Up to my ears in elephants!!

The options themes for children's birthday parties are endless. This party was for a one year old. It was pink and grey elephants! I had a lot of fun with this one, and by the end of it I was ready to pull my hair out! (It isn't a good party planning adventure until you are stressed by the day of it.) Here are some of the details!!

Enjoy!!

Invitations

(The heart and bow tie weren't part of the invitation, they were just for blogging purpose to cover the address and phone number)

I made a few different versions of it, mixing and matching the papers! These were my favorite! 

I couldn't make the cricut (borrowed from my wonderful mother because I have yet to buy one) connect to my computer, so I hand cut all of the elephants! Fifty invites and numerous decorations required them. My hands suffered dearly, next time I will make sure and find another way! 

(The blisters on my hand the next day)

While shopping for supplies at Hobby Lobby, I came across the idea for an outfit! 

(All iron on stuff)

Leggings 

Tutu (The elastic wasn't covered in this picture because I had not measured the birthday girl yet)

(Want to know how to make this bow? Check in my previous posts for step by step instructions elephant curly bow)

Silverware rolls! These were so simple and turned out so cute!

Strawberry wafers dipped in white chocolate that I colored with black icing   color.

Party favor tags! (The elephant was cut with an elephant shaped hole punch) 

We used these tags for pails filled with circus peanuts! 

The mother of the birthday girl had a great idea to create a time capsule for her to open when she turned eighteen that had notes from the party guests. Here is what we came up with! 

This was just an old pen that I glued a featheron and then wrapped with leftover ribbon! 

Mint cookies and cream bark made with melting chocolate, Oreos, mint extract, and pink food coloring! Delicious! 

The banner before and after stringing 

The piñata!! This was a pain and took time and work, but turned out so cute! It was just strategically placed balloons that I covered with paper mâché! I left a small hole to pop the balloon through, pull out and then add candy! Once it was filled with the goodies, I finished covering the hole and then decorated! I used grey crepe paper cut to create a "fringe" look and then used craft glue to stick fringed paper on! The ears and eyes are just made out of card stock! 

Elephants made with melting chocolate and a "zoo animal" mold.

Pink noodles for pasta salad (drain and let sit in fridge until pink sets for best color)

Photo booth props! I just printed a template, cut them out and taped on a craft stick. 

The cake table!! (Complete with watermelon and cheese both cut out with an elephant cookie cutter and deviled eggs that have been colored pink)

The beautiful birthday girl, ready to party!!

Now I am on to a baby shower, that is blue and grey elephants! (At least I already have the hole punch!) 

A lesson in everything, in everything a lesson!

My daughter is smart. She is three but sometimes she sounds like she is an adult. She can name bones in her body, tell you where her internal organs are and knows how to take a blood pressure. She can tell you what a trapezoid, octagon, and pentagon look like. She can sign more words than I can, and she recently started informing people that we don't bite others because we aren't cannibals.  I won't deny that she still acts like a kid, and she had a tendency to become whiny when she is tired, but she is smarter than I could have ever hoped for. People ask me all the time what I do. "Does she go to a school?" "Is it because you don't work and get to stay home with her?" "How much time do you spend on learning?"

She isn't in school.. And I feel like she would be just as smart if I was working... And how much time do I spend teaching her, that's easy... Every waking minute. Every choice, every meal, every single thing we do is a time for her to learn something. It is all about how you choose to use those moments. 

Driving down the road we pick signs to read, tell the shape and color, and discuss what it means. Shopping at the store I tell her what is in the food I just chose, ask her what letters are on the box and what food group it is in. I use letter/number/shape cookie cutters to make each meal a lesson in something. 

I've never let her get away with saying words incorrectly just because she is little  and I've never let the fact that she was born fifteen weeks early hold her back any. 

But those aren't the important things. The real lessons in life come at the moments when we don't feel like we are doing anything for them. The times when they are watching us that we don't even know it. What do you do when you see someone in need? What are they learning from you on how to react to bad customer service? How important do you make God in your life? If you don't say yes mam and please, how can you expect them to? 

I feel like, as parents, we are our child's main teachers in life. Yes, they will attend school and go through numerous amounts of people who will be in charge of them learning the quadratic equation and the periodic table. Sure, they will be tested and retested on nouns and pronouns. But you alone have more influence than any one person should be help responsible for. 

You are their PARENT. You aren't their friend. What you teach them needs to reflect that. If the small attitude of a toddler is allowed because you don't want to upset them or make them cry, then the eleven year old will remember back and think her attitude is allowed.  If you scream and yell at people out of anger, then when they get angry, your child will scream and yell also. Do you choose to put God first in your life? If you don't, then you cannot expect that, given the choice, they will either. The important things. When you see a homeless person, do you help? Or volunteer somewhere? Or donate to a cause? 

