Casey's Space Room

We decided to turn our guest/storage room into Casey's bedroom.  We discussed many options for themes.  We all agreed that an outer space theme would be really cool.  Little did we know how much time and energy it would take!

First things first, we had to decide what colors to go with.  We ended up painting two of the walls and the ceiling a very dark blue and the other two walls a medium blue.  Casey was able to help daddy with this over the course of a weekend.

Next it was time to splatter on the stars.  I watched Mural Joe on youtube.  It was very messy, but it sure turned out neat.  This was done in one afternoon during naptime. 

Now comes the fun part!  Matt and I did a lot of researching on google to find out what types of planets and rockets we wanted to paint onto the walls and ceiling.  Our church borrowed us an overhead projecter which was a huge help in transfering the drawings onto the walls.  This was done over a two week time period during naps, when the boys went to bed and on the weekends. 

The first thing we did were the rocketships.  I was the artist of this one here. 

 Matt, the engineer, created this rocket launcher that will keep track of Casey's

height over the years to come. 

Then it was on to the sun and planets.  The very lovely and talented Gretchen and Marlaina spent a morning helping us out with some of the planets, quotes, moon and sun. 

When Casey came home that afternoon he was so excited.  However he was disappointed that he didn't see planet Earth anywhere.  So that night I painted Earth on the ceiling so it looked like the rocket was heading home.

 Matt wanted to have some fun too so he decided to create Jupiter. 

 Next I spent an afternoon adding some glow in the dark stars and paint to the room.  We got some furniture off of Craig's List and here you have the finished product!

Casey was so excited to sleep in his new room!  It was so cool I kinda wanted to join him!

LEGO party!

This year Casey wanted to have a LEGO themed birthday party.  We decided to invite family and a few friends from church to join in fun.  Below you can see the invites that Casey helped me make.

This party was so easy and fun to plan.  Of course I borrowed many ideas from Pinterest (my new favorite website).  What was so great about preparing for this party was that the boys were able to help me and we had a lot of the supplies at home. 

The party was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm.  At about 2:00am Caleb woke up puking.  After cleaning him and his bed up it was back to bed where I sat there thinking about what we were going to do about Casey's birthday party.  There was no way we could bring all of our friends and family into our germ infested home! 

At 7:30 I called my sister and asked her if we could have the party at her place.  She said yes with a panicked sound in her voice.  I told her I would be there right after church to help clean up the house. 

At about noon Casey and I arrived at the Reed house to clean and get set up.  The kids helped Leah clean up the basement while Nick and I tackled the main floor.  The kids headed outside while I set up for the party.  It was so fun to see everything come together. 

 Goodie bags for all the kids. 

 Place settings were just plain color plates, napkins and cups in LEGO colors.

PARTY TIME! 

While Casey and his cousins were waiting for friends to arrive they were having a little free play with the LEGOS. 

The first game we played was called LEGO creation.  There is a bag of different LEGO shapes that goes around the circle.  When it is your turn you choose one and place it on the board where you would like.  When the bag is empty you have a LEGO creation that the kids created as a team. 

Next the kids each had to find a hiding LEGO man!

The third game was a partner contest.  The kids had about 5 minutes to work with their partners to create a tower.  When time was up they had to let go of their tower.  The tower that was the tallest and stayed standing was Eli and Casey's tower. 

The last activity we did was the LEGO toss.  The object of this game is to get as many points as you can by tossing LEGO into rings.  ELI had the most points so he got to pick his prize first.  Then the person with the next highest score picked their prize next and so on until everyone got a prize. 

Time for cake.  LEGO anyone???
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/building-blocks-cakes/ca36541e-624c-48af-ab78-68ef256e8903

After cake it was time to open presents.  Casey got some really cool gifts this year.  Lego sets, fun space things for his room, games, transformers, and even homemade finger paint!  What a lucky boy to be loved by so many. 

After Casey's friends left it was time for the adults to have some fun. 

 The adults had about 10 minutes to create a masterpiece. 

There were towers, robots, a Packer guy and a helicopter.

  

  I thought for sure judge Casey would choose a robot or the helicopter.

Nope, he picked his Aunt Leah's tower. I guess he was going for height...

The last activity was for both the adults and kids.  They had to guess how many LEGOS were in the jar.  The answer was 70. 

The closest guess was my brother's...he said 64.  He won these yummy candies. 

This party was so much fun.  I am pretty sure all the guests had a good time. 

Thanks to all who helped to make this day special for Casey!

play room

We have been really busy around here doing some fun things around the house.  The first thing we needed to do was to clean up and clear out the play room downstairs to make it safe for Joshua. 

Once we got it cleaned up we decided it would be fun to paint some fun sayings on the wall to spruce it up a bit.  I came across a fun idea on pinterest that I decided to borrow.  I thought it was a great way to display the kids art work. 

This next saying I came across on etsy.com.  I could have spent $50 to purchase the vinyl lettering, but it was a lot more fun to use the overhead projector and paint it myself! 

Knitting Projects

In my last semester of college one of my roommates taught me how to knit.  That was about 10 years ago. Boy does time fly!  I finally finished the scarf that I started all those years ago.  I am going to wear it, even if it does have a ton of flaws.

About a year ago I was in my last trimester of Joshua's pregnancy when I broke my foot.  I decided to knit him a blanket while I spent my days on the couch with my foot up.  It wasn't until recently that I finally finished it.  What can I say, life got a little busy once he was born!

 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to knit a cowl to wear around my neck to keep me warm.  This one didn't turn out quite like I had planned so I sewed the ends together to create a bulky cowl. 

This brown cowl is still in need of a button.  I will be giving this one away as a gift to my sister-in-law for her birthday(hope she doesn't read this before tomorrow!)

 

Some lessons I have learned:

1.  Don't leave your knitting projects in your children's reach.  Caleb liked to pull my knitting needles out and use them as a weapon.

2.  The bigger the needle, the easier the knitting. 

3.  Different types of yarn really make a big difference in the look of the item, even if you use the same type of stitch.

I am thinking that my next project may be a smaller cowl for myself and then a headband. These smaller projects are so easy and fun to do.