A Giraffe Party

Last weekend we celebrated Miles 1st Birthday with a giraffe themed birthday party!  We waited until all of our friends got back from vacation and I spent a few weeks planning, organizing, and working on all the details for his shindig!  I ALMOST decided not to have a party because I just felt like there was so much going on and I didn't want to physically over do myself or run the risk of Brooklyn coming early, but then I realized for the rest of our lives we will always compete with Christmas for Miles birthday, traveling, and potentially another birthday close by so I sucked it up and went after it!  I really wanted to make sure Miles got the same 1st birthday experience that we did for Gavin 3 years ago and I'm so glad we did it!

Miles greeted his guests when they came to the door.  This is his friend Aden who was born in Saudi a week after him- his mom and dad are teachers at the school Gavin goes to and our apart of our weekly meeting group!  Love the McGuire Family!  

We couldn't have a party without singing Happy Birthday.  We've done this twice before so Miles knew what was coming and pretty excited about.  Gavin was also VERY excited about the smash cake (he decorated it himself- see below for more details).

 

Here's a video of us singing Happy Birthday to Miles and him eating his cake!  He devoured it! (don't forget to scroll down and pause my music)

Happy Birthday sweet boy!  Mommy, Daddy, and Gavin LOVE YOU!!

Some of our friends at the party and their little ones!

Miles loved opening his presents and was semi into it.  We helped rip off the paper for him to see what was inside.. that seemed to hold his attention faster and better!  Aden helped too!

 

As always a favorite gift came from Uncle Micah and Aunt Steph... Miles got his very own riding toy and he loved it!!  It's just his size and allows him to have something to ride on when Gavin is riding his big boy toys!

 

 Miles birthday party was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we were able to celebrate his first birthday with our close friends here in Saudi!  This past year has gone by so fast and we can't believe our little man is already 1.  We're looking forward to watching him grow into his personality and are anxious for him to become a big brother!  

I was going to make this a separate post but figured I'd just group it all together.  

If you're still reading the blog... here's all the details about the party (if you care about this kind a stuff).  

I picked the giraffe theme because for the past year Miles has gotten multiple giraffe animals or toys so it just seemed to fit.  I wanted needed his cake to be semi easy, but also wanted it to be a cutsey little boy cake and not some elaborate, over the top cake so I went with the number 1 look and turned it into a giraffe.  Gavin actually decorated Miles smash cake and was VERY, VERY proud of himself.  It was a sweet moment when Gavin brought the cake to Miles when it was time to sing Happy Birthday to him.  If anyone came over to our house the day before the party, Gavin would go get the smash cake out of the fridge and show it off.  Too cute!  I picked up some giraffe stuff while we were in the states and ordered a few things from etsy to top off the party decorations.  I got the idea for a first year photo timeline to showcase at the party from a blog and had giraffe themed monthly tags made and then went through all my pictures of Miles from each month and picked out my favorite one or the one I felt represented that month the best and made the banner.  It really turned out cute and everyone loved seeing how much Miles had changed over the year.  

 

 

The birthday boy sporting his birthday shirt!  I had this shirt made for Miles to have a keepsake for years to come and ordered it from this etsy store.  

Something I'm so glad that I did and didn't think about it until the last minute... was to have some sort of sign in for us to remember who celebrated Miles first birthday with us.  For Gavin's party, I had been scrap booking his first year and just made a sign in sheet for his book.  For Miles, I'm making a digital photo book of his first year, but I'm not finished with it (my original goal was to have his book printed and leave blank pages in the back so people could sign it, but I really wanted to have Miles first birthday in the book, so I knew I needed something else that we would always keep.  Shel Silverstein is a great author and we have 4 of his other books and read them occasionally.  When I saw this giraffe book online, I knew this book would be something we would keep for years and years and it hopefully would not get lost!  When people came to the party they wrote Miles a sweet note and this will be something we'll cherish for years to come, not to mention remember our time in Saudi and the friends we were surrounded with!



