The big 40!

Yup, today I celebrate the big 40th birthday! I have had several people ask me if it bothers me to be turning 40 but I am happy to report that it hasn't bothered me at all. Okay, well maybe an itty-bit last week when I recieved a magazine solicitation with a senior discount! I am the first one to say that 40 is not old and certainly doesn't warrant a senior discount.

Anyway now that my birthday is officially here and I am officially 40 years old I have to say that I feel quite good about it. I do not feel any older and in fact due to losing weight-(23 pounds total so far!) and exercising, I might even say I feel younger than I did over the summer!

I am not one to really celebrate too much but since this is considered one of those milestone birthdays we did have friends over last weekend to help celebrate and this weekend I will be celebrating with family which should be fun!

Birthday Mode

I've been in birthday mode this past week getting ready for my daughters slumber party tomorrow night. I have a tendency to get all Martha Stewart and decide I want to make 101 diffrent little things for the party. Then again my children have a tendency to pick themes that aren't readily available as party decorations, like Willy Wonka or the Australian Outback so that just fuels my creative juices. I actually have it pretty easy with Becca this year. She just wants a slumber party with her closest girlfriends and she's chosen rainbowy, tie-dye peace and love type stuff which was easy enough too find. Too easy for me in fact, since I had gotten somenew Cricut cartridges and was just dying to use them. So I had to make just a few decorations. The first thing I made was a little banner with some cute tie-dye paper I found online. Then it was onto party favors.

Last year Becca had a similar theme and the girls made tye-die t-shirts and that was their party favor to bring home. The process was suprisingly easy and there was minimal mess plus the girls had a new t-shirt so I gave Becca the option to do it again this year and she chose not to which meant I needed another idea. Luckily I had an idea up my sleeve and Becca loved it.

It is not my original idea but it is super cute and easy to do!

Presenting Fuzzy Sock Cupcakes!

Just roll up a pair of fuzzy socks starting at the toe. Wrap a rubber band around it to keep them from unrolling. Stick in a cupcake wrapper and put a little pompom on top for a cherry! I used my cricut and the cupcake wrappers cartridge for the wrapper.(it says party time) If you don't have a cricut there are several templates online if you do a quick search.

I also made a few other decorations, also with my cricut. These have a general birthday theme and I will be pulling these out every year. I like to hang things from the light above our kitchen table so I made these two sided and strung them up with some embrodery floss. I strung on some colored pompoms and used some sticky backed foam stars. These images are from the Simply Charmed cartridge that is packed full of super cute images. I also stuck some googly eyes on the faces because googly eyes make everything cuter! As is always the case when I begin crafting I get more and more ideas but then run out of time to finish them all! With the party quickly approaching we'll see how many more things I can squeeze it...

Eight is Great!

Mackenzie turned 8 on the 8th. She had a few friends over for an Austalian themed party complete with Koala cake!

Since her party was on the Saturday before her birthday I made cupcakes for her to take to school on her actual birthday.

Birthday Stash

Yesterday was my birthday and armed with a gift certificate and some birthday cash I headed to Barnes & Noble and Michaels. I spent an hour in Barnes & Noble, the second week in a row I've done that, and it is pure heaven to just wander around. If it wasn't so far away I'd be there everyday I think. I ended up with four books for myself (could have easily bought 40) and one for each of the girls. Becca has been reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. She got the first one for her birthday and is already on the third. I think I want to read these too. Kenzie is quickly becoming a little bookworm too. She is currently enjoying the Jigsaw Jones series.

Next I headed to Michaels and enjoyed wandering around there too. I had been holding off getting into the whole clear stamp thing as part of my scrapbooking but just before Christmas I used some of my sister-in-laws and really liked them so I wanted to get some for myself. As luck would have it there were several on clearance. So I got some.... or a lot actually. I only got one set that wasn't on sale and that was the Valentine's set and because I thought it was really cute. So it was fun and I even have some money left over!

