Sesame Street 1st Birthday (on the cheap)

It was A-Cake's first birthday party last weekend. It was a total success, she had so much fun, and man-oh-man she was spoiled. I don't think I have ever seen a kid get so many presents. 

I also can't believe my baby girl is one! It is crazy, I feel like she should still only be a couple months old.  

I don't think parties need to be expensive, some of these parties on Pinterest seem like they cost at least a hundred dollars! I love my A-Cakes, but she is one, there is no reason to spend a hundred dollars on a party she will never remember (I don't think I would spend that much on a party, ever...I'm cheap) 

This party, including the cupcakes and everything was about $30.00 (thats the cupcakes, silverware, plates, etc.)

A-Cakes LOVES watching Sesame Street, its the only show she really watches. I put it on for her in the mornings when I am just waking up. She seems to really love Elmo, so she has quite a bit of Sesame Street products. So I knew that had to be the theme of the party.
I invited 43 people to the party, and most of them showed up, so that was way too many for our apt, so my lovely Aunt was kind enough to let us borrow her house for the party, Thanks Bonnie! 

For the table decor, I used some of A-Cake's Sesame Street Stuffed animals she had (I got these animals at a garage sale last summer, they are baby characters which I think is so cute!)

I also had pictures of her on the table, I already had the 8x10 frame, and the smaller frames I got from all a dollar (thanks Samantha Stephenson Photography for the one year old pics of A-Cakes).

Okay, isn't that plate the cutest? It used to be my husband's when he was little. 

The cupcakes we got at Sam's Club. I don't have a card there, but my momma does and she was in town so she ordered them and picked them up for me. They are so cheap! $13.99 for 30 cupcakes!!

I put candy on the table, pixie sticks and gummy worms and put labels that said: Oscar's Slimy worms and Abby's pixie dust (as in Abby Caddabby). 

As party favors I gave out crazy straws, but just to the kids that were there. I bought two packs of 6 crazy straws at the dollar store, the kids were having fun with them it looked like. 

I also baked cookies, snicker-doodles and my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Because Cookie Monster would be appalled if I didn't serve cookies at a party. 

I got the plates and table cloth at the dollar store, and then the cups and silverware at Wal-Mart. I also bought some soda at Wal-Mart for $0.84 each. I also bought a gallon of ice cream. 

I made pretty much all the decor myself (besides the animals and plate) I borrowed my aunt's cricuit cutter for the letters, but the rest of it, like the characters, I did free hand. 

I made this banner, it was pretty easy to make, I just had to cut out eyes and mouth for each character. I did Zoe, Oscar, Cookie Monster and Elmo. I also added pictures to it so you could see how A-Cakes had changed and grew over the year. I hung it with some yarn and clothespins and used tape on the wall to hold it there. 

The invitations!

I hand cut all these invitations out. Next time I am getting a circle punch at least, I can't believe how many circle eyes I had to cut out, what a nightmare. The invitations turned out cute, I liked them. But I messed up on them, big time. I found the pic on Pinterest, but no where could I find the tutorial on how to make them. But you are supposed to cut a big circle out and then fold it in half, put the information on the inside of the circle. I cut the circle in half. My husband took one look at the picture and said, weren't you supposed to fold it? I was so mad at myself, it was way obvious. but oh well, I doubt anyone noticed, they were still cute. 

I made a happy birthday sign for the door, and then on the walkway leading up to the door I had monster footprints. I also cut out squares and put the letter A and number 1 on the squares to look like blocks. I did a bunch of them and put them all over. I wanted balloons outside, but there is some weird helium shortage, its crazy. 

We had 3 games at the party. Since the party was mostly adults with a few kids I had to plan games that all ages could play. So I hid 3 of Ernie's rubber ducks around the place and the first person to find them won a candy bar prize. Then I filled 2 jars up with candy (jars at the dollar store) and you guessed the amount of candy in them. The closest person won the jar. And then lastly we played 'Guess that Sesame Street Character.' That game was my favorite. We made a slideshow of Sesame Street Characters and you had to guess who the character was. Since it was a lot of adults no one got all of them right. My mother-in-law won! Which is amazing since she hasn't watched it in years, go KERI!! But I gave out a candy bar prize for that as well. All of the games were simple and no one had to participate. I had them going throughout the party so it was just something that they could do on their own time. 

This girl hated everyone staring at her while she ate her cake. Once everyone stopped looking at her, she was fine and ate every single bit of that cupcake with a smile. 

30 Weird Things about me

I have some quirks that I think are a little bit weird. Well, actually, I think they are perfectly normal, everyone else just thinks they are weird.

