Our family of avengers

The other night Ezra was naming each individual in our family and assigning them a superhero personality. 

This is how the conversation went:
Ezra:
"Ezra is Spiderman
Libby is Ironman
Daddy is Hulk
Herman is Batman
Clovis is Doctor Octopus."

me: "well who is Mama?"
Ezra:  "Mama is Darby."

yes, I get the pleasure of being an asparagus folks.

Here is what our superhero Avenger family would look like:

Crazy ezra and his African drum

More carnival party ideas and printable freebies

I have been working on some projects for Ezra and Libby's birthday carnival and wanted to share some freebies I made with you guys. Here is the file for a template for some water bottle labels. I bought the labels from Michael's. They are made by Gartner and can be purchased HERE
Click on the image to enlarge and save to your computer, then just add your text in any photo editing software and you're then click to print. (Note*: These labels are VERY sticky so make sure before you apply it to the bottle that it's straight b/c there is no room for error.  I ruined several labels trying to peel them off)

Here's what they look like with the added text and affixed to a water bottle.

I also used the same template to just print them to plain paper and taped the cut out paper strips to these glass bottles.  

I found this adorable carousel horse printable HERE and it can be downloaded or printed directly from HERE. 

After I printed them out I just hand cut them all out and used a glue stick to attach them to my striped

straws.

Here is a smaller version of the horses. Just click on the image to open then save to your computer. I plan on using these to attach to a straw and slip over the handle of some candied apples.

I purchased some 7x9 yellow and white striped paper treat bags online but I only needed them to be 4.5x6 so I just folded over the side of the bag longitudinally and used a glue stick to make the bag more narrow as you can see below.  Then I cut about 3 inches off the top of the bag so that the "ticket" portion of the invite would stick out.  I had a left over piece of bag which I then used a glue stick on to close the bottom portion to create a little pouch to hold tickets.  Each child will come to the party with at least 5 tickets.  The games they will play will allow them to win more tickets to use at the prize booth to get goodies, but in case they aren't into the games they at least will come with something to use to pick out their prizes.  I bought some clear sticker sheets from Michael's and printed directly onto those for the ticket pouches.  I just cut them out and they stuck really well onto the paper bags.

Here is the file for the sticker sheets.  Just click to open then save to your computer and print.

Since the top of the bags reserved the little flap, they made a perfect pouch to hold the tickets.  I used some washi tape to close the flap.

For the invitations I wanted a 3-D effect, so I bought these jump rings from Hobby Lobby's jewlery department and using a safety pin created a hole in the some image of cotton candy and then laced the ring through the hole.  These are very maleable and I was able to open the rings just with my fingers.

I then attached the ring to this little printable banner I made with the kids' names.  So it has a pendant effect and put the little ticket pouch into each bag.

Here is the printable for the banners.  Just click on the image to enlarge and then save to your computer and add text in any photo editing software.  I personally use Photoshop and the font I used is called Rio Grande.

For the invitations that I needed to mail the bags were the perfect size to use as envelopes, so I just wrapped the invites in much the same way with the banner, but instead of using the bags for the ticket pouches I made some with some red and white striped scrapbooking paper.  I made these address labels and printed them onto the same clear sticker paper.  I just added my text before printing and the bunting added a really cute effect on top of the striped bags.  As before just click on the image to enlarge and save to your computer then add text.

Here is the file for the cotton candy bunches.  I just printed them out and cut them all out individually which took a LONG time but was well worth it in the end.

Ezra's version of star wars

Belated Easter post with photos

For Easter we went down to Louisiana to visit my family there and to enjoy a good ol' Cajun crawfish boil for Good Friday!
My brother Weston had more fun playing with the crawfish then eating them:

My sister's Father in law found a lizard and had fun showing off his new "earring to the kids":

My nephew Maddox was crazy about the lizard and carried him around most of the day:

Here's Maddox showing off his new pet lizard to a curious Ezra.

Easter morning Maddox got this candy necklace which provide lots of sweet sugary goodness and lots of sticky handprints!

The ants go marching one by one...

So we have an ant problem at our house. Not IN our house but around it, we have tons of fire ants. I feel awful killing any thing but I have put out ant killer a gazillion times and these guys are like the super hero invinsible ants who can't be touched by silly human toxins. Ezra loves to lay on our walk way and just watch them mosey along:

After watching the ants for a while it's time for a running in circles around the yard.  (sorry for the ashy legs.. I swear I do put lotion on the boy)

Then it's time for a rest in the rocking chairs with mom!