Now that the holidays are over and most of the birthdays, I am ready to jump back into crafting and blogging again. I've got lots of cute Valentine ideas bookmarked and plan on sharing them here but for now I have to sign off and go clean up the house. I took the day off from housework in honor of my birthday and boy does it show!

Sled 'n Slumber Party

Today is Rebecca's 10th birthday, but we had a party on Friday. She decided she just wanted to invite her two best friends (and of course her little sister) for a sleepover. So Friday afternoon her BFF's came over. We celebrated with pizza and cupcakes and made tie-dye t-shirts. The following morning they all headed outside for some sledding in the backyard. We have a big tube with three seats that all four girls fit on. The weather was in the 40s and beautiful for sledding!



Here are the girls showing off their t-shirts!


I made little "sleepover" cupcakes one for each of the girls and some extras of course!


Piling onto the tube!

Birthday Rock

Today was Mackenzie's 7th birthday. She has been asking for a guitar and being one who likes to pluck out a tune on occasion I had to oblige. Besides you never know, this could end up being her passion. She was actually able to pick out mary had a little lamb without any instruction so she has a good ear.
Here are a few pictures of the little Birthday rocker.



Watch out Sheryl Crowe, its Kenzie Ciolino!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me,
Happy Birthday to Me,
Happy Birthday to Me (and Auntie Lisa!)
Happy Birthday to Me!

So it's my blog and my birthday and today is all about me. But right now I don't feel like writing about me so I'll save that for later on today. I just wanted to wish myself a Happy Birthday!!
Cause it's all about ME! As a typical mom I always put family first so this is kinda fun! ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME,(No offense Lisa) ME,ME, ME.....LALALALALA....ME,ME,ME.........
Happy Birthday to ME.........

Becca's Birthday

It seems like we have been celebrating Becca's birthday for a week now and we kinda have. We started on Sat. the 13 the with Grammy and Grampy. They came over for lunch and cake and ice cream. Her official birthday was on Thursday the 18th. We celebrated at home with cake and presents. This is also the day that the big present arrived by pure luck. The gift was given by Nonna, Nonno, Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chuck. It was a three foot tall stuffed pony that actually moves like a real pony. Her name is Butterscotch and you may have seen them in some stores around Christmas time. It really is amazing how realistic this thing moves its head and ears, swishes its tail and actual air comes out its nostrils when it snorts! It is also amazing that it was delivered on her birthday. After Christmas there were none of these to be found in stores, so after some research by Auntie Lisa we decided to order online from Target whose price was a little cheaper and then with the extra cost of shipping it wasn't too different then if I had found it at a store. Target didn't have any in stock but was taking orders and estimated a delivery of 3-6 weeks.

Despite randomly checking the website on the Tuesday morning before her birthday I had pretty much given up that it would arrive in time for her birthday as had everyone else. Tuesday evening when I checked the email there was the shipping notice from Target! I was so suprised that I gasped out loud causing Becca to look at me and ask what was wrong. "Nothing."

I innocently replied. I wasn't able to find out where it was shipping from that night and checked first thing Wednesday morning. It had shipped from PA and I knew that it still had a shot of making it for her birthday. Weds. afternoon it hit Chelmsford, MA. and overnight it was sitting in Dover, NH. By 9:00am it was out for delivery. I couldn't believe the luck! Of course we rarely get deliveries before 4:30 from UPS. This actually was another stroke of luck. Dom left work early and was driving in the driveway as the UPS man left. The girls were playing and never heard the delivery. Dom snuck the pony into the garage and put the batteries in and the head on.(There is a warning on the box not to open in front of small children because the pony is headless.) Dom then turned the pony on and left it on the porch and came in throught the garage. I then told Becca she had a delivery and then there was much screaming and dancing around in excitement.

Saturday Becca had a Willy Wonka themed party with friends which was very nice and on Sunday we were at Nonna's for more cake and presents.