Better than a swimming pool...

...well, maybe...but when it's 111 degrees outside, any way you can get wet will work.  And this gets the job done and we have TONS of fun with them!!  (I'm going back for a third gun today.  Hey, it's so much fun that we ALL need to be cooling off, right??)

Party Preparations

I'm doing a post specifically on the goodies at the party.  The main reason is because I'm going to link up on other blogs so other people can see.  I want other people to see because I had a hard time finding anything online that had to do with a reptile party, so I did it all myself.  Maybe I can help some other "reptile party seeker" out!!

This is the invitation.  I made it (high quality in Photo Shop) and have been doing invites on the side for about a year now.  My hope is to get my invitation blog/business up and running this summer.  Please, please email me if you would like me to design one for you and I'll get the prices to you.

I'm not one to run to the grocery store to buy a cake, cupcakes or cookies if I can make them myself and they turn out better.  I used two white cake mixes and did the colors like I did here, but did green and yellow.  I also just bought two containers of white, whipped icing to ice them with.  I wanted something super cute to go on top of the cupcakes and I found EXACTLY what I wanted at the dollar store.  I found plastic lizards in packs of 4 for $1.00!  I colored the icing green and I think they came out great!  This also gave the kids something else they could take home because the lizards were a pretty good size.

I wanted to have some type of fruit to serve with the cupcakes so that not everything would be jam packed full of teeth rotting sugar.  So, I went with frozen bananas dipped in chocolate.  I wanted to half bananas and do them that way on a stick, but with little ones, they needed something more manageable.  So, I cut the bananas in about 1.5" pieces and stuck them with the little decorative forks (pack of 75 for $1.00 at the dollar store).  These were so fun and the kids LOVED them and had many parents asking how to make them.  The one thing I will say is that you have to move fast on these suckers because bananas thaw out quick.  All I did was:

1) Cut bananas.

2) Put them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet in the freezer for about 2 hours.

3)  Use the chocolate melts that I use for these and get to moving FAST.  If you want to sprinkle them, you have to sprinkle immediately after you dip them in chocolate.

4) Freeze until ready to eat.

Now the goodie bags...this is what took me so long to come up with because there was NOTHING online to help me or get me started on ideas.  There was one thing I knew the bags HAD TO HAVE in them...a rubber snake.  You know how hard these suckers are to find that are less than $3.00??  I stumbled upon them at Wal Mart for $1.00 each.

What's inside:

-Laffy Taffy

-birthday & animal silly bands

-Pixie Stix

-Unfrozen popsicles, 5 of them (dollar bin at Target)

-Toy Story markers (dollar bin at Target)

- RUBBER SNAKE!!

The favorites out of the bag were the popsicles and the snake.  I loved putting the popsicles in there because that's totally unexpected and who doesn't love popsicles in the summer??  One thing, I busted 3 or 4 when I was pulling them apart to put in the bags.  They are MUCH easier to pull apart when they are frozen.

And last but not least...the thank you notes...

I hope someone can get some good ideas from this and let me know if you are doing a reptile party and what you're doing.  I would love to hear from you! 

 

Spencer's Birthday Party

We had Spencer's birthday party a little early this year.  We wanted to do it this weekend, but where we were having it (Science Spectrum), they were having their annual Critterfest (SUPER cool) and weren't booking parties.  And, the following weekend always is 4th of July weekend. 

Science Spectrum is the place to go for birthday parties.  The kids had a blast and could just run around like crazy.  We had a reptile show as well that the kids LOVED.  It was a wonderful day with friends and family and we couldn't have asked for a better time!

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

REPTILE SHOW

And let's play...

What a weekend!

I have no words to describe this past weekend.  Well I can give it a try...HAPPY, SCARED, THANKFUL, JOYOUS, WORRIED, LOVED...  We had our little guy's birthday part (I'll do just a post about that probably tomorrow.) and then a CrAzY Father's Day!