So maybe my child can name twenty bones and she can write her ABCs. The moments that really make me beam are the ones when she stops to tell the elderly woman hello. Or when she wants to hug someone because they look sad. When she tells me that we can't eat yet because we haven't said our prayers. Those are the things that really matter. Your IQ has nothing on your attitude. What lessons will you teach your children today??

I like big bows and I cannot lie

Amid my party planning that has consumed the last few weeks, I made the cutest bow!

This particular set of party stuff is for Tatum's one year old birthday party! (There will be a post coming for this once I get it all done!) 

I wanted to make her a cute bow and this is what I came up with! 

It was so easy! 

First just pick the ribbon that you want. Try to use ribbon that is about 1/4" wide.

I picked out a roll that was slightly bigger and ended up not using it. It just doesn't curl like the smaller ribbon. 

You will also need a dalrod. The thickness of this rod is what size the curl of the ribbon will be. 

Then you take the ribbon, use a metal clip to hold on one end and wrap around the rod and clip on other end. I tried to keep it from overlapping or having too much space so the curls would be even.

Preheat oven to 250. Place rods on cookie sheet and place in oven for 20 min. Take out and let cool completely. Then remove clips and pull ribbon off wood.

Cut ribbon the length needed for bow. Then lay them all out and tie in the middle with string. Once tied, you can glue onto a clip of preference. Once it was glued I went back and added a few extra pieces around the edges to make it fuller. You can stop there if you don't want anything in the middle. 

If you want something in the middle of it, just use some hot glue and place and then let cool. 

The cost of washing dishes

Recently I was in the store buying some things when I saw a new sign hanging in the cleaning aisle. It was warning parents that children have been mistaking the colorful laundry and dishwasher tabs for snacks. How could they not, they are colorful and squishy. I can see how a toddler could confuse it for a delicious treat. What they get instead is a mouthful of poison.

I've slowly been trying to eliminate the chemicals that we use in our house. My ultimate goal would be to completely do away with anything toxic in my cabinets. It is a slow process, but this sign hanging in the store just prompted me to get more serious about it. 

So I started researching and decided to try making my own dishwasher tabs. 

The first time was a success and I have been making them since. They are simple to make and easy to use! 

Ingredients:

1 cup baking soda 

1 cup washing soda 

1/2 cup kosher salt 

2 pack lemonade mix or 2 tbsp citric acid  or lemon essential oil 

1 cup warm water 

Mix all dry ingredients together. (If you used the citric acid or lemonade mix, you can always stop here and just use it as a powdered dishwasher detergent.) Slowly mix warm water, and essential oils if you are using), then stir until completely mixed together. Pour into ice cube trays about half full. (If you fill too full, the tabs won't fit in dishwasher.)

Let them sit out in a dry warm place for a few hours until the tabs are hard. Turn tray upside down and bang on bottom until you shake them all lose. Store in cool dry jar or container. 

Not only are these non toxic and don't release any harsh chemicals, they are also MUCH cheaper than the store bought tabs. 

On average, the cascade tabs cost about $0.21/tab. The average price of the homemade ones is $0.05/tab. (Prices vary based on area, sales, coupons, and brand used.)

Venison and Brisket Chili - Music to my Texas heart

I grew up in a meat and potatoes family. The one where at each meal you had a meat, some potatoes in one form or another, and you had to have some kind of bread with it. This was before we knew what a Paleo diet was. Before we were told daily how important our food choices were. You cooked what you had, and at our table you ate it, no other option.

That led me to be the girl that has eaten all the meats you hear talk of. At some point in my life, it was a shock that people didn't eat deer meat regularly. I was bewildered that some kids in my middle school class had never had rabbit stew. And it was not a shock to me at all when my parents had to acquire another deep freezer to fit all the buffalo meat that my dad had brought home from the latest hunt.

My dad was a hunter and so our table was always an ever changing selection of meats; depending on what was in season at the time. We were not confined to the basic chicken, pork, beef diet that is so common to the rest of us. My mom knew how to make all the basic foods, with the not so basic meats. At the time I was unaware of it, but now I look back and see how blessed I was to be introduced to these foods so that they were not foreign to me as I got older. I see how it shaped me to be open to eat even the strangest of meals.