(Future heartbreaker)

New Carnival invitation printable freebie

As you guys know this year we're doing a joint birthday party for both kiddos and I found this lovely carnival themed invitation and the presentation was mouth watering!

So I looked into having that company do my invites for the party but they will only starting cost is $1200.00!!! Sooooo I decided to just make my own. I patterned my invite lay out after this one I found online:

I created the invitation below and plan to print it onto red cardstock.

I decided to share an editable file with you guys as well. All you'll have to do is plus in your party info in your photo editing software.
Here is the downloadable file. Just click to enlarge then save to your computer. The invite is 4 inches wide and 7.6 inches long.

Ezra likes my muscles

Yesterday Ezra and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie.  Here is the conversation that followed:

Ezra: "Mama...what's that?"

me: "what's what babe?"

Ezra: "THAT" (pointing to my boob)

me: "well, what do you think it is?"

Ezra:  he was thoughtful for a while, then said, "your muscles"

me: "yes, Buddy that's my muscles." (how do I explain boobs to my 3 year old?)

Ezra:  "you have BIG muscles"

me: silence....

Ezra:  "I like your muscles!"

me:  Lord help me. 

Guys and boobs... who knew they started so young!

Free printable carnival invitations

This year we are going to do a joint birthday party for both kids. Their birthdays are barely 2 weeks apart and with family scheduling difficulties I opted just to do one big party. I am planning on doing a Carnival theme and was looking for invitation ideas. I was thrilled when I came across these online mainly because they looked like something I could recreate myself and I'm a total sucker for anything with a 3 dimensional detail.

If you would like to purchase the originals directly from Birthday Express click HERE

If you're more of a DIY type person, you can purchase these black spinners HERE

Here are my printable versions. Just click on the image to enlarge and then save to your computer. I did 2 text variations b/c I wasn't sure myself which one I prefered.  I have NOT printed these out myself yet but they were created as 6X6 squares.  You may have to play with the size in photoshop or which ever program you use just to be safe.  Also you'll just have to imagine them with the spinners attached.

Lastly, to cover up the back portion of the exposed spinner "apparatus" I also created a blank backing to print all the party details on, and to then adhere to the front portion to make a sort of "spinner sandwich" :)

How to make an outdoor chalkboard

On Pinterest (my internet boyfriend) I saw an outdoor chalkboard attached to a brick wall and fell head over heels. Ezra draws on EVERYTHING (my couch, the table, my floors... you get the point) so I thought this would be a perfect blend of his love of outdoors and drawing.
For the supplies you'll need:
*1 gallon latex flat paint (color of your choice)
*1 sheet of treated plywood safe for outdoors
*frameing moulding of your choice
*Liquid nails heavy duty construction indoor/outdoor
*1 small tub of unsanded grout
*latex outdoor paint for the trim in the color of your choice (semi-gloss
or high gloss whichever you like)
*1 quart of Kilz indoor/outdoor primer
*wood screws

I bought a 3/4"x6'x8' sheet of plywood and had it cut down to 4X6.5 feet at Lowes b/c I had to get it small enough to fit in my car and I knew I was going to be hanging it by myself so I just thought that would be the easiest way to go.

I think the only place I found outdoor chalkboard paint was from a company in Australia so I decided to make my own.  Here's what I used:

Basically to make chalkboard paint you add 2Tbs. of unsanded grout to 1 cup of paint.  Since 1 gallon=16cups I just added 8 Tbs. of grout powder which was almost an entire tub so little was wasted.

I used a thick roller brush usually used for brick to apply the paint b/c my plywood was so rough.  I wish I could have used a smoother finished plywood BUT the treated outdoor kind doesn't come smooth so I had to make do.  I also primed my frame moulding with the Kilz at the same time.

To save yourself alot of extra steps and time and frustration you could just skip the frame part but I wanted a pop of color so I just sucked it up and got out the mitar saw.  I picked a really plain moulding to cut down on cost and just made my 45 degree cuts as per below.

After applying 3 coats of paint to the frame and 5 coats of chalkboard paint (you'll want to do several coats to really get a good layer onto the board) to the plywood I attached the trim using liquid nails:

I used wood clamps to hold down the edges of the frame and let it sit for 24 hours.

Once everything had dried it was time to attach it to our fence.  I used 1 1/4 inch screws to drill it onto our fence.

Now my little artist has a huge wall to create his masterpieces on:

One very happy chalk covered boy :)