Onesie Baby Shower

I was able to co-host a baby shower for my sister-in-law. It was nice to be able to share the load for this party! It was so much to plan!! I think it came together nicely and most importantly, the mom-to-be was happy the whole night.

The main activity, other than eating, was to make onesies. And although I didn't get a photo of it, the other gals planned a fun game. They put baby food in a diaper and we had to smell (and in my case, taste) the diapers and guess which flavor they were. I've played it with candy bars smeared in the diaper. Both are fun ways to play the game.

The theme for this shower was in color and that was about it. She is having a boy so I tried to keep it masculine yet cute and festive for the mom too. The colors were aqua, orange, brown and grass green. I found a lot of inspiration on Pinterest and kept this at a budget.

Do you recognize the changing table from this party? 

 Diaper cake made by my sister-in-law. The diapers even matched the color theme!

Baby advice written on onesie shaped cardstock (I used my silhouette to cut all of them for this party). 

I found these letters at Michael's on clearance for 50 cents a piece! I spray painted them to match. Now she can take them home and display them in the nursery. Can you tell the "A" is a bit wonky? It started out as an "R". There weren't any "A's" left so I cut it down. My cutting skills are never exact. Or my pattern skills....I should have painted the "O" blue and the other "N" green. Oops. 

 These 8" lanterns were a great price! Only $.90 each plus shipping from this store.  Tons of colors and sizes. And fast shipping. So fun!

Costco's Jalapeno Artichoke dip and pita chips. Yum!

My mother-in-laws famous mint brownies. 

Oreo truffles.  Recipe here. Or, in my case, oreo blobs. I am NOT a cake decorator cake ball person. But I enjoy eating them! 

Ready to Pop snack. Recipe here. 

Bubble bath punch. Or in this case, Ocean punch. Another SIL created this yummy drink.  The toys are from Toys r' us. The recipe and idea for the punch are here. 

Cucumber and orange water. 

Heidi and her sisters, mom and grandmother!

Heidi & friend Melanie (She's a talented photographer, check out her site)

Making onesies. There are a ton of tutorials online (I used some of these on my Pin board). Basically, I gathered up my fabric scraps, used heat n' bond iron-on sewable adhesive. My other talented sister-in-law drew, free handed, 20 baby shapes including cars, caterpillars, airplanes and more.  We traced those out onto the heat n bond, ironed it to fabirc, cute that out and then ironed it onto the onesie! We made 4 of each age, from ages 3-6 months up to 24 months. The lucky mom walked away with a loot of baby clothes! And each one is personal and made by her friends!

 Party favor. My mother-in-law also made onesie shaped sugar cookies. Something very similar to these. I am so mad at myself for forgetting to take a photo. They took a long time to make but they were so adorable. They are inside these goodie bags. 

Price breakdown: $146.50 total, divided 
Ouch! That seems like a lot altogether. It includes all handmade food items and items like paper straws and lanterns that I will use again. Fortunately, other family members helped foot the bill. The onesie activity took up just over one third of the cost but it was my baby gift to her as well. I am ball-parking on some of these because I did not actually purchase them as it was a group effort.

Onesies (on sale from Babies 'r us): $40
Favor bags: (clothes pins & kraft bags from Target $1 aisle, paper free): $6
Cookies-- homemade, plus clear bags: $4
Paper lanterns (Paper Lantern Store): $15
Oreo Truffles:  $3.50
Carrots/Celery: $2
Jalepeno Dip/Chips (Costco):  $12
Diaper cake: $10
Punch w/toys: $10
Paper straws (Zurchers): $10
Cheese crackers: $2
Popcorn: $5
Paper goods: $12
Other craft items (yarn, basket, giant clothespins) (Michael's): $10
Diaper game (diapers & baby food): $5
Heidi! For letting me use her camera!