At this point in my life we have not been able to hunt for the meats that we want. Years of being shuffled around the world by Uncle Sam and now a period of time to settle back into a routine from some life changing events has pushed back the option of hunting. My father also no longer gets to go every year like he used to. Years of construction has made an impact on him physically and his calling in life to become a preacher has led him to be busy every weekend, but talk of getting back into some hunting is a regular conversation topic these days.

Until then, I want to make sure my daughter grows up with the same exposure to the different meats and foods available to us. So for now, my hunting is of a different kind. Now we hunt the small meat markets and grocery stores for the choices that would normally be found at the end of our scope.

This weeks journey took us to Lafayette, LA, to a store called "The Best Stop." Here we found a small selection of cajun favorites. A lot of the foods they offered were already prepared items such as stuffed chicken and pork. I refuse to pay the money for things of this sort because it is too easy to do the same thing at home. We did purchase some boudin and as I made one more sweep over the meats I saw one more thing we needed.

Venison and Brisket sausage...

Now as a Texas girl, brisket is a meat that is close to my heart! It is one of my favorite foods. If I close my eyes I can still smell the smoke from the briskets that my dad smoked every year for the volunteer FD to sell at the Cotton Festival. Finding a sausage with brisket and deer meat mixed together was like a reminder of home! I am sure that my wallet was happy that I did not grab every single package they had. Specialty meats tend to be a little tough on the grocery budget, so I grabbed my two pound package and left!

Now what to cook. Chili of course, was there really any other option? Actually, tacos were another option, but chili won by a landslide when I realized we were out of tortillas. The meat was delicious and the chili was scrumptious! It was good enough that it was served on our scrambled egg whites this morning for breakfast!

I did add beans to this chili, which I know goes against "Texas chili" but I like having beans to add to the heartiness of it.

Do not feel pressured to search the globe for this kind of ground meat. This recipe would taste great with your own choice of meats, whether it be turkey, beef, pork, chicken, or the latest road kill that you and your taxidermist friend have collected!

Ingredients:

2 lbs of brisket venison sausage (or ground meat of your choice)
2 tsp siracha
1 tsp salt
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp red pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1c onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tomatoes, diced
1 large can tomato sauce
2 c of kidney beans
Cheddar cheese for topping

In large skillet add meat, siracha, spices and onion. Cook until meat is browned. Add in the garlic, tomatoes, sauce, and beans. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Now it is ready to serve! Sprinkle with cheese while still hot.

The Ultimate Bucketlist

Well, here it is. The much talked about list of things to do before I die! 

One day I decided that there was no reason to wait until I was on my death bed. We are dying from the day we are born, and the only thing we can do is make the best of it! Go... See... Do... And that's what I plan on doing! 

The list is ever changing, I add at least one new thing every few weeks, and try to mark one off a month. Sometimes I wont mark something off the list completely because a few of the items are multiple steps, and will require lots of time to complete them! 

I manage it all through a website called bucketlist.org, which gives me the ability to elaborate and add details about each item. Here is the link:

http://www.bucketlist.org/list/tonyanelms/

TO DO

Adopt a poor family and supply Christmas to them

Assist in an archeological dig

Attend a ballet somewhere fancy dressed to the max

Attend a building being blown up

Attend a Green Bay game wearing a cheese head hat

Attend a Japanese tea ceremony

Attend a Masquerade Ball

Attend a movie premiere

Attend a music awards show

Attend a star party at McDonald observatory

Attend an actual ball... you know.. imagine Cinderella

Attend Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada

Attend La Tomatina in Valencia Spain

Attend Loy Krathong the sky lantern festival in Thailand

Attend the Ati-Atihan Festival in the Philippines

Attend the Carnival Parade in Brazil

Attend the Grand Ol' Opry

Attend the Macys parade

Attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington, DC

Attend the Olympics

Attend the Radio City Christmas Spectacular

Attend the Running of the Bulls

Attend the taping of a show

Attend the White House Easter Egg Roll

Attend the World Series

Be a foster parent

Be an extra in a movie

Be on a game show
Buy a house

Buy my mom a brand new car

Buy my parents something that they could never afford on their own

Catch a big fish

Catch fireflies in a jar with my children

Celebrate a holiday everyday of the year!

