January 2014

 Our January was full of fun.  Sorry for the horrible quality of the photos, I took them all with my iphone. But you can still get the idea :)

  Beckam has been hard at work all month enjoying the art supplies that he got for his birthday. This little guy LOVES to draw, color, and paint!

We also had fun adding some new activities to our January traditions.

We made some homemade sparkly snow play-dough. It was supposed to turn out white but I used sea salt in the recipe which made the dough turn a little brown so I had to add blue food coloring to cover it up. It still looked wintry though. :)

Beckam had fun cutting snowflakes out of it.

We also made snowman pancakes this year instead of our traditional snowflake ones.  They turned out so cute!

And Beckam had fun making a snowman picture with cotton balls!

We made a snowman pizza too- with lots of white sauce, cheese and olives for the buttons and eyes. I added zucchini to make it just a little healthier although less cute :)

To see what other fun traditions we love to do in January, including crafts, activities, recipes and more, see my posts:

January

Snowflakes and Winter Wonderland Fun

Snowmen and Polar Animal Fun

Three King's Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Beckam Turns Two: It's a "Gabba" Party!

     My baby turned two, TWO, this last December! (Yes, I'm a little slow posting pictures of it). We had such a fun time celebrating his birthday though and I think you can see what a blast he had at his party!

So you know those things that you always told yourself you would NEVER do as a parent, and then you find yourself doing just that?  Well, letting my kids watch the tv show Yo Gabba Gabba was one of those things for me. I was convinced (and still am) that it is one of the WEIRDEST childrens' shows known to mankind (a close second to Teletubbies).   However, it was one fateful day that I made the mistake of streaming an episode of it on Netflix.   After just that ONE episode (I'm not kidding folks) my then 15 month-old son added "Gabba" to his vocabulary and started asking to watch it All. The. Time.  But when I would cave and turn it on for him, he would light up and start clapping his hands and getting SO excited!! So how could I resist?!

A few months later I was in line at a store and they happened to have a green stuffed "Brobee" (one of the characters from the show) for sale in the check out aisle. Can I just say that whoever thought it was a good idea to put candy and toys on display in a narrow check-out aisle clearly didn't have kids.   When my son saw it he immediately started calling out for "Gabba!" (what he calls Brobee) and before I knew it "Gabba" was on his way home with us in the car and has since become my son's most loved and prized possession.

So... in thinking of what theme to do for my little guy's second birthday- how could I not??!!  It simply had to be a "Gabba" party.  And given the fact that my son's birthday is December 26th, the day after Christmas, the color scheme could not have been more perfect: GREEN and RED! It was like the entire commercial world had come together to provide party supplies for Christmas his birthday.


We had the party at my parents' house since we were home for Christmas and it seriously could not have gone more perfectly! I think the party was a huge success and so much fun (if I don't say so myself)!

Hot Dog Bar

I decided to do a hot dog bar for the food. It turned out so great! I knew it would be a lunch that would please both the kids and the adults. To make it a little more fun than just plain old hot dogs, I served up tons of different toppings and even gave suggestions of famous types of hot dogs (see picture below) for people to try if they were feeling adventurous. Most of the kids just loved mustard and ketchup while the adults were loading their dogs with guacamole, fresh diced onions, pickle spears, sauerkraut, hot peppers, and so on. The hot dog bar definitely was a hit!

Test Your Beckam I.Q. Contest

For an opening activity, I had everyone take a short quiz to test how much they know about Beckam. It was really fun to see the answers and to find out who knew him best!

"Gabba" Cookie Decorating Contest

My son thinks that gingerbread men look like "Gabba" so I thought it would be cute to have a Gabba cookie decorating contest using gingerbread cookie cut-outs. I pre-made the sugar cookies and had them out along with lots of frosting and sprinkles!

Even the adults joined in the fun! It was so fun to see all of the Gabba cookies that people came up with!

For the winners of the Quiz and the Cookie Contest I had a selection of Gabba colored prizes for them to choose from.

The Cake

 Okay, I just have to say that I was super proud of my cake. I made it all by myself and I feel like it turned out SO cute!! I made a tiered chocolate cake and frosted it green. Then I cut out/molded the facial features out of something called Cake Decorating Dough that I found at Jo Anne's. 

 

Party Favors

 I sent all the little kids home with a party favor sack which I hand made to look like Gabba.  They each had Gabba colored M&Ms, Yo Gabba Gabba crayons, bubbles and a bouncy ball in them. 

 I don't think the party could have gone better. I had so much fun planning it and putting it on and I'm glad that it made such a special day for Beckam!

P.S. Thanks to my awesome sister-in-law Caitlin for taking a lot of the photos!  She always does a great job!!