Here are some of my favs!  I emailed the ones pictured below to the bakery in charge of whipping up our delicious cake and can't wait to see how it turns out!

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And.... CHECK this out!  How awesome?!

Oooooh, I can't WAIT to see how my son's turns out!  I'll be sure to post pics!  ;)

DIY Angry Birds Birthday Invitations

Hello friends!

I've been absent from blogging for far too long (TWO months... YIKES!) and I think the best way to jump back in is to share this ADORABLE little craft with you!

My son turns six soon and he wants an Angry Birds birthday party.  Well, although Angry Birds merchandise is popping up everywhere, the brand hasn't officially started marketing birthday party paraphernalia.

But, with the help of my good friend Google, I was able to steal find an awesome idea, which made for great invitations!

Meet helmet pig:

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Did you just fall in love?  I did!  And I knew I had to make him mine!  It's actually pretty simple, although if you plan on making 30 like I did, be prepared to spend some time.  

Supplies:  

1. Green, black, grey, white, and brown card stock
2. 1/2 inch circle punch for eyes
3. 5/8 inch circle punch for the nose holes
4. A "large circle" punch for the eyes (about 2 inches in diameter)
5. A "large oval" punch for the lip
6. Glue sticks
7. Blue ink pad
8. Green ink pad
9. Sponge
10. Foam adhesive stickers 

We purchased all of our supplies at Michael's.  

If you want to keep costs down, here's what I recommend:  

1. Skip the expensive card stock for the whites and blacks and buy one poster board in each color.  The use is so minimal on the finished project that no one will notice it's not card stock.  
2. Skip the foam adhesive stickers.  (We purchased these, but ended up deciding we liked the way the pigs looked without them.)
3. Borrow or steal the punch holes!  They're pretty freaking pricey (between $4 to $15 each)!  Ouch!  We choked down the cost and justified it by saying, "Well, at least we'll have them for future projects."  (Yea right.)  But if you know someone who will lend you theirs, do it!  Or, if you have some laying around that aren't the exact sizes I have listed above, don't sweat it.  No one is going to notice if the black circles are 1/2 inch rather than 5/8 inch, trust me.  
4. Gotta sponge in the garage?  Got a Dollar General down the road?  Great, you've just saved at least $4.  Michael's sells theirs for about $5 each.  It's a freaking sponge people.  Ridiculous.  
5. Don't have a sponge?  Don't care to buy one?  Great, skip the ink all together.  No one will miss these minute details.  
6. Instead of making a card that opens up with details on the inside, put the details on the helmet!  You'll use half the green card stock this way!

Okay, so now that we're past all that... let's get down to business!  I promise this is ridiculously easy.  All it takes is time!

Click here to get the pattern.  That's right... there's a pattern!  BUT it will cost you about $5 to download IF you're not already a contributing member to Scribd.  Contribute something, and you can download it and save it to your computer for free.  OR, if you know someone SUPER AWESOME (ahem... ME) who already has the PDF downloaded, you can email HER through the email address conveniently located at the top of her blog and ask her if she'll email you the PDF.  Something tells me that she'll gladly do that.  But just for you, because she likes you.  A lot.  

Now here's all that's left:

1. Get to cutting!  You'll use the pattern to cut out the helmet, straps, head, and nose.  (If you choose to make a card that opens, you'll want to fold your card stock in half before cutting on the pattern.)
2. Get to punching!  (Notice: the eyes, nose holes, and lip are NOT to size on the pattern.  You'll use the punches for those.  Easy peasy.)
3. Get to inking!  If you choose to do this step, you'll lightly ink the outer rim of the pig's head, nose, and lip in green.  You'll lightly ink the rim of the white eyes in blue.  (You can also ink the helmet in white as shown above, but we tweaked ours a little so we skipped this step.)  
4. Get to gluing!  Everything is glued down with regular glue except for the helmet and the nose.  Those are glued with the foam stickers to make them stick up, if you choose to use those.  
5. Admire your awesome work.  

Here's how ours turned out:

{The helmet looks crazy because I erased the address and date of the party, 

as well as my phone number using photoshop in about 20 seconds.}

Rather than going by the pattern exactly and making invitations that opened up, I decided to put the details of the party on the helmet.  (This also insures that when the invitations get displayed on the fridge, it's the front of the pig that's showing, rather than the inside.  Haye, I didn't do all this hard work for nothin'!)

Ours obviously aren't as amazing as the one we modeled them from, but considering that 30 of them were made, I'm pretty impressed with myself.  And, of course, I'm using this as one of my DIY projects on My 30 Before 30 List!  Woohoohoo! (<--in my best Angry Birds impression)

Oh, and one more thing.... we purchased 6 x 9 envelopes from Walmart (about $3 for a pack of 25) to mail our invitations in.  The pigs are about 6 x 6 when complete, which makes for a snug fit.  My advice is to keep an envelope in front of you as you're gluing the helmet to the pig so that you can do a quick sight check to make sure you're not putting the helmet up so high that it won't fit into your envelopes.  ;)

The party is quickly approaching, but I hope to have time to for one more Angry Birds project before then.  If I get a chance to make it, I'll be sure to share!  And of course I must say, thank you to all of my followers and readers who have stayed with me during my bloggy break.  I really appreciate you all!  

{Note:  If you need some Angry Birds cake inspiration click here.  Or, you can also see how my son's party and cake turned out by clicking here.}

Take Your 'Toy' & Shove It!

Remember when you were a little kid and your mom would pull up to the drive-thru?  It was always such a treat to see this...

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And why was it such a treat?  Well, sure the chicken nuggets rocked!  But that wasn't why!  It was for the toy.  

Ah.... the toy.

