A Girl's Dinosaur Party and...I'm Back!

After a year of radio silence from me, I am finally taking the time to sit down and write this post.  Despite the fact that Lilly's party was over six months ago.  I have actually kind of missed my little piece of the blogger world. I have no idea why it took me so long to log back on..But hey, better late than never right? Right. So with out further ado here is Lilly's Dinosaur party......

    Yep, you read that right.   My girl is anything if not original.  This theme was definitely not what I had in mind.  But I was shooting for unique and creative, and a girl's Dino party is definitely that.

For Lilly's 4th birthday I was think of something more along the lines of this...

Isn't that so stinken' cute! I love me some Breakfast at Tiffany's. (Now that I am thinking about it, its probably not the most appropriate theme for a child's party. But still flippin' cute!) But when asked what kind of party she wanted, the answer was a quick and sure "Dinosaur Party!",  and I aim to please the Birthday Girl.

 So I searched for a little inspiration; which, not surprisingly, there was not a lot of. At least not aimed for girls. Here are a few things I did come up with..

 These cute cupcake toppers ended up being my main source of inspiration. I even stuck with the Pink, Yellow and Orange color scheme they have going on. They are from PinWheelLane on Etsy, if anyone is interested.

I had a hard time "getting in the groove" with this party theme though, despite living on Pinterest for a month.

  The first thing I did was ran to my local Wallie World ( Walmart is the only thing in my little town) and bought the Dino Play cartridge for my cricut and whipped up these little babies.

Sitting down and actually making something really helped me get my creative wheels turning. So when it was party time, there where actually some pretty cool decorations, if I do say so myself.

This was the view out side as the guests arrived. These pictures didn't turn out so great. Do to the camera drama I have been having, I was using my Papal's camera, and I wasn't very familiar with it.

 I got the idea for this Zig Zag piece from here. Though I tweaked it so that the streamers where hanging from a PVC pipe wrapped in crepe paper.  The idea was to hang it over the rectangle table the kids where going to eat at, but  we ended up with a round table. So this guy got to hang out over the entry/ favor table instead.

 Speaking of the favor table, it had to do double duty. So I made this little sign to people know that the hats where for now, but the favors where for later.  Lilly loved that the cartoon girl was suppose to be her.

 

 Also, you can see here one of my failed attempts to spray paint a plastic dinosaur.  As far as I can guess, I think I got the wrong kind of spray paint. It did not want to cover and stayed sticky even after a week of drying outside. Lesson learned though. Make sure to get paint meant for plastic.

  I ordered these hats from amazon for about 15$.  I only decorated Lilly's hat, but if I had thought about it, it would have been a awesome craft for the kids to do at the party.

The mini Dino crayon favors I ordered from Etsy was a favorite of mine. They came per-wrapped, but I added my own ribbon and favor tags to tie into the "girly-ness" of the party.

 I really do wish the pictures had turned out better, because the decorations where so much cuter in person! But do you see the Dino shaped sandwiches in the corner of the above picture? Nutella and PB&J my friends, the kids loved 'em.  But the Dino nuggets where really what they all went for.  I just kept it simple and it turned out great.

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 But I did throw in some healthy stuff y'all.   We had veggie cups, grapes, applesauce and apple juice.  Though I guess it depends on who you ask if you consider the last two healthy.

  This photo garland is a tradition. I add a few more photos every year so that it spans from birth to her current birthday.  Its nice to see how much she has grown and changed every year.

  I made the cupcakes this year, though I have bought them from the grocery store before to save time. I actually had almost everything ready for the party well in advance so I had time to make them this year.

  The real star of the party was the Dino Dig though. The kids spent forever out there digging up their bones.  I ordered the plastic bones from Oriental Trading, and simply buried them in the sand for the kiddo's to dig up with their paint brushes.

We also had a "Dino Egg Hunt".   I made large eggs out of clay and painted them. We hide them before the kids got there in the "wild" (aka the back lot)  part of the yard.

We actually did the egg hunt before we ate to let the kids get all their pent up energy and excitement out. It worked like a charm and the kids had a great time.

And maybe the big kids did too :) Also linking up to one of my fav blogs, Birds's Party Blog.