• I dislike most white foods.  The exceptions are whipped cream and mashed potatoes.
• I probably have worse vision than your grandmother. I am that blind! 
• Dogs are not my friend. I actually pretty much hate them. I would much rather have a pet turtle.
• Aqua is the greatest color. 
• I am one of the few humans alive that actually likes Wal-Mart.  Hey it has everything there in that one store. I rarely have to go anywhere else. Sometimes I even buy my clothes there, yes, I am that person. 
• I would usually rather have my husband bring me home a big chocolate shake with hamburger and fries than a bouquet of flowers. Hmmm.. Maybe this is why I need to lose 10 pounds?
• In the past week I have broken 4 of our glasses. In our 3 years of marriage, we have had two ten packs of glasses, we are now down to 4 glasses. 
• Driving freaks me the crap out!  Really it gives me anxiety, but I have been driving a lot more this past year, I have driven to the airport twice! But I still won't drive downtown. 
• My usual time span for reading a book is one day. 
• 
  
• I played dolls until the 9th grade. I only stopped because some of the boys in my neighborhood saw me and made fun of me. 
• I would seriously rather clean toilets than do laundry.   And I don't use a toilet brush, I just use a scrubber and my hands, no gloves. And wash my hands forever afterwards. Yes, I hate laundry that much. 
• When I was a teenager my mom threatened to stop from reading instead of taking away my cell phone or grounding me. 
• I am pretty cheap, I won't pay more than $15.00 for a shirt. and $15 is kind of expensive. I feel ripped off when I spend that much. 
• I HATE cheese. 
• When I eat pizza, I take off all the toppings and put them in a pile. Then I take off all the cheese (which my husband says looks like zombie skin) and then pile the toppings back on, and eat. 
• I have to Clorox Cleanup my counter about 4 times a day. I have to know its clean! 
• I don't have a favorite band, or singer. I usually only like one or two songs from an artist. 
• Calling businesses scares me. I have gotten better at this, but it still makes my stomach do a flip flop. 
• I don't care for fruity ice cream. Its a waste of calories. CHOCOLATE BABY! Other things that are not worth the calories: White cake, bavarian filled doughnuts, skittles, and starburst.
• Its a good day if I shower before noon. 
• I can't match colors to save my life
• Another food thing I hate, Ketchup, it freaks me out. I won't eat it on anything but hot dogs and hamburgers, I won't eat it on fries, or meatloaf or anything of the kind. I think seeing the gross crusty stuff that gets on the lid skeeves me out. 
• I have never broken a bone, the most injured I have ever been is slicing a huge cut open in my head when I was 3 at the swimming pool, while I was swimming. How does that even happen at a pool?
• I don't know how to work ITunes. My husband does it for me, and he is excellent at it. 
• I won't read a book or watch a movie unless I know it ends happy. I will either read the last page of the book, or read about the movie online to be sure. 
• My husband and I met at our church during a lecture on how boys need to take girls on dates more.  Lecture worked I guess. 
• When I was in Elementary I loved bugs. I brought a grasshopper to my 2nd grade class in a mason jar with holes in the top for about a week to take care of it. And in 3rd grade my friend and I looked for slugs around the playground and put them in our pencil box and played with them in class. I had about 13 snails and slugs.
• Along the same insect line, I didn't always take care of the bugs. I also dissected the bugs. I won't go into detail, but it did involve taking legs off of spiders. Now if I see a Spider I freak out, I have to spray it with spider spray to kill it about  foot away. Spiders seem smart, they know what I used to do to their comrades. 
• I pee my pants when I sneeze. Usually this problem happens after having a baby, but its always been a problem for me. 
• When I was younger I played house with silverware and toothbrushes.

How do you view the blogs you follow?

I need your help? I want to know what is the best way to view the blogs that you read. 

I usually use Blogger. It gives me a feed of all the blogs I 'follow' and shows me posts from most recent. I really like how it shows it, it gives me a little picture and then shows me the first few lines of the post, so I can see if its something I am interested in reading. 

But lately I have been having some problems with it. Some of the blogs I follow don't show up in my feed at all. For a while I just thought those people hadn't posted in a while, but when I went to their actual blog, I missed like 20 or so posts, but blogger is still showing I follow it. My feed also sometimes shows blogs that I don't follow anymore, which is annoying to sift through all of those. 

Another problem I have is sometimes I find a blog I like (Pioneer Woman, Tip Junkie, etc.) that do not have an option to 'follow' them in blogger. And so I never ever view their blogs because I forget to look at them since its not on my feed. But I would love to follow them. 