It was always something you could play with... ya know, actually enjoy.  

"I wonder which one I'll get this time, mom!"

A barbie?  

A Hot Wheels Car?

Maybe Batman?  

Or, possibly even The Lion King himself!

What has happened?!  I mean, I know that the quality of the toys are never going to be as awesome as when we were kids, but even WITH lowered standards I find myself thinking.... what is THIS crap?!

I mean, my son actually got THIS as his kids meal toy a few days ago.  

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WHAT.IS.THIS?!

What can he do with THIS?!

My husband had to put it together (and did so only out of pure amusement).  And of course my son had absolutely no interest in it.  

The thing is made out of paper!!  I've had paper CUTS that were more amusing to my child.

He doesn't even ask what toy he's going to get in his kids meals on the rare occasions we eat fast food.  He doesn't care.  There's ZERO expectation that it will be anything of interest to him.  

It's sad honestly, and it's a little pathetic.  

If companies aren't going to put a toy into the kids meal that will at least give the child some sort of entertainment, if only for 10 minutes then just don't put them in there!  SPARE ME!  I'm sick of picking the crap up out of the floorboard of my car because it's been immediately dismissed by my kid.  Keep the "toy" and lower your prices.  

AND SPARE THE ENVIRONMENT!  I mean good GRIEF, everyone keeps blabbing about Green THIS and Green THAT and fast-food places are throwing cardboard "toys" into the millions of kids meals they pump out a day.  

They're honestly more likely to make a kid of the 21st century happy by placing a tiny little message on the chicken-nugget box that says, "In lieu of giving you a piece of junk cardboard monstrosity and labeling it a "toy" we've donated 25 cents toward saving the rain forest!"

Until then, they can just take their TOYS and shove 'em!

Life with Maddox

"Um, mom... I accidently spilled something.... on the ceiling."

"Girls, girls, you're both beautiful." 

[Talking to my sister and me as we were having a disagreement.]

Maddox:  "You're racing me [at Mario Kart.]

Me:  No, because if I beat you, you'll get mad."

Maddox:  "No, when I beat YOU, I'll laugh."

[He beat me.]

How Can This Be?!

This little boy started kindergarten today.  

My little man is growing up.

OUR SUPER FANTASTIC ANNOUNCEMENT!! :)

Two months ago, I posted about the baby maybes.  In that post I mentioned that I have health problems and that it's one of the reasons my husband and I haven't had a baby.  But, I didn't mention the cause of those health problems or the severity of them.  {Toward the end of this post, I'll give you the link to where you can find this information.}

So due to my health, needless to say, although my husband and I want a little one, we've decided (after speaking with specialist after specialist) that it's just not worth the risk that I carry.  INSTEAD.... we've decided that we're going to adopt!!

Yes, THAT'S the big announcement.  We're adopting!!  YAY!!  I am so, so excited!!  We're going to have a baby!!  :)  Our goal is to begin our home study during the month of September.  I cannot wait to begin the process.

Our problem now is finding creative ways to finance our adoption.  Everyone knows that adoption isn't cheap, and we're estimating that our adoption will cost between $20,000 to $30,000 (OUCH) and while I finish school my husband (who's an active-duty military member) is our sole-income provider.  But I will not let that big scary number stop us from having a baby!!

We'll be doing fund raisers, raffles, rummage sales, and tons of other stuff along the way to help us come up with the money we need to fund the adoption.  We're also accepting donations.

Donations are being collected through our WePay site.  (Hopefully within the next month, we'll be holding raffles there as well.)  This WePay site I just set up tells our story and why we're choosing adoption, as well as allows individuals to donate.  I hope that you'll consider visiting it to learn more about us.

So, this is where I need your help.  In addition to visiting it yourself, PLEASE pass our WePay site along to others.  Send it out through your email, post it on FB, "Like it," anything to get the word out about us.  We need all the exposure we can get to make this dream come true.

I've also started another site, choosing-adoption.com.  This will allow me to network with other adoptive moms and insure that my personal blog isn't all about adoption from here on out (and let's face it, it would be otherwise!)  I will still be making "big announcements" regarding adoption here as well... duh!  But, check out Choosing Adoption and pass it along as well!  :)

Thank you SO MUCH for all of the past support you've shown me.  It means the WORLD to me.  I wouldn't be the woman, blogger, or mommy I am without all of the amazing people who continuously support me and cheer me on.  So.... Operation Bring Home Baby begins NOW!!

{Whew, SO glad I could share that with all of you.  I am not good at keeping my own secrets!  Oh, and yay for babies!!}

--Update 01.25.2012:  Unfortunately, right as we started searching for agencies something very personal happened which made us rethink whether pursing adoption at that time was best under the circumstances.  It was upsetting to admit that our plans had to be put on hold, but that's life.  We haven't abandoned our dream of adopting, and still hope that 2012 will be our year!--

AHH!! Where Have I Been?!

I haven't blogged in like, 10 days.  YIKES!!

There is a big reason why, but I can't share that with you just yet.  :)  The other reason is... well, I don't know why!  I guess I've been in a bloggy funk.

So, I asked my son what I should write about.  He said, "Well... just write about something funny.  Maybe make a funny video or something that will crack them up... oh, and talk in an alien voice."

But, I'm pretty sure that none of you want to see what I look like right now (at almost one in the morning) and I'm certain I can't do an "alien voice" (despite Maddox's attempts to teach me how) so I'll pass on the video idea.

Instead, I'll ask a question.... Do any of you ever get in a bloggy funk?  Maybe you can't think of anything to write about?  Or, maybe you're just not interested in blogging that week?

I hope my spark for blogging will come back soon!  After all, my poor blog has never been so neglected.