I'll give you my favorite picture from the party on Saturday and then onto Sunday...

Wow, I love my sweet family!!!

OK, let's get to Sunday...just a low key Father's Day is what had planned, but God had different plans.  About 11:30 I went into Spencer's room to put up some clothes in his drawers that I had just folded and he was walking toward the end of the his bed, tried to step over a pillow, tripped and fell face first onto the foot board.  I picked him up immediately and there was a dime sized HOLE above his eye.  He had just busted his head open.  Luckily he didn't pass out, but I was FREAKING out!  Rick had ran to the grocery store and I was trying to keep Spencer alert, wipe away blood and call Rick.  It never crossed my mind to call 911 because I was so distraught!  Rick sped home (after he told me to call 911), the ambulance and fire truck showed up and away we went. 

Got to the ER, got in a room and then Spencer threw up so they had to immediately order a CT scan.  He had to be basically put into a straight jacket to have the CT scan.  It was a nightmare!  Spencer took everything like a champ.  Long story short he got 3 stitches above his eye and the CT scan came back negative. 

Brave little boy!

We not only left with stitches, we left with a broken arm (not caused by the accident on Sunday).  Spencer had fallen on the playground at school (jumping off of something) about 2 weeks ago.  They told me when I picked him up and we never thought about it again because his arm hadn't hurt him after that day.  Well, last week he really started complaining that his arm was hurting.  I scheduled an appointment for today (Monday) with his pediatrician to get it looked at.  I mentioned that in the ER yesterday and they just went ahead and x-rayed it while we were there.  Well, it was broken and had already started to heal/calcify!  So they had to do a hard splint and now we're seeing a bone specialist on Thursday. 

We are just SO thankful our little boy is alright.  Now, it's trying to get him to slow down and ease his frustrations about him really having only one arm for now.  God is good!

Turkey Pesto Burgers

OH. MY. GOSH.  These are so good I can't wait to eat them again!  Why haven't I been making these all along?  I got the recipe from Ask Ana.  Please let me know if you try this and how FABULOUS you think it is!

Ingredients
1lb ground turkey
3 TBS basil pesto (I added way more than this & so glad I did)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup bread crumbs
4 sliced Pepper Jack cheese
4 Ciabatta rolls (We ate them without bread, but they would be yummy either way.)
Cooking spray

Directions
1. Mince garlic.
2. In a large bowl mix together turkey, pesto, garlic and bread crumbs.
3. After ingredients are mixed well form the mixture into 4 patties. Preheat a large skillet to medium-high heat. (I used our George Foreman grill instead and it worked great.)
4. Next turn the broiler in your oven on Low. Place the rolls on a cookie sheet and spray them with cooking spray. Place them in the broiler until the tops are golden brown.
5. Place patties in the skillet. Cook for about 3 min on each side. When they are almost done place the cheese on top of the patties and cook until it is slightly melted.
6. Spread a thin layer of pesto on the ciabatta roll and then place the patty on top.

Enjoy!!

Spencer & Emie

Saturday was Spencer's sweet friend's birthday party.  Emie and Spencer have been going to school together for forever and ever since they were really little, they would always kiss and hug each other when one of them got to school and when they left school.  Well, the love affair has carried over through the years and here we are.  They are not in the same room at school now, but only one door separates them and they manage to find each other.  Emie is a sweetheart and I'm so glad her and Spencer and buds...or a couple...or whatever 3 year olds call it!

Her party was at Jumping Jungle where they have a barn/warehouse full of the bouncy houses and stuff like that.  Spencer had so much fun!! 

Spencer & Emie

GOODNESS is all I can say...

Salee & Spencer

Baby Spencer

Last night, Spencer and I were looking at pictures on our camera and I showed him two short videos of him just minutes after he was born. (Yes, I STILL have all the pictures of that special day on our camera.  Even though they are saved in a million places, I just can't bring myself to delete them off of the camera.  Weird I know, but oh well.)  He loved watching them and he knew that was him when he was a baby.  These are the two he was watching. (They are literally less than 5 seconds each.)

