Post 2: The Birthday Party

This is going to be an extensive look, at the work behind the scenes for throwing a four year old jungle party. Many pictures will not be shown, because I was so busy throwing the party that there were somethings I forgot to ask for a picture to be taken. Pictures shown are credited to Ashley Cone and Myself, I don't remember which picture is which. Thanks for your help Ash! Side Note: Please ignore weird spacing I tried forever to fix it, and had no luck!

The Invitation

The Craft (The binoculars were to be used for the safari at the end of the party, when they when searching for their goodie bags) we also did wild animal coloring pages and animal name tags

The Menu

So just in case you can't really see the picture here is what the menu for the night was:

Live Worms (sliced hot dogs)

Beetle Wings (potato chips)

Dried Ants (dried cranberries)

Snake Eggs (green grapes)

Croc Teeth (apple slices)

Jungle Juice (green kool aid, which did not go over well, I thought all kids liked kool-aid, oops)
AND...................................

The Cake

The Brother(down under this picture!!)

The Other Friends and Family (below)




The Games [This is only one of the games, the tree frog toss, it was the one that I was running, so I didn't get to take pictures of the other ones, which were: animal charades, feed the lion (which was throwing balls into a bucket with a picture of a lion on it), and elephant ring toss (which was throw rings trying to hook them on a blown up elephants nose)] I also regret not taking pictures of the tree frog layout, i made vines out of paper bags and cut out leaves from green card stock, and the kids threw sticky frogs and tried to get them on the leaves, it was really fun!!!! There were also sticky frogs in their goodies bags later!

The Presents (Landen really got a lot of great stuff and we literally didn't leave the house for a couple of days just so he could stay home and play with them all!! Thanks everyone!)

The Goodie Bags (inside was candy, a balloon, safari animal stamper, safari animal stickers, sticky frogs, and a safari animal notepad)

My Little Four Year Old!!!

Okay so this is a couple days overdue, Landen's real birthday was on Feb 22, but things have been so crazy that I have not had any time to do much with my pictures, or blogging. But I have to say happy birthday to my little boy even if it is late.

4 things I love about Landen:

1. His love for life, he is always excited!

2. The way he tells me he loves me to stay out of trouble (it always makes me laugh!)

3. The way he says his prayers

4. What an amazing big brother he is, just like I always wanted him to be

Wow only naming four was really hard, Landen has made the past four years of my life better than I could ever have imagined. His sweet spirit is a huge blessing to our family, I love you Landen, and Happy late Birthday!!!

I will try to get my stuff all together and post about his birthday party soon...I hope.

Pay it forward

So I literally copy pasted this from my friends blog. I changed the name dan to wayne but anyways...

My friend is doing this and I think it is a neat idea and a fun way to keep in touch. Everyone should join in. It's okay if you don't have a blog. Comment anyway. I'm not going to do the first 3 people -- just 3 random people. I'll probably make Wayne pull them out of a hat or something. Anyhow -- Totally Awesome!"Here's how it works-the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year, a handmade gift from me. What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well-before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back, let me know you're going to play, and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift! Remember that only the first 3 comments will receive a gift from me, so be quick!"

um, i will announce the winners next week so that i can get addresses and give people enough time to see this and comment, if you would like to comment and you don't have a blog, leave a message from anonymous but be sure and leave your name in the message.

Family History

Okay so I am the world's worst at doing my family history, however, my uncle started sending me pictures of my dad's side of the family and it has been a lot of fun seeing the pictures and i now feel much more motivated to do my family's work. So that will definitely have to make that one of my March goals. So here are some of the things that I have recently been sent.

My Dad as a baby, he was at least cute at one time...

My Dad in elementary school (for those of you that have met my siblings, which one of us kids do you think looks the most like our dad?)

This is a picture of my grandma (Mabel, in the back on the right) and her sisters

This is a picture of Rachel Jane Taylor, after whom I was named, so this one was a fun one to get, because I really don't know anything about her. Also I am about to have a little niece that is going to be named Taylor, and I hope she is just like me, that would make it extra special!! In the picture Rachel is the adult woman

Okay so this is the last one I am going to put up here, but seriously people, i know this is my family, but this picture scares the mess out of me!! They are all like "children of the corn", not that i know exactly what that means, but i think it is suppose to be scary, and they are. I am not trying to be mean, and i feel bad, because they were probably excited to be able to take a family portrait, but i can't help but be freaked out, do you know what i mean?! Well all i can say is i better make sure their work gets done because they are probably going to let me have it on the other side for trash talking their portrait, so hopefully they will forgive me if i seal all of them together!