Simple Curious George Birthday Party

I've never really understood time but even more so with a kid. Like somehow I turned 35 for the second time yesterday.  How does that work? Let's not talk about it.  Let's talk instead about how my kid is growing up too fast. He's already days shy of two and a half and I'm just now getting around to posting his Curious George themed second birthday party today.

The theme was fairly easy to decide on.  Clark is obsessed with "Ooo Ooo George" books.  He had a few handed down from cousins and he now knows where they are at in the library.  I personally think the monkey is kind of a brat. I mean he's always getting into trouble and then comes out a hero. What kind of lessons are we teaching here?  I digress.  

I also struggle with character stuff. (Yep, one of those Moms.)  I tried to balance Clark's love of George and my need for cute. I think we did okay.

It's easy to get caught up in the need to throw the MOST PINTEREST WORTHY PARTY EVER!  Luckily I have Nate to keep my crazy in check.  We decided to keep things simple and kept it to Clark's favorites: his favorite people, cake, cookies, pizza, and balloons.  Boom. Party complete.

To keep the party from screaming Curious George, I let George be the star of the desserts but went with polka dot plates and napkins. A "two" balloon paired with some primary colored balloons rounded out the decor.

We weren't running around like crazy (ahem, his first birthday party). I made the cake (with close supervision from my mother-in-law) and the cookies the day before.  (Clark is seriously still talking about these cookies.  He wants to have George cookies for every celebration. Halloween. Christmas. Valentine's Day. My birthday.) We ordered pizza for supper.  Easy peasy.

The house was filled with balloons.  They were literally EVERYWHERE.  The kids had a blast.  I mean, balloons. Cheapest entertainment ever.

Clark opened presents, sang himself happy birthday and went to town on his cake.  He's my favorite.

Also, I NEED to tell you all about my most favorite baby/toddler product ever.  See that cute outfit up there?  You know how you keep that outfit cute with cake and ice cream (besides removing said outfit)? These sleeved bibs!  We own like 5 of them. Okay, maybe 7 (1 in the diaper bag, 1 in the car). They are amazing. We've used them since we introduced solids and they are all still in great shape after multiple washings.  It's a shame they didn't have a George one!  But we do have a Nintendo one that is pretty amazing.

Sources:

Other Christmas Scenes Around the House

Last week I shared our living room decked out for the holidays. Today I'll share a few other spots that got some holiday touches.  Our theme is slap lights, garland and wreaths on it. Boom. Christmas decorating done.

Let's start outside.  We need a few more lights.  Nate is sad that most of these strands are on their last leg. I'm happy because we can switch to warm lights!  The mixing of cool and warm makes me twitchy.

I bought a big strand of fresh garland and chopped it up and threw it all over the house. Our house smells amazing.  And there are pine needles everywhere. (Thanks goodness for the Roomba!)

Our dining room gets our family memories tree. I love it so much. There are ornaments from Nate and I's childhood, our wedding and now Clark's ornaments. It makes me so happy.  And sappy.

I always try to keep the decor to a minimum during the holidays because our kitchen takes a holiday baking beating and I don't need anything else in my way!  

Here's a large sneak peek of a project we completed this year in our basement.  I told you, nothing is safe from garland. 

Lastly, here's our tree all lit up at night. We're actually going to have to turn the house lights on again in January.

Did you get all of your decorating done? How about shopping? And baking?!?  I'm good to go except for the baking!

Holiday Home Tour 2017 (Living Room)

It's Christmas house tour time!

We've had our halls mostly decked since the weekend before Thanksgiving.  It's been our tradition for the past 5 years or so.  We travel for Thanksgiving so we decorate the Sunday before and just pretend it's not there until we leave mid-week (because who wants to overshadow Thanksgiving? Mmmm, pie.). And then we come home to a Winter wonderland!  

(Do you spy the dog looking for leftovers in Clark's booster seat?  Nothing but professional photos around these parts.)

Part of couch buying decision making process included making sure we had room our Christmas tree.  It works really well in this spot.  First holiday crisis avoided.

We've got the decorating of the 12' tree down to a science. We did have a fuse issue that left the top half of our tree dark for a few days but all is well again. Phew. Second holiday crisis avoided.

The ornaments are nothing fancy and there's a concentration of them unevenly spaced at the bottom. Everyone asks how we keep Clark out of the tree.  We have a few kid friendly ornaments picked out that Clark is allowed to move around. He's a rule follower like his parents so this is working to our advantage. He keeps repeating "Mine decorated that. Hang the ornaments."  It's pretty darling.  He is quite bossy though and demands the lights on during his awake hours.  No arguments here.

We splurge on fresh garland for the mantel.  The smell is worth every single penny. Nate and I both agree it's not Christmas until there is pine smelling garland in the house!  And a mess of pine needles on the floor.

I really hate clutter so I replace a few items that normally live on our bookshelves with some vintage finds. Like that elf.  He's not one of those hipster trouble making elves. He's old. And doesn't move and has zero magical powers. I will not succumb to elf peer pressure.  (This is more of a pep talk for my future self.)

Ike is dreaming of dog bones and day where he isn't bossed around by a toddler. 

I'll share some other spots around the house later this week or next. Until then here's a peek into our kitchen. 

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I hope you enjoyed the tour! I'll be back with more once I'm done watching like ten terrible Christmas romance movies on Netflix (Hit me up with your recommendations)!  I'm clearly terribly busy so this post may need to wait until next week.