Packing Up and Getting Out

The movers are here and loading our stuff into the truck. This is when we say goodbye to our little house (easy, well mostly) and the kids say goodbye to their best little neighborhood friends. Even I'll miss having my house filled with these kids everyday. This is the hard part.

House Hunting

Part of the joy of moving is trying to find a place to live. I lie. This part overly stresses me. Shay would be happy living in a bus, so he's never much help. Although I enjoy simplicity and think living in a bus would have its perks, the reality of it might drive me mad. I have 3 little kids that are with me 24/7. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm alone. It would be pretty hard to fool myself in a bus. It's pretty difficult to feel alone in my small 2-bedroom house. I'm selfish, I know.

Anyhow, we went to Reno July 12 to July 21. Shay's parents met us there for the first part of our trip, and Nick and Dani's family met us for the last half.

We were lucky to find a lovely home pretty quickly, which was a blessing. The rental market is crazy. As soon as a decent rental comes open it has an application on it. We tried to get one house and someone got it just before us. We were going to settle for another that wasn't even on the market (Can you use that term with rentals?) yet, but that a property manager showed us anyway. It was definitely not great, but it was big enough and in a nice area.

After much prayer, pleading, and obsessive checking of craigslist, etc. we found a place. I called as soon as it popped up. It didn't even have a photo posted but I new it was in the area we were looking. When we pulled into the driveway, I was automatically in love. Walking inside was even better. It was a confirmation that my prayers were being answered.

We found a wonderful home that is bigger, in a better location, and cheaper than any of the others. We're stoked!

Well, since we found our house quickly, we had plenty of time for play.

We enjoyed beautiful Lake Tahoe twice! We went on a cruise on the lake with Grandma and Grandpa.

Shay, Em & Cayben

Solee & Gramps

Me & My Babe

Shay & His Girl

Solee

Shay & His Girls 

Cayben & Grandma 

"I'm your lady, and you are my man!" Ha! 

We're hot like Titanic.

Shay with another one of his girls.

Em & Cayben

You know you've got skill if you can dance on a rocking boat!

We had fun catching crawdads.

Solee

Grandma and Grandpa spoiled the kids at Circus Circus. 

Grandma, Shay & Solee

When Nick, Dani, Carter and Avery came we enjoyed hitting golf balls at The Grand Sierra Resort.

Cayben was way better at it than me.

We of course enjoyed lots of food.

Embrie wanted me to take a picture of this "biggest fry ever!" 

Lake Tahoe was just as nice the second time. This time we rented some canoes and enjoyed paddling on the lake.

Cayben & Shay

Nick & Carter are in the back. Embrie & I are up front with Cayben in tow.

Caybe & Shay

It ended up being a great trip. We got to play with family and we found a great house! Win win!

Now we're ready to move…almost.

Circus Party Specs

I know, I know! I've already written a post on Solee's 1st birthday circus, but I thought I should add a post including all the juicy details, in case y'all want your own circus.

Let's first start with the birthday beauty.

The majority of the outfit was found at www.haloheaven.com. If you have a little girl and have not yet checked out this website, DO IT! They have such cute stuff and it's cheap. Bonus!

Big Sister got a cute pettiskirt to match.

I made Birthday Girl's little tutu by tying glittery tulle and ribbon around a crocheted headband.

Next, let's move onto the decorations. If you read the original blog post, you know that I failed to get most of the decorations up because of my typical mismanagement of time. Anyway, I did get a few decs up.

The guests were greeted at the door with this:

I had the print done at Walmart and then glued it to a foam board from the dollar store.

This super cute ceiling decoration is meant to add the big top feel to the party.

This is simply made from dollar store plastic tablecloths. I cut each in half and draped them from the center of the ceiling to the outer parts of the ceiling. Balloons were added to the middle.

Using more inexpensive dollar store tablecloths, I made a simple photo backdrop.

Add some fun photo props and you have yourself a fun circus activity.

The outdoor tables had simple flower centerpieces and mini tubs of peanuts.

I got the flowers, vases and tubs from the dollar store. I put some tickets in the vases for some added fun.

Let's move onto the games. For the first game the guests got to guess how many candies were in each jar. I had four different sized jars with varying types of candy. The person with the closest guess won the jar of candy.

These cute, FREE printables on the jars can be found here. I also used the free printables to wrap water bottles, mini candy bars, and the napkins and utensils. So cute!

The guests each got four tickets attached to their goody bags and they used those tickets to make their guesses.

The next few games and activities were done outside and could be played over and over again to win tickets and candy.

Bean Bag Toss from an old ladder painted to look cute.

 Spill the Cans made from paper covered soup cans.

 Ring Toss from bottled sodas and canning jar rings.

Face Painting

And a balloon tying clown.

The other two games required a little more adult direction and to be played as a group.

Pin the Nose on the Clown. A classic. My kids decided to open the store bought game and lose the sticker noses before the party. Pom-poms and double-sided sticky dots make for extra cute clown noses.

I made the "blind-fold" out of dollar store funny glasses, scrapbooking paper and fabric. It was fun and so easy to transfer from kid to kid. 

Piñata Pullers, inspired by Family Fun Magazine. These are made out of toilet paper roles and tissue paper filled with candy. I thought it would be more appropriate for my 1-year-old birthday girl to pull a string rather than bash a piñata with a bat. The tutorial for these can be found here.

Now onto the food, my favorite part of any party. Let's start with the cake.

I had the cake made by The Goodie Godmother. The inside was a red and white (chocolate and vanilla)  marble cake. I asked her to frost it with red and white stripes to resemble a big top. I added the pennant.

The cake stand was made from a dollar store bin (Can you tell where I like to shop?) and scrapbooking paper. I covered one of the handle opening with the paper, but by the way the triangles lined up, the other was left open. I intended it to be turned toward the back. This picture drives me absolutely nuts. I wish I could just pick the cake up and turn the stand around. Oh well. I'm sure I'll survive. ;)

Let the list of food begin.

Circus cookies and Animal Crackers.

 Candy.

 (I found these star glass bowls at Dollar Tree and glued tickets to it.)

Circus Peanuts.

 Nachos.

 Corn dog bites, apple slices and caramel sauce.

 Cracker Jacks.

Deliciousness!

Finally, the prizes! You can't leave your guests empty-handed.

We had popcorn, cotton candy (my fave), Animal Crackers, Cracker Jacks, live fish, pin-wheels and marshmallow clown suckers.

Here is me manning the picked over prize stand.

Hope you enjoyed the circus!