Photo Bomb

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Photo Bomb

When we get all dressed up and fancy without our kids, as in never, I usually try to take at least one photo to remind myself of my youth, and to use as a totally realistic Facebook profile pic.  I know I'm not alone.

So for Adam's birthday party, I got to work making a photo booth, so that everyone could get a pretty shot of themselves dressed up. I didn't have a professional photographer, and I had to combat the nighttime lighting which can be either too dark or stark/artificial, so I had to think through the easiest way to make it work. I thought I'd share some tips for making a photo booth for evening-time soirees. Academy Awards party?

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Thirtysomething

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Thirtysomething

I'm in the middle of two projects right now, one that I'm working on for Apartment Therapy's Holiday DIY Gift Guide, the other a new iteration of the paper lantern project that involves collecting hundreds of leaves.  I hope to bring you at least one of those by next week.  In the meantime, here's what we were snacking on this week.  I followed my usual peanut butter cookie recipe, and added a couple of ingredients to the mix to give them a little something more, one being baking cocoa, the other cracked sea salt. The result is a soft at center, crispy at the edges cookie with a peanut butter cup flavor. Here are some glamour shots of cookie eating and the recipe.  Have a great weekend!

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Wild Man

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Wild Man

Another year, another animal party!  This year instead of the farm we explored the wild side at our local wildlife museum, which happens to be just blocks from our house.  A parade of preschoolers marched, then ran through the exhibits of amazing taxidermy, pet tarantulas, and learned the difference between turtles and tortoises.  After our tour we headed back to our house for some pizza and cake, and playroom destroying mischief.  For decor I decided to go simple, using Wylie's animals as the main attraction.  I borrowed this idea for party hats from Oh Happy Day, subbing tinsel pom-poms for crepe paper, hanging some parachute style from paper lanterns over the buffet.  I also tried my hand at the cake arts this year, making a "Tortuga" in honor of Wylie's favorite show Wild Kratts. After a collective three year old meltdown at the conclusion of cake time, the kids headed home with birdseed ornaments to feed the wildlife in their own back yards. Done!

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Muppet of a Man

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Muppet of a Man

We threw our final bash in Oakland this weekend with a Muppet Movie Night to celebrate Jasper's 6th birthday and to say our farewells to our friends and neighbors.  I invited his entire  Kindergarten class and his teacher so it was a full, albeit empty house.  The kids enjoyed Oakland's finest, Lanesplitter pizza, cherries, frozen grapes, and lemonade out on the deck, followed by a chocolate Muppet cake and red velvet woopie pies. I set up some play space for the younger guests including a Swedish Chef kitchen. We managed to get about half of them to sit down and watch "THE MUPPETS" projected onto our living room wall, the other half, including the the birthday boy spent the remainder of the party playing out back in our hilly yard of trees and rocks.  I had to apply several band aids and Jasper got a half dozen mosquito bites, but everyone had a great time.

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