SpongeBob Birthday

The big day has finally arrived and my big boy celebrated his 5th birthday in style this weekend. His choice of a theme this year - SpongeBob. I decided to take it up a notch though and not just do the same old SpongeBob ideas....I got creative!

I took the main colors of yellow and blue and carried them throughout the party with the labels, tissue poms and table cloths. A huge thank you to Channone Smith for taking such wonderful photos, my hubby for helping with all the food and decorating, Debbie who made the SpongeBob sugar cookies with me and my mom for the place mats. The kids all had a wonderful time (and went home on quite the sugar high) and I was very happy with the way it turned out!!





This was the dessert bar I set up. Had to set it up inside due to the 100 degree heat! Didn't want his cake to melt or all the beautiful cookies I had help making.











Even with the heat outside, everything still turned out wonderful! The kids loved the bounce house and pool and worked up quite an appetite.

Poor Alex has been having to contain himself these past weeks and not eat any of the candy and cookies that have been around. He was so happy to finally have a cookie and so was Sissy!

Finally he got to blow out the candles on his cake and open presents. Such an exciting day and now....kindergarten!

SpongeBob Party Madness (sneak peek #2)

I have been MIA in the blog world but I have a good reason! I've been swamped in the world of SpongeBob and party preparation. My friend Carin actually had the great idea to blog about my latest party decoration but first..............I have to wish my darling boy Happy Birthday!!!! He is 5 years old today! I love you Alex!


Alex's party is a few days away and I have been burning the midnight oil getting everything ready for his party. As I said, my latest adventure was learning to make tissue poms for decorations. They are actually pretty easy and they are so beautiful. I read a lot of other party blogs and they are very popular at many parties, weddings, and showers. You just buy tissue paper of whatever color or colors you want and go nuts with it! I am sticking to yellow, blues and greens for Alex's party so here are a few I did:



I have the yellow ones in a bunch of three and they are hanging from one of our ceiling fans. I am going to make about a dozen more in various colors to hang over the dessert table and also throughout the backyard. I better get busy!

For full instructions on how to make these tissue poms click here compliments of Martha Stewart, the queen of party planning.

For Alex's birthday today I made him some 'Krabby Patty' cupcakes to take to his daycare. They turned out really cute and were very easy.

Well I must get busy with decorating chocolate dipped oreos and making more tissue poms, more to come soon!

Sneak Peek #1!

Even though Alex's birthday party is over a month away I have already started working on things for it. I am really into partying planning lately so I am going all out for this party, much to the chagrin of my hubby! As mentioned before the theme is SpongeBob but I am also incorporating as much beach/poolside theme into the party as possible.

I purchased the SpongeBob cartridge for my Cricut machine and am really impressed with it so far! I have made some really cool things with it! I have more to do but here is the 'Welcome' sign for the party that I made today.



Etsy.com has also been great because this far I have ordered some great things for the dessert bar such as labels and decorations. I also got Alex's invitations off of there and they are darling!


I also just got some great candy from candywarehouse.com for the party. Perfect for the dessert table! Now I just have to keep the kids away from it!




I will have to take a break from party planning for a bit while we are at the beach but I'm excited with the way things are shaping up!

Happy Birthday America!

This past weekend we celebrate Amercia's birthday in the same manner many others did, with swimming, BBQ and fireworks!

All four kids had a great time running around, throwing poppers on the ground (and some at each other). The Hodge family had been in Italy for the past two weeks so Alex was glad to have his best friend Sean back.

Alex was really excited about fireworks and I was excited that this would be the first year Amelia got to experience them. Well, she really enjoyed the fireworks show at the local high school. She pointed at the sky saying "stars!" and "pretty!" However when it came to setting off our own fireworks she was not having it. As you can see from the photos below we had help her through our little firework show.

For now I am throwing myself into planning Alex's 5th birthday party which I am of course going totally over the top for. I will be trying to document my planning process as much as possible so some sneak peeks will be coming up in future blog posts....

The Busy Days of Summer

I cannot believe it will be July in just a few days! Where has June gone?! I guess days by the pool and a trip to Pebble Beach makes the days fly by!

Last weekend Paul & I volunteered Thursday thru Sunday at the US Open in Pebble Beach. I agreed to sign up because come on, Pebble Beach, but I wasn't sure what to expect since I am not a big golf fan. I have to say though, I am now officially a fan of golf. The US Open was so much fun and I got swept up in all the excitement! I really enjoyed myself and look forward to volunteering in two years at the US Open in San Francisco. I may even take a few golf lessons this summer. :)

I don't have a lot of photos from the event because no cameras were allowed inside but I do have one photo we had taken in the Lexus tent of us with the trophy, yes the actual trophy!

We had several friends also attending the US Open so we also had some fun nights out with them eating dinner and watching a band at one of the local bars. A lot of fun times with old and new friends.


This past week we spent time catching up with laundry and work. This weekend the temperatures finally got up there, we all knew it was coming. The kids are really enjoying all the time outside, especially the time in the pool!

As a belated father's day gift I took the kids to Color Me Mine to make him a coffee mug for work and a special plate. It was quite an experience let me tell you. What they enjoyed more though was the playground right outside the store. Oh well, Paul still got a very cute mug out of it!


I'm sure I will have lots more swimming pictures to come with this 100 degree weather upon us! We have fun plans of BBQ's and 4th of July celebrations coming up next weekend. With all these fun activities my kids have been sleeping great, as have I! Hope everyone is staying cool out there!

Chocolate Decadence

We all deserve a little splurge now and then, and for me my splurges usually involve something with chocolate. I got the idea off of some blogs I follow to make cookie brownies. There are several variations for this treat but I took the easy, not homemade, version yesterday. They still turned out absolutely delicious! These yummy treats are perfect for a summer time picnic or play date because they travel well.

First you want to mix a box of brownie mix (I used Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge) and pour it into a 9x9 or 9x11 baking dish. Then either make chocolate chip cookie dough or buy pre-made cookie dough and drop it into the brownies.

They will take about 40-50 minutes to bake depending on what size pan you use. I recommend some swimming while they bake.

After they finish baking let them cool about 20-30 minutes before cutting into them. Then enjoy with a big glass of milk! We all indulged but then I went for a nice run today!

Summer has arrived!

Since October of last year (when it became too cold to swim in our pool) Alex has been asking me when we can swim again. Although they have had a few quick dips, this Sunday they had a full fledged swim day. With the pool 80 degrees and some fun new pool toys, it was a recipe for a fun summer day.





Yes, I was in the pool but no photos of me with the kids, that is the problem with always being the family photographer!

We did get some great family pics though, with all of us, this weekend by my friend Megan up in Sacramento. I encourage you to check out her blog, Click here. I am so happy with the way our photos turned out!!

While we were up in Sacramento we also all had a great time at a garden party my mom threw for us. It was a great time to catch up with old friends that I hadn't seen in ages. The kids had so much fun, especially Alex with his new friend Alexandria, the daughter of my friend Danielle. The two had so much fun romping through my mom's bushes and trees being 'explorer's.'

We were all so exhausted by the end of Saturday between the party and family photos, another great weekend away. However we are badly in need of some down time at home after all this running around! I'm looking forward to some more swim days and lounging around the pool this coming weekend!