Weeks leading up to the party I searched and brainstormed cute party favors to give to our guests, but felt like things were either too expensive or too corny to give.  I refused to spend money on "giraffe stuff" for adults since there were very few little kids to give favors to, so I bit the bullet and made sugar cookies.  These aren't my favorite things to do-- they are SOO time consuming and I never feel like they come out good... I've always said I'd much rather make a 3 tiered cake then decorate 2 dozen iced sugar cookies, but I went with a simple design, skyped my sister in law for help (who by the way, decorates AMAZING sugar cookies), and went to town decorating them while Brooks and I watched a movie.  Simple and Fun!  I think they were a hit with everyone and I'm just glad I had something to give to everyone!

The Bazaar & A Crazy Idea

Last April, I brought back some personalized acrylic cups (which I purchased and had made at Threadworks in Lake Charles- so if you're looking for some--- go check out Mrs. Melissa's stuff) from the states and gave to a few close friends as gifts and they immediately caught the attention of fellow compounders around here!  Those cups are everywhere in the states, but it is NOTHING we would ever find here in Saudi.  For some reason, Steph and I got the brilliant idea to order 150 cups (6 large boxes) and have them shipped overseas to make them available to personalize and sale at our compound's annual Bazaar (it's like a craft fair, with vendors selling merchandise).  It took approximately 3 months to get the cups ordered, shipped, delivered, shipped again, and delivered to our door (not to mention it took my mom a trip to Houston to pick them up from some friends' house who went and picked them up from a friends house and she brought them to Beaumont to another friends house-- all in order for them to get to us in a "timely manner").  Whew- I'm tired just thinking about it!

Anyways, we let everyone know the cups were coming and would be available in the fall and Steph and I went to town creating order forms, choosing writing styles, collecting rolls of vinyl, selecting emblems and images to be put on the cups and October 1st we started pre-selling the personalized cups, along with snack trays, clipboards, folders, and memory cork boards.  To our surprise, everything was a big HIT and we got busy.  For two weeks leading up to the Bazaar and the last two weeks since the Bazaar we have been cranking out orders left and right!  We had a blast doing this project and as big as it seemed to get, I don't know that we were ever overwhelmed (okay maybe once or twice).  It was a lot of fun making stuff for friends and seeing the excitement on people's faces to realize there were practical items around that could be purchased as gifts and for personal use.  Steph and I have some wonderful friends who were gracious enough to help us set up shop, who took orders while we filled the orders, and who would come and sit at my house to keep us company and stay organized with all our orders!  

Stephanie basically was running the Bazaar with a few other women so she was able to snatch up the best location for our booth-- it was filled with a work area and all!  Oh, the perks of having friends in high places!!  Haha!  So, the night before the Bazaar we brought over all our STUFF, set things up, and created a plan on once orders were placed, how'd they get filled based on priority (people from all around come to our Bazaar and we weren't interested in driving to unfamiliar places to make deliveries), and then we devised a system to know when someone's order was ready for pick up.  We're so glad we did this since the day of the Bazaar was crazy, but everything ran smoothly!  We really did sale a lot of "merchandise" and we promised all those on our compound to have their order ready within the week-- this alleviated a TON of pressure and didn't let us feel overwhelmed to finish all our orders the day of the Bazaar.  

Some of our sweet friends who helped us!

Our booth- and work station behind it!

All the loot-- we tried to be as organized as possible!

Working on fulfilling orders!  

Like the string we attached across the opening to hang order forms based on priority??!! 

A few items we sold to some friends of ours!

In order to stay organized and keep up with the amount of work we had to do, we set up shop in my house to have everything out when it was needed.  My house looked like this for several weeks, but Stephanie and I were able to both have a work area and there was room for all the stuff we used.  

Just some of the cup orders we filled a few days after the Bazaar!  

This has really been a fun project to work on and I'm happy to say we sold out of all our clipboards, snack trays, and memory cork boards!  We literally have about 10 cups left (praise the Lord), and are daily getting emails from people requesting stuff.  I'm glad we went out on a limb and took this on.  It's fun watching people walk around the compound with their cups!!  Someone asked us this morning what we were going to do next year..... hmmmm... guess we better start planning that now!!  