Well, in the bath last night he was telling Daddy how baby Spencer was crying.  It was a riot!!  I will say he does sound pretty much like he did 3 years ago!

Give me a mountain and I will climb...

As mentioned before in previous posts, Spencer climbs and jumps off of EVERYTHING and doesn't think twice about it!  Well, yesterday we went to our usual park and it was closed for maintenance, so we had to go find another one.  I remembered some of my friends talking about this small park and so we went to that one instead.  I don't know that we will be going back for awhile because it was obviously for bigger kids and there wasn't much Spencer could do...except CLIMB! 

Creamy Chicken Taquitos

Found another good one here!  This one I found at Our Best Bites blog.  I'm telling you, these suckers were GONE in less than 30 minutes and I doubled the recipe (which I highly recommend).  One thing I liked was that these were SUPER easy to make and didn't take that long.  I made homemade guacamole to go along with them and they were excellent.

Ingredients
*I doubled everything except for what I put in red.

1/3 C (3 oz) cream cheese (I used 8 oz.)
1/4 C green salsa
1T fresh lime juice
1/2 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1/2 t onion powder
1/4 t granulated garlic (garlic powder)
3 T chopped cilantro
2 T sliced green onions
2 C shredded cooked chicken (I grilled 4 chicken breasts and chopped them finely)
1 C grated pepperjack cheese (I used the Mexi blend cheese)
small corn tortillas (I used the white corn tortillas)
kosher salt
cooking spray


Heat oven to 425. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray.

Heat cream cheese in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds so it's soft and easy to stir. Add green salsa, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, onion powder and granulated garlic. Stir to combine and then add cilantro and green onions. Add chicken and cheese and combine well.

You can prepare up to this step ahead of time. Just keep the mixture in the fridge.

Work with a few tortillas at a time and heat in the microwave until they are soft enough to roll without cracking. It helps to place them between damp paper towels. Usually 20-30 seconds will do it. If you find yours are cracking when you roll them or come unrolled right away, just try heating them longer and try the paper towel thing. (A lot of mine cracked, but it was probably because I put too much filling in them.  It doesn't matter though.  It just doesn't look that pretty.)

Place 2-3 T of chicken mixture on the lower third of a tortilla, keeping it about 1/2 inch from the edges.

Then roll it up as tight as you can.

Place seam side down on the baking sheet. Lay all of the taquitos on the baking sheet and make sure they are not touching each other. Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray or an oil mister and sprinkle some kosher salt on top.

Place pan in oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp and the ends start to get golden brown.

Dip 'em in salsa, sour cream, or guacamole.

Mine certainly didn't look like this, but they are sooooo good!!

Big Boy Bed

And when I say BIG, I mean BIG!  Spencer's bed is a lot bigger (taller off the floor) than we thought.  We were going to wait to do it all this weekend, but the mattresses came in early today and we just couldn't wait.  We love it and to say that Spencer loves it is an understatement.  He's snoozing away right now in it and we are just praying that he doesn't fall off.  We've got pillows galore on the floor to make his soon-to-be fall more comfortable!

I can't wait to post the super awesome pillow cases my friend Kristina is doing for his bed.  I'll just leave it at that...I can't wait to get them this weekend!  Other than that, we need to change out the curtain and get rid of the "baby decor".  I don't think we need a bed skirt, but we'll just have to see as time goes on. 

What happened to our little baby???

Spencer was just plain wild for the rest of the night UNTIL Zach invited him in for a pizza/Harry Potter party.  Spencer was so excited!!  So sweet!!

This mama is going to bed.  It's been a big day and not to mention the fact that Spencer started a new room at school today, Early Pre-School.  O.M.G.  I can't handle all this in one day!!!