The biggest reason I cloth diapered.

The biggest reason I cloth diapered.

Rice Milk: Why it says not to give it to children under five.

Rice Milk: Why it says not to give it to children under five.

What’s with kids and Comfort items?

What’s with kids and Comfort items?

Very Hungry Caterpillar Invitations

The theme for RaeRae's 1st birthday is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. I wanted to try to include all of the books for the party, but that was getting to be too much work so I stuck with this one theme. There are hundreds of ideas for food, decor, party favors, etc on Pinterest. I first learned about this idea for the invitations through a web search that lead to me to this blog.


I nearly followed her directions for the invitations, except tweaked on the colors a bit and the poem. 
For my invitations, I added "ears" to the caterpillar heads like in the story. I tweaked it to match my needs (indoor party in my home versus at a gym, date/time, my name, etc). 
 
First green circle:

We can hardly believe a year has passed.

Our little caterpillar has grown so fast!

Join us for some food and fun.

RaeRae* is turning ONE!

 Second green circle:

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Time: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Crawl to:

 (My address, omitted here on blog for privacy)

 Third green circle:

Bubbles and balloons, and lots of play!

We hope you can make it to this special day!

Cake and finger foods will be provided.

(*If weather is nice, there is a park across street we can play at after the party)

 Fourth green circle:

RSVP to Mama Jenn

by: February 1^st, 2012

via: jenncoleregis at gmail...

*Please provide the age of children attending (younger-age driven party)

   

        Putting together these invitations were soo much fun! But a lot of work. I think it would have been easier if I had one of those circle cutters from Michael's or Joann's. But instead, I found something in my home and traced every single circle on cardstock/scrapbook paper. I bought the little scrapbook beads for half off at Michael's using a coupon. I cut each circle myself. I didn't do all the invitations in one sitting, but across a few sittings over a couple of weeks. Then I hand-gave most of them. It was fun to watch people's reactions opening them and ooh-ing and ahhing over them.

I bought the red ribbon on sale at Michael's, then later I found some confetti ribbon at the Dollar Store. I've been budgeting wherever I go.

*Again, name changed for privacy reasons.

11 months old!

*This blog originally started Friday night, but haven't been able to complete it until now! Ah, the life with a baby...

Today  Friday RaeRae turned 11 months old! I can hardly believe she is going to be ONE next month! It is bittersweet. I have loved watching her grow up and be part of it, but it also makes me a bit sad that she is growing older and soon will no longer be a "baby." She will always be my baby though.

To date, she: 

• has 8 teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom);
• crawls a storm from room to room, and often chasing the kitties and sometimes us or wanting us to chase her; she also has two different types of crawls--one regular crawl on her knees and another bear-type crawl where her knees aren't touch the floor at all;
• understands words and signs for: mama, dada, kitty, more, and milk; 
• babbles with her voice a lot and can say "dada," "mama," "nana," "uh oh," and sometimes "hi"; 
• is starting to babble with signing (pointing, waving, making up signs, etc) and can sign "milk" (not too often), "kitty" (on the chest), and "dog";
• Also makes "mwah" sound or copies us when we do it (so darn cute!); 
• is cruising when she stands along the couch or against the walls, etc (soon she will be walking!);
• is starting to stand alone for a few seconds while maintaining balance (Friday she did her record of 8 secs!); 
• self-feed herself with finger foods (not yet spoon or sippy cup);
• turn pages of a book back and forth;
• make the connection between two objects or an object's meaning (examples: baby bottle to the baby's mouth; the door goes open and shut; mama's make-up brush goes on the face; a hairbrush is for the hair; or phone goes near the ear or for our iphones, she uses her fingers to trace along it like we do for the apps, etc)
• taps us to get our attention sometimes; 
• likes to eat oatmeal, broccoli, black beans, cheerios, rice, or anything she can put into her mouth that we give her;
• loves books, wooden toys, and pulling off socks;
• also loves to make a mess with her box of baby legs or help mama sort diapers...

So much! So busy at 11 months!  We are having such fun! 


Happy 11 months RaeRae! Next month: birthday post! We are doing the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle for the theme of her party. She has a dress with matching diaper and shoes all set for it. 

Milkshakes in the Morning.

A previous blog written by Dawn Papple, at Everything Birth, Inc---the business I work for. Doing some research on coconut oil lead me to reading this again and I wanted to share. Enjoy!


Milkshakes in the Morning.

Pinterest!

Recently I was formally introduced to Pinterest (*you have to request an invitation or ask a friend to send you an invitation). I was invited by a friend. Verdict: I lovvvvvvvvvve it! (And I think you will too, if you don't already).


If you haven't heard of Pinterest, it's basically a resource website where you can browse thousands of pictures posted by others and "pin" them to save them into your account. It's almost like tagging yourself on Facebook in other people's pictures. There are also options to "like" or "comment" on a photo like in Facebook too. 


Pinterest was started in March of 2010, almost two years ago, by a group of people in Palo Alto, California. Wikipedia defines Pinterest as the following: 

"Pinterest is a vision board-styled social photo sharing website and app where users can create and manage theme-based image collections. The mission statement of Pinterest is to connect everyone in the world through shared tastes and the “things” they find interesting."


You create a board, which is almost like an album, to organize all the pictures that you pin. When you search for something (i.e. Eric Carle birthday party--the theme for my daughter's first birthday party coming up soon), it brings up several pictures from other people's boards.You have the option to look at individual pins, boards, or people. Oh that too...you can "follow" people and see what they are pinning. For instance, I recently saw my friend's ideas for her daughter's birthday party because I am following her.


So, what can you search? Just about anything. Need some birthday party ideas like I did? Just type in a keyword or two and see what comes up. Need craft ideas for a rainy day? Creative snack ideas? Home decoration? Find something you like and "pin" it to a board. 


I love that you can get D.I.Y. ideas from Pinterest. This part has helped a lot with making my own party invitations and decorations for RaeRae's 1st birthday next month. 

I also learned another plus...there's an app for Iphone users! 


If you are curious about Pinterest and would like an invitation, feel free to leave a message below with your email address. Write it all out without the @ symbol to keep away spammers.