Vinyl is CHEAP here!

I've gone to IKEA many times in the past few weeks during my quest to reorganize this house. Along with storage furniture pieces, I've purchased many storage containers to help alleviate the mess and clutter that 50 different boxes or containers can cause.  I've also been racking up on rolls and rolls and rolls of colored vinyl when I see them in specialty stores.  That stuff is so cheap here.  The funny thing is, I think it's sold to be used as back splashes in kitchens or something like that.  

I've been busy doing house stuff and making cakes that I wanted to do something just for me where I didn't feel any pressure or have to think and plan on anything.  So, I pulled my Cricut out and went to town.  

I made tea pitchers... sweet and unsweet.

I didn't bring any of my serving dishes from home and have really been lacking in that area.  So when I found this small platter, I picked it up, thinking it would be great to use for appetizers or small dishes. 

Gavin has a bunch of toys and some have been in all types of different style containers, but none of the containers would fit in one cabinet. So, I took the containers I found at IKEA, separated all the toys, throughout the packages they came in, and sorted everything out.  Then, I cut out the words to match each toy.

I had also been looking for some kind of bucket that would sit at our front door that wouldn't be too long, too tall, too small, etc to put shoes inside of.  We don't normally keep our shoes downstairs, but we're constantly having to go upstairs every time we want to run outside just to put shoes on.  In just a few days, this little bucket has already brought some order and helped Gavin with keeping things picked up or at least knowing where stuff is!

Restless

Now that I'm off bedrest and have the ability to get up and do things-- I've been a tad busy.  All of a sudden, I had a STRONG desire to get all this stuff done that I'd been putting off and putting off.  

First off, I did my first load of laundry in two weeks.  Gavin wanted to help me so I let him.  I went upstairs to get another load and came down to this. 

 

I also spent some time working on a few projects that I've had in my possession, literally, for a year now.  I've ordered lots of things from a friend of mine who sells Uppercase Living and if you bought so much product, you were given freebies.  Well, I've had my freebies with all my scrapbook stuff and figured once we got here, I'd work on them so it would give me something to do.  Needless to say, I wanted something to do-- so I chose to make these signs.

 

I've also been brainstorming with what to do with Miles room, since it doubles as the guest room.  I'm not quite sure what theme I want to go with and the comforter on the bed in that room is just throwing me off.  Not quite sure how to make it look like a nursery, with a theme, when that room has multiple functions.  It's also our storage area and catch all room.

So, I decided to make Miles a sign to hang above his crib.  I brought my cricut with me and ALL my craft supplies so it was easy for me to make something, versus ordering something off line and attempting to get it shipped here.  My cricut cuts vinyl so I set out over a month ago in an attempt to find some kind of vinyl somewhere.  I'm excited to say I don't have to look very hard anymore.  There are several stores around here that sale vinyl and tons of it.  They call it vinyl, but sale it as colored contact paper.  It does the same job as the vinyl that Hobby Lobby and Michael's sale, but A LOT CHEAPER!  I can find it in numerous colors (not all the colors I'd like to have it in), but still, I'm not going to be picky.  When we move home I'm planning on stocking up on the vinyl and putting it in our sea shipment-- it's literally $6.00 a roll for 3x as much as what I've bought in the states.  What a deal!

Here's the sign I made.  I painted it the colors of the crib bedding and made his name really large.  I found some ribbon that matched his bedding as well and put a cute little border around the canvas.  I ran out and had to improvise a little, but I still think it's cute.  You can't really tell, but there is a ribbon attached to the top of the canvas that is hanging the painting on the wall.

To add to all that we've been doing and what's been going on.... one of our AC units broke and they had to come replace it.  They brought a tractor, as Gavin called it, out to the house to get onto the roof to make repairs.  We also had the valve break on our hot water heater.  The beauty of living on a compound is when you have issues like these you pick up the phone, dial 0, tell the operator your problem and within 10-15 minutes you have workers coming to fix all your issues!  It was really nice getting these things taken care of and the best part about it all.... we aren't going to get billed for it!

