Daddy's Day 5.0

We had a great time celebrating the Daddy is our house yesterday.  We started with a pancake breakfast with amazing decorations {all thanks to Natalie} and the unveiling of their Daddy art (done by both girls).
The girls did a little finger painting art earlier in the week...

This was the final product:

Nat wrote I <3 U and her name...So sweet.  The border is Livi's contribution.  It has a fantastic place on Daddy's desk.

The decorations:

Natalie wrote "Happy Daddy's Day".  She asked me to print out some "race cars" to use as decorations as well.  She knows her Daddy so well.

Later we went to Smokey Bones for lunch where we had great service, great food, and a great reason to come back (coupon from the manager).

Daddy and his girls...

We headed home to swim a bit before cleaning up for some dinner.  We ended the night with Daddy debuting his ice cream spectacular skills.  Thanks to our NINJA!  Some vanilla frozen yogurt, a couple oreos, and a handful of cinnamon toast crunch make for the perfect ending of a perfect day!
We hope all of the Dads in your lives were spoiled a bit for being amazing superheroes!

XOXO
Maggie & co.

Natalie's 4th birthday pARRRty

For Natalie's 4th birthday party she wanted a pirate princess theme...And being the anti-birthday in a box I started from scratch.  We reserved our normal park shelter and hoped for good weather...we had the most perfect weather you could ask for (minus a little wind while setting up everything went as planned.)  I do this every year with Natalie's birthday- I start planning in November but am ALWAYS pulling it all together the week before!
Our Pirate Princess and her little matey:

I made bunting that said YO HO HO and AHOY MATEYS but with the wind I could only catch a picture of this one:

We changed it up this year in the food department.  We went with Jimmy John's sandwiches and some snacky sides...

I love finding stuff to use around my houses for parties. Example A- this treasure box holding the silverware was my Nana's...

And germ-X is a must!

Here are the food and labels:

Jewels

Peg legs

Salted meat and seaweed

Fish...

... & Chips

I ordered the cupcakes from Sugardarlings and I would do it over again...like today!  I made the cupcake toppers- so easy and way cheaper than buying them...

Each matey got a bandanna, eye patch, some pirate gold and a tattoo.  This treasure box is from iParty.

We had so much fun celebrating Natalie's 4th birthday will all of her friends and family!  The weather was beautiful, the food was great and she got some amazing presents!  Thanks again to everyone who helped out...

ARRR MATEY!

Sleeping pirate

 XOXO
Maggie & co.

PS- I have printables saved on my computer but I'm too lazy to put them on sribd so just e-mail me and I will send them to you in a PDF.

Turkey Day 2012

We spent Thanksgiving in Connecticut with the majority of my extended family (at least on the Hyland side).  There were 25 people PLUS 3 little girls and 2 babies for Thanksgiving dinner.  The house was loud but full of love!  We had a lot of fun seeing people we haven't seen in a few years and catching up with those we get to see more often, like Livi's Godmother, Lisa.  

Here are some 3-D pumpkins and felt fall leaves:

The little girls helped me out with this one.  We used them to hold popcorn and pretzels.

My niece helped me out with the wording on this bunting.  I love the scalloped turkey face and her handwriting is adorable.  Thanks Aves!

And a close-up...

Then we have the place settings. 
My parent's dining room has a slight nautical theme with maps and striped walls.  So it just made sense having these mayflowers as place settings:

My Mom changed something on me last minute so I needed to make 2 more Mayflowers but was out of the pretty taupe cardstock.  Sooooo...Mom and Dad (the Hosts of T Day) got Mayflower cargo ships with giant pilgrims (by Aves).

The cool table had the Native American table settings.  I love these feathers! 

The little girls' table was Pilgrim themed.  I wanted to get some brown butcher paper for the girls to draw on but Mom did one better.  She found a paper table cloth that was designed to be colored.  AWESOME!  Insert Pilgrim hat crayon holders!

The last table was my turkey table.  With help from my Dad (and some extra railing he found) I was able to pull these together.

We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends!  We hope everyone had a great holiday and spent it with the ones you love doing what you love.

{I am most thankful for the Fighting Irish and their 12-0 season!}

XO
Maggie & co.