Cupcake topper DIY

I love making these quick and easy toppers for cupcakes for the kids birthday parties. It allows me to personalize things a bit more and they are so pretty on the cakes and lots of other things as well.  All you need are the following:

1. lollipop sticks
2. glue stick
3. liquid glue
4. Circle Paper Punch with scallop profile
5. Circle Paper Punch
6. 2-4 sheets 8.5"x11" colored card stock
7. 2-4 sheets 8.5"x11" plain card stock

I have had the paper punch for years since Arielle was born so it was a good investment since I use it quite a bit. 

In Adobe Illustrator, I made a sheet of the same repeated outline (dotted line)as a border then put in text of what would be printed on the white card stock. I made some the circles messages say "thank you", "Happy first birthday" whatever..really. Of course there are people who sell these templates on Etsy for people who don't feel the need to layout themselves...whichever works. 

I let my 4 year old punch out as many scalloped circles as she could from there shades of pink 8.5"x 11" card stock sheets (she got about 12 per sheet).  While she did that, I printed and cut out the white circles for the center. We glued the white circles into the pink ones varying the colors and the messages (with the glue stick not liquid glue..or it will wrinkle.)

 

Once they were dry, we flipped them a few at a time and using a drop of liquid glue affixed the sticks to the back. Because the stick has some weight, it needs some time to completely dry. For a finished look, we took plain white circles and glued them to the back of the sticks as well. Let them sit for about an hour to dry and the lift them up.

I also like to use stickers which match the theme of the party so I got these single candle stickers from Michael's and used those on some of the toppers. They actually became the logo for the party, so the were not only toppers but also on the favor bags, pinata candy bags and candy milk jars.

A few years back, Arielle had a carnival party and I made these for the party hats and cupcakes as well..With different paper, colors and stick on shapes, theses can be a really fun addition to your party.

Backyard Farming Part II

About three months ago, we decided to start growing some vegetable in the backyard. It sounded like a good idea, how hard could it be right? Well, I will tell you that it is pretty hard! Just making neat little rows of planted seeds and building a fancy box around them does not ensure that anything will grow! Even after experiencing a pretty mild summer, lots of rain, nothing is really growing except for these mutant melons/squashes! They grew so wild, they even crawled out of the box and spread into the grass until we put them back in. Now about a week later they have wilted and are no longer really flourishing. We had planted carrots, lettuce, cucumbers,  and more and I expected to at least harvest one cucumber or something...no such luck. So now as summer comes to a close , I conclude that neither of us have a green thumb.

Gymnastics..

All parents want their kids to be good great at something. We are also guilty of pushing our kids too hard to do things they may not want to. I am having trouble finding the balance between being indifferent about extracurricular activities and being overly controlling. I want my kids to become well adjusted, successful people in life...really..lets face it they aren't going to be cute and cuddly forever..they are actually people.NEWSFLASH! I was raised by pretty very rather strict parents who believed in simple methods for keeping us kids in line and teaching us to do well in school...DO IT or else!
These days, I think that the education has become the status quo, I mean basically if you don't have a Masters or PHD from a good school, your opportunities are severely limited-at least for the kinds of "professions" I believe are worthwhile. There are certainly many in-betweens and there is the chance that one of the kids is a genius right?  but for considering the average child..

So the things the child acquires and experiences outside of school become very important because these are the things that will set them apart from the pack...diversity of language, musical inclination, competitive sports etc..right? Unfortunately, I don't believe in spending money to put the kids into a class just because its fashionable, I'll be the first to tell you that I don't think my child has the poise to be a ballerina so why put her in ballet class..for the outfits? People often ask me if I'd put her into modeling (as if its easy..)..well..wishful thinking, Arielle can't sit still for more than 2 minutes so I know this would not be fun for her...so no I don't think pursuing modeling wold be viable. Anyway, we tried gymnastics this year because after the Olympics and watching the great Gabby Douglas, that was all Arielle wanted to do.

Luckily we were able to get her into a class with her cousins and that was really beneficial to getting her into the program..but now..after months of watching her, I actually think she has great talent for gymnastics but I'm afraid to REALLY push her beyond the weekly class and into a more rigorous regimen. Also, she really only wants to join if her cousins do and I'm not sure they would want to join again. So what do we do? 

4 going on 40!

This is what happens when grandpa sends packages to our house! As I'm told, Arielle's grandpa asked her what she wanted for....hmmm..I don't know just being Arie I guess..and she said she wanted a make-up set. I came home last night and found a box on the doorstep and this is what transpired afterwards...I don't even where makeup and my four year old has a full-on professional set of make-up and brushes...wonder what she'll be like when she is 14! We already have some crying in the morning over what to wear which in my opinion is anything that fits but in her opinion is either a dress that pass her spin test (it must float in the air when she spins...) or leggings with a tanktop..no shorts..not jeans..no blue..no brown! If its this complicate now...

Governors Island

We had a glorious day on Governors Island with the kids and grandpa. We started out a bit late ( as usual..) but made it to Pier 6 and jumped on the 1:00pm ferry. About 10 minutes later we were on the Island along with quite a lot of other people! I say this because although I live so close to "THE CITY", I have never been on Governors Island or really felt the need to see what it had to offer and these droves of other ( non touristy looking people seemed to be on it). Sure, there were some tourists but it felt almost like the city dwellers going to their back yards, with their picnics, bikes, wine, novels etc. 

The main reason I wanted to go was to see this Vintage French Carnival called Fete Paradiso which had opened up a few weekends earlier. It looked like fun and I have been trying to get the kids out doing something of substance every weekend before the snow sets in and we begin winter hibernation!

Anyway, we had the right idea because the day was lovely, we cued up for the ferry early enough and while we waited had ice cream and enjoyed the site of the city (Freedom tower beyond..). Evalie has become very friendly since she became a walker so she was walking ( running basically) up and down the pier greeting her fans the people on line. She chased some pigeons and then got startled when they chased back...

On the Island, there aren't any cars, so everyone walks or rides bikes ( which you can rent if you haven't your own). There is a large well manicured lawn which had some kid friendly art installations. The 3rd Annual New York City Poetry Festival was in full swing along Colonels row, there were really good smelling food carts ( or maybe I was just so hungry..)

We took the long way to get to the carnival and just when Arielle started to get inpatient ( if your have kids you know this happens rather quickly..), we saw the logos chalked into the road..so as we followed these little carousel horse we found Nolan park.

after some rides, we had lunch at Le Gamin...

and a few more rides..

Played in this recycled-cloud by another ambitious architecture student ( yawn..)

and we were done.