I've enjoyed the last few days getting out, running errands, eating lunch at a restaurant, doing laundry, and more importantly getting to have Gavin with me all day and spending time with him.  I'm starting to realize my time with just him and I is dwindling so I want to make the most of it.

Latest Projects

It's been exactly a year since I decided not to teach this year, in order to stay home before we moved.  I remember thinking what in the world am I going to do with all my time?  Well, I think it's safe to say that  I have found several new interests to fill my time with.  

This past week I worked on two cakes and two baby door signs for some friends and clients.  Now that all these projects have been completed, I realized that these projects were fun for me!!  I made sure that I didn't put any pressure on myself, took time while working on the projects to take breaks and hang out with Gavin.  I even went shopping one day!   I purposed it in my heart, that I wasn't going to allow any part of these projects to stress me out and it worked!  I'm really thankful to have these hobbies and have enjoyed them a lot.  I actually don't have any more cake orders or cakes planned so I'm going to get a nice little break for a while.  Brooks and I are starting to work on our checklist that must be complete before our departure date so I'm going to spend time getting those things taken care of.  

Here's a cake I made for one of my best friend's baby shower that I helped host on Saturday.  The top tier was chocolate with chocolate mousse filling, the center tier was red velvet (the mommy to be's favorite), and the bottom was white cake with almond/vanilla filling.   Addison Ray Carpenter will be here sometime next month and we can't wait to meet her!  I also made a door sign for Addison's nursery and for her parents to use on their hospital room door.  

I've been selling baby door signs for almost 2 months now and have been enjoying getting to be creative with different nursery themes, colors, etc.  I made this door sign for a friend of mine from church whose best friend was having a baby.  Her room colors were pink and brown.  I think this sign is my new favorite-- now if I only I could learn how to make pretty bows.  

Here is a cake I made for a 7 year olds birthday party.  Her mom told me that she LOVES bright pink, lime green, and black!  This is the "theme" I came up with.  I had so much fun making this cake and was really excited about the way it turned out.  For the little girls birthday party, her mom rented a limo and is taking her and her friends to get their nails done.  How fun is that?!!?  This is a 2 tiered cake- the top tier is chocolate and the bottom tier is white with cookies-n-cream filling. Yummy!!

Birthday, Easter, and Baby

Here are a few projects I worked on last week.  I'm finding myself staying busy in the kitchen, but have learned how to manage my time with all the necessary prepping that goes on when making, baking, and decorating a cake.  I'm really enjoying making cakes and think I found a new passion.  However, I decided after making that movie cake, I don't love cake making more than my family.  Last week, I made an effort to keep the house cleaned and picked up, the laundry caught up, and made sure to play outside with Gavin multiple times a day, and took him places just to get out of the house! 

   

Saturday was my friend Stephanie's birthday.  We went out to dinner Thursday night so I surprised her with this cake.  She likes the color purple... can you tell?!?!

I decided since this was our last Easter in the states for a while, I wanted to make all of Gavin's friends a little something to celebrate Easter!  My mom found these cute mini bunny cake pans so I went to town making them with that Funfetti cake mix!  I colored the icing and copied the look off of a picture I saw of an Easter bunny.  I thought they turned out precious and they tasted delicious!

For our family Easter dinner, everyone was asked to bring something for lunch so I decided to make a cake, figures huh?!?!  My mom also found me a bunny shaped pan so I wanted to use it while I could.  This cake was just a bigger version of the mini cakes.  

    

A friend of mine from church asked me to make a baby sign for one of her cousin's baby shower.  The baby's bedroom is themed with butterflies.  I found this sweet butterfly at Michael's and even though the colors weren't exactly the same as her bedding, I went with the look.  It ended up turning out really cute. I found some subtle beads to put on the sign that really livened the look up!  This was a fun sign to make and I was very thankful my mom was in town to make the big bow on top.  I really need to learn how to make bows!  

Hope you and your family had a blessed Easter!