The Bluebird Nest: February 2012

Hello from The Bluebird Nest! The past month has been a busy one for my little bluebirds. We've had quite a few 'firsts' ... the emergence of Kallan's first two little bottom teeth, his first taste of solid food, Rowan's first day of Pre-Kinder and Damon's first day of 'big' Kinder, just to name some of the milestones. Exciting times for our family!

Life in the 'Nest' has been busy, but fulfilling. In addition to Kinder drop-offs and pick-ups (and staying at Pre-Kinder with Rowan until he turns three!), housework (mountains of washing!) and numerous outings, I have been cherishing the quality time spent at home with my beautiful little ones. I know I've said it many times before, but I just can't get over how quickly they are growing up!

Despite my days being rather busy, I still make sure I squeeze in some little creative projects here and there to keep me sane. I'm not good at sitting still and always have a million ideas of 'things to make and do' buzzing around in my head - definitely never bored, that's for sure! Here are some examples of the crafty things I enjoy doing in any spare moments I may find ...

Jazzed up the doll house by making some 'retro' floor coverings - found some retro print wrapping paper from Kmart, laminated it and then cut it to size and there you have it ... shiny new retro floors! (I must add that the little house does not usually look so tidy, hehe!)

Decorated some biscuit tins for Playroom storage - Used some 'wood grain' contact adhesive paper, (also from Kmart) to cover some large tins, then trimmed them with red heavy-duty tape around the top! Fits in well with the decor and the kids love filling them up with all sorts of things and carting them around - as kids do!

Covered Rowan's Letter 'R' with some gorgeous retro patterned scrapbook paper I found in Spotlight.

Looks rather nice on his bookshelf!

Now for a sneak peek of what I'm working on tonight ...

Yes, another little shindig is just around the corner and I'm having a ball making all the little 'bits and pieces', organising the decorations, menu and activities. More details later ... I shall keep you posted.

We had a special celebration recently ... our beautiful Damon turned five (yes, I really can't believe he's that old already!). A 'Red and White' party was held at our place and it was just lovely.

The 'Red and White' theme actually started out as 'Red, White and Black'. It was Damon's idea ... he wanted 'red' because it is his favourite colour and he also likes black and white because they are Doggie's colours (his favourite toy - kids are so sweet!). After a browse around the shops for party 'bits and pieces' and also a rummage through our party cupboard (yes, we do have a party cupboard!), we both decided to ditch the black and settle for red and white. Sounded like a good idea to me!

Being a colour-based theme, there wasn't a lot of restriction on the birthday cake, so Damon requested a rocket! On a mission to produce some sort of rocket cake, I googled rocket pictures and cakes on the internet and of course pinned some ideas to my 'Party Inspiration' board on Pinterest. We soon decided on a simple cartoon picture of a rocket as the inspiration. I then sketched the picture on paper, cut it out and traced it onto the large butter cake slab I had previously made and had frozen. Once the cake was cut to shape, I then decorated it with Vienna Cream frosting in (mainly) red and white and added some pops of colour with licorice and lollies! The Birthday Boy was super pleased with the end result, so mission accomplished as far as the cake was concerned! The recipes for the butter cake (which I quadrupled) and the Vienna Cream frosting both came from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book - a family favourite full of birthday cake inspiration which I'm sure I've mentioned before!

As for the finer party details ... well, me being me, I loved every minute of the planning, creating, baking and shopping. I must admit that it was rather tricky to get everything organised with three littlies underfoot, so there were several late nights spent working on it while they were asleep. I did have a few more ideas up my sleeve, but ran out of time so will keep them in mind for future parties. While I was organising the 'party stuff', my wonderful hubby got busy in the back yard - filling in all the holes that our lovely Border Collie had dug (and continues to dig!) and ensuring our outside areas were looking respectable. The hours of preparation are all so worth it though, when you see the excitement in your little one's eyes on their party day!

When the big day arrived, rain was forecast and the weather was looking a little dubious to begin with, but the showers cleared in time for the party and luckily the kids were able to play out in the back yard (though I'm sure the rain wouldn't have stopped them from doing so anyway!). We were relieved it was actually much milder than the very hot weather we'd previously been experiencing!

Damon had a wonderful time with his little friends, which was of course the ultimate aim of the day. Here are some happy snaps of him and his party. I have included some details under the photos in the hope that you will find some of it useful and maybe even a little inspiring for any upcoming parties you may be planning ...

The Birthday Boy after a run around in the early morning rain!

Little brother enjoying the balloons!

The Sweets Buffet in Red and White

I already had the beautiful flags/bunting by Paper Eskimo (this is the third party I've used them for), but this time selected just the red and white ones from the pack. I drew some letters on red paper, cut them out and stuck them onto the flags with white stars to spell out Damon's name

The party bags, striped cupcake cups, cups and paper straws are also all by Paper Eskimo (gorgeous brand!). Love, love, love the paper straws and will definitely buy them again! I made the tags for the party bags as I always like to have personalised ones, and glued red and white ribbon to the pegs. I already had the table cloth, glass jars and red spotted cupcake cups, and the red metal bucket came from Rowan's shelves. Couldn't find any red and white party hats, so made my own from cardboard, elastic and white sticky dots!

The glass lolly jars are filled with raspberries, red snakes and strawberry chews. I made the labels on the computer. I also made the '5' and 'D' cupcake toppers myself by designing them on the computer, printing them on cardboard, then gluing them to toothpicks. Simple but effective. The cupcakes were made using the same butter cake recipe as the birthday cake.

Little cups of popcorn - so easy to prepare and were a hit with the kids!

The kids' party table

The party was held in our undercover entertaining area. The table on the left was used for the party pies, mini quiches, cherry tomatoes, cubed cheese and strawberries dipped in white chocolate