Celebrate Oktoberfest in Munich

Celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico

Climb an indoor climbing wall
Cross the intersection at Abbey Rd

Dance in the rain in front of a big crowd

Deep sea fish

Donate bone marrow

Drink a beer at the K Spoetzl brewery in Shiner

Drink beer in a real Irish pub

Drink Tallywhacker beer in Dorking England at Leath Hill

Drink Tequila on a Mexican Beach

Drive Route 66

Drive the lewis and clark trail

Drive the River Road near Lajitas

Eat at the undersea restaurant Ithaa

Eat dinner in the sky (belgium)

Eat everything off of the 100 foods to eat before you die list

Eat in Reunion Tower

Eat turtle soup

Float in the Dead Sea

Fly first class

Fly in or out of over 100 different airports

Fly over and see Galapagos lagoon

Get a Brazilian wax

Get a degree

Get my passport

Get my portrait drawn

Go apple picking in the fall

Go backpacking in Europe

Go backstage at a concert

Go Christmas caroling

Go ice-fishing

Go on a cruise

Go on a Ghost Walk

Go on a sailboat

Go on the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado

Go on top ten train rides in world

Go snowmobiling

Go to a nude beach and at least get topless

Go to a Texas Longhorns game

Go to a vineyard and stomp grapes

Go to an auction (a good one)

Go to Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Orlando

Go to Ibiza

Go to Medieval Times

Go to the Playboy mansion for a party

Go white water rafting

Gondola ride in Italy

Have a boudoir photo shoot

Have a drink at the mansion at Turtle Creek

Have a silly string fight

Have my photo taken at Platform 9 3/4

Help build a Habitat for Humanity home

Hold a tarantula in my hand

Jump in a pool fully clothed

Kiss the blarney stone in Ireland

Learn glass blowing

Learn how to skip a stone across the water's surface

Learn not only the language of a country, but also study its customs, cuisine, art, religion and history

Learn sign language

Learn to dance a ballroom dance

Learn to drive a stick shift

Learn to fluently speak a foreign language

Learn to french braid

Learn to play the piano

Learn to ride a horse

Learn to swim

Leave someone a $100.00 tip

Make a cookbook

Make a scarecrow

Make Homemade Pasta

Make my own candles

Make My Own Pickles

Meet/visit with President Bush

Melt broken crayons and make new ones

Milk a cow

Observe an autopsy

Own a boat

Own a jeep

Own a pair of louboutins

Own a vacation home

Own an rv

Own my own gun/s

Participate in 100 walks/marathons 

Plant a tree

Plant and grow a veggie garden

Play chicken shit bingo

Play in a waterfall

Play Paintball

Put my handprint in wet concrete

Read every novel that has won a Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction Category

Read the bible cover to cover

Read the complete works of Shakespeare

Ride a cable car in san fran

Ride a Camel

Ride a dog sled

Ride a horse drawn carraige through a Christmas lights show

Ride a mechanical bull

Ride a segway

Ride a steamboat down the Mississippi River

Ride an elephant through the jungle

Ride in a blimp

Ride in a double decker bus

Ride in a helicopter

Ride in a hot air balloon

Ride on a Mardi Gras float

Ride on a party bus

Ride the London eye ferris wheel

Ride the North Pole Express with the kiddos

Ride/drive a zamboni

Run a mile in 10 minutes

See a Broadway play

See a Cirque du Soleil show

See a koala bear in the wild

See Alison Krauss in concert

See an expensive clothing brand fashion show

See California Redwoods

See Da Vinci's Last Supper

See Garth Brooks perform live

See ostrich races

See penguins in the wild

See the "everlasting storms" in Venezuela

See the changing of the Guards in London

See the Harlem Globetrotters

See the Hell Hole in the Karakum Desert

See the Mona Lisa

See the Northern Lights

See the painted churches in Little Bohemia

See Willie Nelson in concert 

Send a thank you note to different people every day for a month

Shop in Mexico

Shop on Rodeo Drive (actually buy something)

Show up at the airport with my bag and passport and take the 1st available flight that sounds fun

Sit at the Chefs table in a nice restaurant

Sit in the front row at a concert

Sit on a jury

Sleep in a castle

Sleep in an igloo

Spend New Years Eve in Time Square

Spend spring break in Cancun

Spend the day with someone really famous

Spend the night in an underwater hotel

Spend the whole day at a spa being pampered

Spend time in an Amish village

Spend time somewhere that has more than 2 feet of snow

Stand on the Equator

Stay at a dude ranch

Stay in a 5-star hotel

Stay in the Grand Daddy Hotel in Cape Town S. Africa

Stay in the penthouse suite of a nice hotel

Stay the night on a house boat

Stay in the treehotel in Sweden

Step foot on each of the 7 continents

Stick my toes in every Great Lake

Swim with a dolphin

Take a cake decorating class

Take a karate class

Take a pottery class

Take fall pictures in a pile of leaves

Take Gracie (and any other kids at the time) on a fall/Halloween hayride

Take Gracie to all the places in her "Hello, Texas" book that she got from Dougie