Olympic Themed Party & homemade Tartar Sauce

So the Olympics have arrived and are nearly over. They are the time to have an excuse to be glued to the TV all....night....long. And get nothing else done, because, why? We have the Olympics to watch. My favorite sport to watch, and always has been, is the women's gymnastics. I find them to be not only athletic but beautiful and graceful. They are sort of like freaks of nature. So young, so athletic, so beautiful like little sculptures....and so coordinated. I think that's one reason I am so mesmerized because I don't think I learned how to do a cartwheel until I was like 16. Seriously. Amazing. My new favorite event is swimming.....that Michael Phelps did it for me. And now Missy Franklin! She's a former Coloradan (I still consider myself to be one even though it's been a long while since I lived there). So we all pile on the couch and watch....skipping commercials (except the sappy "mom" ones about how the Olympians mom's are the reason they are there. Those always get me).....how did we stand it before DVR? Rooting for our country (and those that might be the under-dogs). Explaining to the children the rules and what to look for. And then watch them start diving of the couch, doing flips onto the floor and dreaming about them becoming an Olympian someday just like I did. It's a special time of year.

For the "rings" I used existing Chinese lanterns and painted them. I tried two methods...spray paint and acrylic. I liked the matte finish of the acrylic better and it didn't use as much. Plus the kids got to "help" out.

For the Opening Ceremonies my sisters and I threw a small bash. You can see our inspiration here.  We were going to to do the whole  Olympic game thing with relays and so on with our kids.....but having just returned from a family reunion that afternoon and my sister being very great with child, we opted out. Instead we let the kids drink classic Coca-Cola and watch the ceremonies with us. I have to say, England has some great skills with storytelling. I mean, my fave man, William Shakespeare was produced from that country, but they still have the talent. It was a beautiful ceremony and I was touched many times. Great job G.B.

We celebrated by eating fresh Fish 'n Chips. I mean fresh. Like caught from the Kenai river in Alaska two days before fresh. (Thank you Steve and Shawn for sparing a few for us!!) My mom kept commenting on how it just melted in her mouth. Sooooo yummy. By the way, we use the McCormick beer batter box mix. Easy and delicious! (you can find it near the cocktail sauces usually by the meat department on it's own end cap....each store likes to hide it but it's there!). But the tartar sauce is to die for too. My sister-in-law Jana made up this recipe. And she let me share it with you. Also, my sister made the cookie fruit pizza. She found the inspiration from this pin.  We scattered some "gold medals" (rolo's) on the table, made little torches, drank Olympic themed coke, and my sister made us paper envelopes for our dinners to be served in. It was a fun night! How did you celebrate? Will you for the closing ceremonies?

So here is the recipe for the tartar sauce. It's not an exact recipe....she just kind of mixes the ingredients together, tastes, and adds more of what she tastes is missing. So try for yourself! And you'll want it all the time after that.

Jana's Tartar Sauce
Yields: as much as you'd like. About 1 large cereal bowl full ?

1 part mayonnaise
1/2 part ranch dressing
1/4 part mustard
1/8 part chopped dill pickles, or sweet relish is good too!
salt and pepper, to taste

When you think of parts it could be "cups", or just that much less than the previous ingredient. Does that make sense? Combine first ingredient and second and then keep adding remaining. Taste. Add more of what you like. Keep stirring and tasting until it's good. Store in a covered bowl. Enjoy!

Potty Treat Tutorial

Marshmallow & Doughnut Potty Treats

Here is a quick tutorial on how to make these cute little potty's from the Potty Training Party.

1. Gather Materials. 
--Gigantic Marshmallows
--Cooking shears, sprayed with vegetable spray, like PAM
--Decorating gel, or you could try Nutella or peanut butter or frosting
--Small powdered sugar doughnuts

You're done!

If you look closely you can see the yellow decorating gel oozing out of the seat.....it looks kinda gross, so if you don't want that look, put less gel on those seats.

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Potty Training Party

Photos by Cirina. Tutorial for potties here.