Unite Women Rally

 I posted about the Unite against the War on Women rally a few weeks ago.  I hope some of you all went out to support your local rally/march.  We had a decent turn out, and we had tons of fun.  I was so encouraged my the diversity of the group that showed up.  We had whites, blacks, gays, straights, trans-genders, young, old, women and men.  And I so love seeing men standing up for the women they love.

 We gathered at the foot of the capital building and the kids had a blast rolling down that hill.

 The "What she said" sign was one of my personal favorites.

 I had so much fun helping to get things organized, and I will defiantly be doing it again in the future!

  
One of our main speakers was Park Overall.  While a wonderful actress/ TV personality, she is a refreshingly honest speaker and also running for Senate.

  
So many people volunteered to make this rally happen. This is just some of us. And to think, this all started on Facebook.  Most of us had never meet until shortly before this picture was taken.

I met so many wonderful and caring people all while fighting for something I believe in, and let me tell you, that is on of the best things in life.

We are WOMEN!

    For those of you who don't know "We are Women" is a national march for women rights, broken down by state so that we all can protest in our home capitols.
  On April 28th 2012, I will be in Nashville, my state capitol, marching with my fellow men and women who believe that women have a right to decide their own health care without interference from goverment or religious groups.

I have never posted a political view on this blog, but feel this is warranted.  We as women need to stand up for our rights.
  For the past couple years women rights have been under attack.  Republicans and their conservative counter parts have been systematically targeting us. All the while making thinly veiled insults.

 The laws that have passed make me angry, the ones that are still trying to go through, even more so.
But I have found that many women in my area don't even realize that there are bills going through right now that could drastically change their rights.

  
They are passing it off as a war on abortion, but the fact it, most of these laws would not just effect women looking to terminate, but all women.

And its already started.  
  A well known case is that of Samantha Burton who was forced against her will to hospital bed rest, after she refused it because she had two toddlers at home.  She was also forced into all medical procedures the doctors ordered whether she wanted them or not. Including a c-section.
   Amber Marlowe had doctors try to force her into a c-section because her baby was "too big". When she insisted that she had delivered six previous babies vaginally and could do so again, the hospital went to court and got  permission to force her into a surgery. 
 Fortunately, she manged to leave and get to another hospital where she vaginally delivered a healthy baby.
 Ms. Marlowe, who is pro-life,  marched in the March for Women's Lives after her experience with what happens when the fetus' rights trumps it's mothers.
  With a little Google digging you can find many other stories like these. ( here and here)
 

  
Which begs the question, if our rights are already being taken, how much more common would scenes like this become if the person-hood bills so many states are pushing become law?

Personhood bills want to give rights to any fertilized egg, even if those rights negate the rights of the mother.
This would hurt not only women wanting to abort, but many others.
 It would greatly reduce the kinds of birth control made available to women, stop couples getting IVF, could result in murder charges for women who miscarry, and of course would stop all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
 
 In AZ a law was passed that allows doctors to lie to pregnant women about her pregnancy, even if it leads to the woman death, if they think the information they have would make the woman want to abort. Again this effects not just women who want an abortion, but all pregnant women. 


Enough is enough!  Its time to stop these bills and laws. This isn't a war on women, it a war on mothers. 

Go HERE to found your local We Are Women march.  If you live in the north west TN and want to march, leave a comment and I will get you info.

Photoshoot

  Another post of few words.  These are pictures that my talented sister took at Christmas.   
 As nice as it is to have free pictures, she is sometimes a little slow in getting them to me.  (If you are is reading this, Sis, I love you anyways )

Its imposable to get my three year old to set still for a picture. ;/

 Its nice to get a few family pictures and a rare one of just my hubby and I.  I am so often behind the camera, that I have found that there are not many with me in them.   Thank goodness for my sister helping me change that some.

A Heart Wreath

 I have had my pinwheel wreath up all year.  What can I say? I was proud of it and a little more than in love.  
  But I finally decided to change it up a bit, in time for Valentine's day.

 This was a really easy to make with my cricut.  I simply removed the pinwheels and then hot glued the hearts on.  
    Like I said, really simple.

While I was at it, I decided to decorate the rest of the house a bit.
  I had bought a few things half off after last valentines, so I used that along with the homemade decorations.

     
I was going to use these letters below on the wreath, but decided that I didn't like it, so they just kinda got re-homed here.

And of course when I woke up this morning, Hubby had my valentines surprise waiting...