Moo Moo, Party Review {the inspiration and agenda}

Are you ready for this folks?  The pictures arrived today and it’s time to do some posts about the most amazing party ever (well, in my humble opinion).  Now what the heck am I going to do next year? :)  We’ll just start with my inspiration, how I got ideas, then the agenda and go from there to the decor, food, activities, etc.  I’ll break this up over several posts because of all the {beautiful} pictures.

The theme was easy.  I had been throwing around cow/farm ideas ever since his first birthday, because he has always had a love for cows.  So I started browsing Pinterest and saving all the ideas on a secret board.  (it’s not secret anymore if you want to take a peek).  I started saving pictures that I loved and then made lists.  Lots and lots of lists. My biggest tip for planning a party like this is start early!  Not only was it essential to getting everything done, but I was able to scour the internet and grab some great deals from sites and not worry about getting them here on time.  Gotta love eBay and shipping from China. :)

I knew that with 42 adults and 28 kids, that this party was going to take some major organization on my part. So I approached it like I would have a classroom party with time frames for everything, and stations where I could break up the large number of kids and keep them busy.  So I planned 3 fun stations and made little agendas to hand out when people arrived.

 

I had the kids split up into 3 animal groups.  Each kid got animal sticker that was attached to the agendas.  I simply handed the agenda to the parents as they arrived.  It was a great way to say hello to every family as they came.  This is the only picture I have with the agendas in my hand, welcoming the animal lady. :)Having the agenda was also a great way to make sure people signed the mat I had for Ellie and grabbed their favors on the way out. Now let’s move on to the decor!

all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations - crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food

last Mom2Mom

Today was the last day of Mom2Mom for this spring trimester.  (if you're reading this in Google reader, I post-dated this so don't be confused :)  It has been a wonderful year with this group of ladies.  I know I'm lucky to have a place where I can be encouraged as a mom of littles.  I had a great small group of women who opened up and shared lots over the course of the year.  And one of my favorite additions this year was adding a mentor mom component.  Our small group was so blessed by our mentor mom, Cathy.  She is a long time friend of my parents, but now I can say she's friends with me!  She is a woman who passionately loves her Jesus, her husband, kids, and grandkids.  It was so great being able to learn from her and get prayer from her every week!  Thanks ladies for a great year!

Cathy and me

we were the red group all year

some of the ladies in our small group

another car seat cover

A friend from small group asked if I could make her new little man a car seat cover.  I wish these things had been popular a year ago, but maybe for baby #3 someday.  Her requests that we eventually settled on were an "e" for Easton, boyish colors, and something that coordinated with her car seat. Here was the finished product that we dropped off yesterday.  (I use this tutorial as a basis for all my covers).  The kids and I had a fun date to KFC while William did some yard work.  Then we dropped it off and Owen got to play with his buddy Asher for a bit. Hope you love it Erica!

I hope the chevron trend is around for awhile - love it!

love the coordinating car fabric hiding underneath

the straps have the car fabric hiding underneath too

 

Moo Moo Party Review (is coming)

Are you dying for pictures yet?  Haha – no worries, my sister is a ROCK STAR and got them edited and in the mail today.  Because I took 0 pictures.  Yep, zero.  Prepare to be inundated with 8 or so separate posts about the party and the details in all their glory.  Here’s a few pictures to wet your appetite:

the fence

I realized that I have never blogged about the big change to our backyard - our fence!  But first things first.  Our patio had huge cracks in it when we moved in.  We ignored it for 2 years, but the cracks were getting worse and I was worried about the kids tripping over them.  So we had someone from our church (who does concrete work) to come and fix it!  They ended up taking the whole patio out and starting over, it was in pretty rough shape.  The great thing about this is that we were able to extend the patio by about 5 feet which, while not huge, FEELS huge.

 

After the patio was fixed, the utility people came and marked the yard for the utility lines.

 

Then, finally on May 1. . .the guys came to start.  We went with a dark gray aluminum fence.  No staining wood every few years for this lady. :)  It took them 2 days to get everything done.

digging the holes

all the supplies

 

posts are in

 

 

kiddos watching them work

Of course, we were only worried about one thing - them hitting one of our irrigation lines for our sprinkler system. And of course, they hit 3 of them.  But they made good on their word and came the next morning and fixed them at their cost.

 

I am love with this fence!  So great to be able to keep our kiddos contained. :)  Not as big of a deal for Owen as I anticipate it will be for my gregarious and always-on-the-move girl.

If you're local and wanting to know who we used, it was Main Street Fencing.  Several people had recommended them and we liked our consultation with them the best.  In general, we would totally recommend them.  A little hard to communicate with as they never answer the phone, but we were very happy with their work!

bed time fun

I just love this set of pictures from putting Owen to bed the other night:  

Touch A Truck

Well, according to all my local friends who blog, this is the event to be blogging about tonight!  Haha. 

But it IS one of our favorite city wide events.  And as Owen is into all things that go, he had tons of fun.  Probably not as much fun as some kids as he was too scared to climb in any of the trucks and had a melt down from super obnoxious army tank with loud honking.  But besides that, it was a blast!

We got there early for a good parking spot and by passed the fire truck as we had just been to the firestation.  Our goal was the city bus as he's been loving buses lately.  After the bus, we just walked around and just looked at and touched a few other trucks and then enjoyed some yummy ice cream before running into some friends.  All in all, a great way to spend a beautiful morning!

getting ready to get on

singing "the wheels on the bus"

15 more years buddy

she looks disgruntled

he wouldn't take a picture by himself

in front of the pink cement truck

going up the flat bed tow truck

it took come convincing for him to walk down

dune buggy

enjoying some ice cream

Ellie adored the ice cream