Teach someone illiterate to read

Use a pogo stick

Visit a concentration camp

Visit Alcatraz

Visit Alhambra in Spain

Visit all 50 states.. not just drive through them actually spend time in them

Visit all 58 national parks

Visit an old west ghost town
Visit Area 51

Visit Biltmore House

Visit Buckingham Palace   

Visit Buddy Hollys grave

Visit Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo

Visit Chichen Itza in Mexico

Visit Coney Island Boardwalk

Visit Elvis' birthplace

Visit Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston

Visit four corners

Visit Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona Spain

Visit Glow Worm Caves

Visit Hagia Sophia in Turkey

Visit he Basilica di San Marco in Venice

Visit Lover's Bridge in Paris

Visit lovers leap in Rock city

Visit Luckenbach Texas

Visit Mission Concepcion in San Antonio

Visit Mount Rushmore

Visit Notre Dame Cathedral

Visit Paradise Falls, Venezuela

Visit San Juan islands

Visit Stonehenge

Visit Sun Studios in Memphis

Visit the "SPAM museum"

Visit the Acropolis in Greece

Visit the Arc de Triomphe

Visit The Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in London

Visit the caves in France (Lascaux, Altamira, Chauvet)

Visit the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors

Visit the Colosseum in Rome

Visit the Czech stop in West an have kolaches

Visit the D-Day invasion site at Normandy, France

Visit the Golden Gate Bridge

Visit the Grand Canyon

Visit the Great Wall of China

Visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Visit the Hoover Dam

Visit the Kiyomizu Temple in Japan

Visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Visit the Liberty Bell

Visit the Louvre

Visit the Mayan ruins

Visit the Moses Bridge

Visit the old '76 house in New York

Visit the Parthenon in Greece

Visit the pyramids and the sphinx in Egypt

Visit the Sears Tower

Visit the Sistine Chapel

Visit the Sydney Opera House in Australia

Visit the Taj Mahal

Visit the Vatican

Visit the Walls of Carcassonne in France

Visit the White House... actually go in

Visit Transylvania

Visit Universal Studios, Hollywood

Visit Verona, Italy and see Romeo and Juliets "balcony"

Visit Waimea Canyon on Kauai, known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific

Visit where the Salem witch trials happened

Visit Wisconsin Dells

Volunteer at a soup kitchen

Volunteer at St. Jude hospital

Volunteer for a couple of weeks in a third world country

Walk on a frozen pond/lake

Walk on the living bridges in Meghalaya India

Walk on the Walk of Faith Bridge on Tianmen Mountain in China’s Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park

Watch a flashmob live

Watch a meteor shower

Watch a sumo wrestling match in Japan

Watch every movie that has ever won an Academy Award for best picture

Watch sea turtles hatch and run for the ocean

Watch the IMDB top 250

Watch the launching of a space shuttle

Done

Karaoke
Visit Mission Basilica

Go to San Diego Zoo

Make my own pinata
Go berry picking

Go to a nude beach

Go to Gas Monkey Garage

Go to Ft Worth Stockyards

Complete a 365 day photo project

Go to a fish auction

Pet a Kangaroo

Make crock pot apple cider
Ride an elephant

Feed and Pet a stingray

Make Cake pops

Make my own Limoncello

Dive with the sharks

See a black sand beach

Visit an active Volcano

Melt crayons onto a canvas

Witness a solar eclipse

Have a painting party

Eat at the "Top of Waikiki"

Attend Spam Jam

Complete something off of someone else's bucketlist

Visit NY city

Do A Polar Bear Plunge

Eat at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant

Ride on a big green tractor

Have something named after me

Drink coconut milk straight from a coconut

Have a baby

Attend an authentic Luau

Go on a Catamaran cruise

Go on a whale watching tour

See the USS Arizona

Ride a train through the mountains

Go to a Haunted House

Go to a Drive in Movie

Volunteer at a zoo/aquarium

Be a vegetarian for a period of time!

Visit the Menger Hotel in San Antonio

Eat at the restaurant where buffalo wings were invented

Go to the Rock and roll Hall of Fame in Ohio

See Niagara Falls

Go Parasailing

Ride in a limo

Spend Mardi Gras on Bourbon St!

Have my tarot cards read

Eat escargot

See the Nutcracker Ballet live!

Trace my ancestory

Go to a Nascar race

Visit Hank Srs grave

Find out my blood type

Visit a museum with King tuts artifacts!
Tour Pentagon
See Hollywood Walk of Fame
Be featured in a big city newspaper
Win Archery competition