I applied to host a Potty Training Party with Huggie's Pull-Ups via houseparty.com. Have you heard of them? They're a company that allows you to host a party, based on a theme, and they provide the host with goodies for you and your guests. I went to one last winter for Shutterfly and walked away with two free photo books! So I signed on and applied to the parties I was interested in. I found this potty training party to be particularly applicable as my youngest just turned 2. So I applied and was chosen, with many others, to host on one of three weekends. And I was sent a box in the mail with all the free goodies. So then I just had another excuse to throw a party!

And perfect timing, this party from Creative Juice, came up with a brilliant potty training celebration for her daughter's completion complete with a diaper toss, treats, and prizes just in time. I had a small pizza party for my son when he graduated to this next step, which was a big deal, because it took a year to train him!! So we celebrated. But not in style, like this. Thank you to my guests for attending and having fun! And a big thanks to my sister-in-law who happened to be in town with her son in training. She helped me the night before and the day of to set this all up. Thanks Jana!

Here are the photos! For more description about why I hosted this, please read below. And here is my Pinterest board I used for inspiration.

Thank you to Tiff Keetch for creating and providing the labels, you can print them for your own! Check our her blog for the printables. You may have already seen her talents all over Pinterest. 

Most of the photos below are courtesy of my friend, Cirina. 

I made these little toilets out of doughnuts and gigantic marshmallows. They were admittedly a big hit. The simple tutorial is here if you'd like to make them for your next potty training experience. 

Gable boxes filled with their Huggie's Pull-Ups kit. Before they went home they were able to take home a "magic drink" and "potty treats" jar. The labels were made by my fabulous friend (and attendee) Tiff Keetch. You can grab your free printables here. She thought it would be best if she stuck the labels on with clear packing tape, for waterproofing. Great idea! 

When I potty trained my first two children, we tried the "potty training in a day" method. It didn't really take one day but a few more. But the treat incentive, sticker chart and lots of liquids certainly helped. Hence the "magic drink" to be refilled with whatever the mother wants to fill it with to keep their child full and ready to train. 

Potty Treats. A mason jar with a scrapbook papered lid filled with purple (to go with the theme), yellow (pee-pee) skittles for going #1 and large chocolate kisses (a resemblance) for #2. 

 Oreo Truffles on a stick. I used this recipe. 

 The mini truffles for the children were not meant to look like, well, you can guess. But my sister-in-law and I surveyed our children, and they preferred oreo truffles without the white coating, so the little bit sized truffles for the kids were kept dark and the larger ones were for the "trainers" (ie, mother's). 

 The kit included coupons, a dance mat, an inflatable guitar, a sticker chart a few large stickers, and the DVD. 

The kits came with these inflatable guitars for each child. Here they are practicing the potty dance.

Why? And what is a potty training party?
My daughter just turned 2 and I was motivated to start training. But I wanted to give her a boost first to show how exciting it can be to be out of diapers. And to be surrounded by other children who are in the same position. Houseparty and Huggies gave us suggestions for games and such and provided me with a CD for the potty dance. Because this was a potty training party, it was not a celebration for completion but more of an avenue to pump my daughter (and my friend's children) up to get excited about potty training. To give advice and ideas of how to potty train (most of the guests were first time potty trainers) and to provide treats and tools to inspire the children to begin. As a hostess, I did not instruct or teach the children or mother's how to potty train. I left that up to them to use tools such as the free DVD from Huggie's and other resources like the many self-help books out there to find a method that works for them.

Budget: $52 minus $15 Target Hostess gift card = $37
Gable Boxes (Xpedx): .40 each/10 $4
Mason Jars (Target): .75 each/10 $7.50
Water bottles/"Magic Drinks" (Target): $2
Oreo Truffles (Walmart/Joann's): $5
Paper Straws (Amazon): $1/20
Toilet Treats (Walmart): $4
Potty Treats (Walmart): $5
Candy: $7
Yellow Ribbon (Michael's): $1
Paper Lanterns (Zurchers): $6.50
Cupcake liners (Michael's): $1
Paper cups & fake flowers (Dollar Tree): $3
Yellow Streamers (Zurchers): $1
Purple tablecloth (sheet) (Goodwill): $4

Thank you to houseparty.com and Huggies and Target!


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