So what are my other options? I have seen that you can follow blogs by email, but I really don't want to do that, I know I would never read any of that stuff, I would get so many emails a day too, that it would drive me crazy. I also follow blogs on facebook, but facebook is changing its ways and I know that you don't see all of the person's posts if they are a business like some blogs. What is RSS feed? I have heard of it, but not quite sure. 

I am asking this question so I can follow and view more blogs, and also so I can update this blog a little better and be more convenient for my readers. 

PLEASE let me know what you do in the comments. I appreciate it so much! 

Italian Sausage and Lentil Soup (Carrabba's Copycat)

I went to Carrabba's Italian Restaurant a month or so ago. My daddy is a General Manger for Outback Steakhouse in Albuquerque, and the restaurants are owned by the same company, so when he is in town, we get to eat with him at Carrabba's for free (and Outback too, yum!!) I got this soup before my spaghetti and it was soo good. I liked it even better than my pasta. So I immediately went home and looked for the recipe, and found it over at Food.com. I made it a couple weeks ago and it was just like it. And it made a ton. We had it for dinner two nights and lunch one day, and my husband had it for lunch another day. I should freeze it next time. 

But I made a couple changes to the recipe, but you can find the original HERE.

Italian Sausage and Lentil Soup (Carrabba's Copycat)

1 lb Italian Sausage

1/2 onion, diced

1 butternut squash or zucchini, chopped

1 C butternut squash or zucchini puree (optional) SEE PUREE POST

4 C Chicken Broth

2 C Beef Broth

1-2 C water

1 chicken bullion cube

2 TB chopped garlic

1 Can diced Tomatoes

2 C Dry Lentils

2 tsp Salt

Basil

Oregano

Red Pepper Flakes

Black Pepper

Parsley 

Thyme

Garlic Powder

Directions: 

Brown Sausage with onions, drain fat. Add garlic, cook about 30 sec. 

In large pot, add all ingredients, including Italian Sausage. 

Bring to a boil

Reduce heat, cover. 

Simmer about 1 hour until lentils are tender.

Sprinkle with parmesan if desired. 

Serve! 

2 X 4 Pumpkins

This is cheap craft, which I like. It was one of those I made at my Auntie's weekly crafty days. 

I didn't have to buy anything for it. They had everything, down to the wood and the paint ready for me. 

Here is what you need: 

2 X 4 Wood: Cut from biggest to smallest

Orange Paint

Sand Paper

Gel Stain 

3 Nails

Green Fabric or Ribbon

Paint your 2x4 wood. I didn't sand it down. I wanted it to look rustic-y, if you want it more cute-sy then you can sand it, but I hate sanding, it is the devil, so I won't sand if its not necessary. After paint has dried you can sand the edges, I did, for the rustic look. That easy sanding doesn't bother me a ton. Then  use your gel stain to make it rustic. Paint on the gel stain, then use a dry paper towel to rub it in, then get a wet paper towel and wipe off most of the stain. Let it dry. 

Get the nails and hammer one into each of the pumpkins at the top. Wrap a cut piece of fabric around the nail and tie a knot. Done! So easy. 

You could make it a little more different and add glitter paint, or make them jack-o-lanterns by painting black faces on them. 

Serial Killer Themed Halloween Party

So I am a creep. I love to watch documentaries on serial killers. I know, I am morbid. But they are super interesting. Luckily I have a couple of sister-in-laws who share my gruesome interest. And last year we tried to all watch serial killer documentaries together but there were none on Netflix to watch. This year I was prepared. I bought a DVD set on Amazon called 'Most Evil,' which is a Discovery channel documentary that gives an overview of the serial killers and rates them on a scale of evilness. I also checked a documentary video out at the library in case the DVD set I bought was lame. 

But I had to set the atmosphere, so a little decorating was in order. Like I have said before I am cheap, so I just went to Dollar Tree and got the scariest things they had. Most of the stuff was kinda cutesy, which was soo not my theme. I wanted a severed limb, blood type of theme. And I gotta say, even with the dollar goods, I think I pulled it off pretty well. 

I got some severed fingers and some eyeballs, but they looked so lame just sitting on the table, so I put them in water. I thought, hey some of those serial killers keep the body parts of their victims, so that is what I went with. 

So here are the severed fingers. They were already bloodied, so that was good, the bones looked so fake though, and I was worried that no one could tell what they were without close inspection, so I painted the fingernails. Yes, I painted fake severed finger fingernails. It was weird... Then I got a canister, filled it up halfway with some water and some fake blood. The fingers floated, and then the blood sank at first, but then eventually mixed up with the water and looked gross, it was perfect, and in the water, the bones didn't look as stupid. 

