Scary Good Cause

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I will have more about our plans later, but for now I want to spread some news.

Local photographer Dominique Attaway is going to be at Trailside Coffee (in Old Trail) taking photos of kids in their Halloween costumes from noon until 2 p.m. on Halloween. Each person will get a 4x6 picture of their child in exchange for a donation to HEAL Africa. Dominique says that whatever donation you feel comfortable with giving will be accepted; 100 percent of what she receives goes directly to the organization.

Dominique is an incredible photographer (she did some beautiful portraits of Jillian a year ago) and a very busy mom of three active boys, so the opportunity to tap into this amazing talent and help a worthy cause is the best Halloween treat you will get this year.

The 'hood

One of the reasons for my absence this summer is that we moved to a new house in the middle of June. As anyone who has moved knows, it takes a little time to get settled and then you still feel as if you're playing catch-up with the rest of your life. The house is nice and we love it, but it is made close to perfect thanks to the neighborhood. Not many homes comprise this place, but pretty much everyone who lives here has children - infants to middle-schoolers (not sure if there are many high school-aged kids yet). And while there are plenty of family neighborhoods, this one reminds me of mine when I was a kid because the kids - hold on here - actually play outside. Shocking, I know, in this day and age. On Friday night I heard kids running around outside until at least 11 p.m. It's great.

On Saturday night our across-the-street neighbors opened up their backyard to the kids for movie night. It was awesome. They had a huge blow-up screen and played The Wizard of Oz (a movie that I despise, but oh well). Kids came over when it got dark and sat on their blankets on the lawn. They munched on popcorn and other snacks and had a great time. It was just as much fun for the parents, even if we didn't watch the movie.

This is the type of experience that I want for JillyBean as she grows up because it's what I had. I want her around neighbors who she will form strong bonds with as they grow older. I want her to have long-lasting relationships with childhood friends and share stories of running through the neighborhood on bikes, play at each others' homes and spending the night together. I know that she will have friends who live in other parts of town, at church and in school, but having those daily play partners are important.

PAR-TAY

JillyBean doesn't officially turn two until tomorrow, but she partied like a two-year-old Sunday afternoon. The celebration took place at The Little Gym and we invited several of her friends. It was a lot of fun. Jilly was so excited for her "party" but didn't quite realize that it started with activities in the Gym. In her mind, the party was supposed to take place in the room that had all of the balloons, pizza, and, of course, the cupcakes. She threw a little bit of a fit in the beginning of the celebration but relaxed and enjoyed herself toward the end. Still, she was anxious to get the party started.

The theme was monkeys. We sent out pink and brown invitations that had a monkey sporting a tutu and tiara. They were really cute and you'd think that it would have been easy to find pink and brown decor but it was a bit difficult. So, I had to dig deep down inside myself and become, hold on a sec, crafty. I like the idea of doing crafts but when it comes down to it, I would rather pay someone else to do it. I'll cook and bake all day long, but sitting down to do some sort of craft doesn't always turn out all that well.

The treat bags that we gave to all of Jilly's gifts were filled with a small stuffed Curious George, a set of Curious George stickers, a monkey jigsaw puzzle and Jilly's signature sweet - Jelly Belly jellybeans. In addition, I made a batch of monkey munch. I'm really lucky that those made it to the party as Beanie Daddy kept picking at the stash before I could even fill up the bags.

I made favor bags using pink lunch sacks and brown ribbon with white polka dots. A little thank you tag with a monkey sporting a pink bow was added to keep the monkey theme going.


The next creative endeavor that I undertook was a birthday banner. This was actually pretty fun. Jilly and I went to Michael's and scoured the craft paper aisle for different variations of pink and brown paper. I found some really pretty patterns, which you can't see so well in the photo.

Probably the best birthday move, though was ordering cupcakes from the fabulous Cappellino’s Crazy Cakes. They did a mix of chocolate and pound cake cupcakes with pink and brown frosting. Half had monkeys on them and the other half had pink flowers. They turned out super cute and tasted just as good.

We all had a lot of fun, especially JillyBean. She couldn't stop talking about the "party" two days before the event. The most important thing to her was having cake, balloons and a hat. I had thought about getting a new party hat, but decided just to let her wear last year's hat. We couldn't keep it on her then, but this year she wanted to wear it, for a while at least. Although it was pink and green, it still worked well and is super cute no matter what.

On one hand I cannot believe that she is going to be two tomorrow. On the other hand, it seems like she's been with us forever because I can't really remember life without her. We're going to have a small dinner celebration tomorrow night. I'm making Bean's favorite three-cheese spaghetti and she requested a "pink" sunflower cake. I typically make a lemon sunflower cake, but I guess that it won't hurt anything to make it strawberry. The celebration will continue when we visit Nana for Easter. She probably won't remember these parties, but they mean something to us. Plus, she'll have plenty of pictures to look back on when she gets older.

Shifting Gears

I have changed my mind about Jilly's birthday party. As much as I am in love with the pony/petting farm party idea I decided that it would be best to wait until next year. For one, the time that we can have a party would probably exclude some of her friends. Some of the parents are a bit more strict about weekend nap times than we are and I don't want to plan a party and have half the people not show because it falls in that time frame. Also, as much as I know that Jilly would love the animals, I don't want to scare a bunch of two-year-old kids who may like the idea of animals but not so big and not so close up. So, we'll save that party until she's three.

Instead we're going to do a Little Gym party. JillyBean had Little Gym today and on a whim I asked about their parties. Turns out that it will work out really well. A couple of friends had wanted to have parties there but they were booked. Luckily the Saturday and Sunday before her big day are available and the times are better so that we don't have a bunch of sleepy, grumpy toddlers.

So I have shifted gears and decided that since it will be a fun, active event that the theme will be monkeys. I found this invitation and I think that it's adorable. I like the "tu tu" reference as well and can use it to build on the fact that she'll be two.

These cupcakes are adorable and will work well with the theme. I think that it will be fun. The kids will get a chance to play, dance and sing for the first hour then the last part will be pizza and cupcakes. Maybe we can find a little pin-the-tail-on-the-money game.

Backyardagains

I'm not familiar with the Backyardigans but apparently they're a cartoon on TV. Well, they also have a live show and it's coming to C'ville on Thursday, Sept. 18. Get your tickets by clicking here.