Here is my table scape. I just swirled fake blood all over it, I did it the night before so it would be sure to dry. Its not very bright in my kitchen, so the picture didn't turn out amazing, but I think it looked better in person, with lamps as our only lighting. I had a headstone from the dollar store, I put fake blood all over it. Then I took some kitchen knives and put them on the table, it would have been great if the knives had blood all over them, but I just got those knives and I didn't want to put fake blood on them. I also bought some little skeletons, they were supposed to be a garland, but I had no where to put the garland, so I just put them around the table. They were a favorite actually, everyone ended up playing with them all night. 

Then the food went in that big middle space, so it wasn't so empty. 

This was a liver. Some of the serial killers not only keep pieces of their victims, but eat them as well... I know, its sickening. But I was going for gruesome here folks, so I put a knife and fork by the liver to show it was the serial killer's dinner. 

A lot of these serial killers like to be classy, in their own way. So I put my fake eyeballs in a vase with some fake flowers and water. And like the fingers, they looked much more twisted and gross in the water, the water makes them look so much less lame... 

Fake blood swirls. The only fake blood I could find was fake vampire blood that came in a little tube, it worked fine, but I would have loved for big huge splatters, but I settled for the little smears. I put my thumb prints in some of them to look more gross. The table cloth was just a dollar store one as well, I just threw it away afterwards. 

These are my invitations I made. I only invited three couples, I really wanted a knife dripping blood on them, but when I tried to make a paper knife it looked like a 2nd grader art project and not scary. So I just focused on trying to make blood. I made the blood marks out of red ink that I already had. I ran the ink pad over the paper and then I pressed my thumb in the ink and then made red thumbprints all over too, I dragged my thumb around some parts, to give the appearance of a struggle.

This side I just used some Halloween paper I had on hand and then ribbon and the skulls were made with skull rings that I bought at the dollar store last year. i just cut off the ring part and glued them on. It took a bit for the glue to dry. 

For food I served Chili. I made it in the crock-pot (recipe to come soon). And it fed all of us perfectly. 

I asked everyone to come to bring a appetizer or dessert. 

My lovely sister in law brought mud cups (chocolate pudding, crushed oreos, and gummy worms) but we ate those later so I forgot to take a picture!), The most delicious chips and dip were brought by some family, and then my other sister in law really had some fun with making Halloween themed snacks, which I remembered to take a picture of right when she got there. 

These are bread stick 'bones' 

She said they are crescent rolls with parmesan and poppyseads. They were delicious and spooky. And went great with our chili!

These are ghosts and witches hats cookies.

I forgot to take pictures of the actual party and of our guests, it got busy with food and stuff and I spaced it, which sucks becuase while the table and food were great, the people are the memories I want to keep... Lame Vanessa, real lame. 

But we had a great time eating food and a disturbing time watching our documentaries. 

I just want to note, I am not trying to glorify the serial killers or what they did, they did horrifying and awful things, and I can't imagine what those victim's families went through. But it is interesting to learn about them and think about how someone's mind can get to that state. After watching several, I have learned that those killers usually had a pretty messed up childhood. And just so you know, you cannot watch too much of those documentaries. I bought the dvd set and it has 20 episodes and I have only watched like 5 this whole month. You have to watch them really slowly because if you watch too many  in a night, you feel like crap and won't sleep that night. But if you watch them slowly they can be interesting and scary! 

But we tried to have a spooky night, and it was fun decorating and eating food and watching only two episodes! 

What did you do for Halloween parties??

Hanging BOO Letters

My auntie has started a craft day every week with me and some friends of hers in her neighborhood. Somedays we scrapbook, sometimes we do crafts. I have to bring little A-Cakes, who never lets me get much done, but its nice to be able to chat and it gets me in the mood to come home and craft.

They planned this little craft and all I had to do was buy the wood letters. It was pretty easy. 

You need: 

Wood letters

(any kind work fine, I would get medium to large ones, and they can be flat or 3-D. Hobby Lobby was out of all their O's in the wood letters, Seriously, all of them in all the wood styles, it was ridiculous.. So I found these cardboard ones in a different aisle and they worked great.
Paint
Mod-Podge
Cardstock-Halloween kind
Paintbrush
Ribbon

Its easy enough to figure out what to do. Just paint the wood, I used purple because it seemed fun. Trace the letters on your paper and cut it out, paint mod-podge onto the letters, add the paper and smooth out any bumps. Then once it has dried mod podge over the top of the paper. 

I used ribbons and tulle to hang my letters up, then hung them on my door. I added more ribbon bows on it too.

I love it! Its cute and fun. 

You could also add glitter to yours, or make it scary and add spider webs or fake blood.