Jun6
15th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Tag Archives: Parties
May30
Vanilla Cake
I LOVE to BAKE….
When I bake I like to use a simple recipe that doesn’t over complicate my life… Read the rest of this entry
May10
Mom’s Night Out….. Make it a Paint Night!
Every mom deserves a night in the week to do just something that takes her mind off of the schedules, organizing and parenting she has to structure every week.
Well with Mother’s day there’s so much but you can always do something a little extra the day after tooo!!! Because after all Every day should b Mother’s Day!!!
Head over to one of my favorite spots. “Good Earth Cafe” and get painting with the guidance of Floral Blueprint.
You can book your ticket by clicking the image below….
Making Life Memorable with every brush stroke……
Oct1
October Fun
Its October and the countdown of every even in my life has began.
You might laugh but this is no laughing matter for me…it’s serious and crunch time has officially started with events galore on the horizon.
This is the time when I bring out the iPad and crank up my pins on Pinterest. Whether I do them all or just a few is besides the point. I know they’re there and I’m confident that I’ll eventually get around to it.
October is the beginning of Fall in my book and the preparation of costume season for Halloween.
One of my favorite things to do is have little crafting sessions with the girls with “Fall Themed” crafts.
I’m not sure how we’re going to do it this year with Jennah being in 3rd grade and overworked between homework and activities. But I really hope that I’ll get around to doing something fun like this with the girls.
I would love to go around in our Garden and have the girls collect all sorts of Leaves from the ground.
I’d probably bring down some paint and have them dip the leaves in the paint and make imprints on Paper. Maybe even glue the leaves too. Have actual leaves and imprints would look pretty and introduce them to different “Mediums”.
Off course always on the agenda is baking and decorating cupcakes…. These are a few of the designs we’ve made in the past.
It’s time to get more creative and see what the girls can come up with this year….
Perhaps we can make a whole graveyard?? Who knows….
All this aside this month requires a great deal of creativity and skill because it’s off course costume season for the whole family!!
I think we’ve done every kids of costume from purchasing to making….and it’s time we go all over it again….
Here’s a few samples of what we’ve done in the past and I can’t wait to get started all over again!
I’ve always wanted to have a little Halloween even of my own but with our November birthdays and Christmas preparations I’ve always thought it’s overloading myself.
But we do have one major tradition that we always do and that’s the carving of the pumpkin…. We all go to Sultan and buy a really nice American pumpkin and get all creative in carving it.
Off course Zeenah is assigned to gut it all out, while Jennah is the one that draws out the design and I have the pleasure of carving it all out.
I would like to get more creative and do several pumpkins but unfortunately they don’t last very long because of the heat and they do start to smell.
Maybe this time around we can Paper Mache a Pumpkin…or several pumpkins.
There are just so many ideas that I can’t wait to try out ad share with all my readers. And hopefully in this process I help in Making Life Memorable for you too!!
Sep27
Birthday Games
When planning my girls’ birthdays I always like to have at least 2 or 3 games for the kids. I’ve come to realize that all they want to do is just run around and have fun but I still do it anyway!!
One thing I always like to make sure of is choosing a game where everyone is a winner and no hard feelings. There’s nothing worse than making a kid cry on your child’s birthday. So musical chairs is OUT! Too rough and just our mean of a game for me!
The way I avoid any losers is by actually having the kids that are out choose a gift from a huge box of 100fils toys, stickers, bubbles, stationary, colors, play dough….etc Soon some of the kids wanted to loose just to be able to choose a gift from the box.
Off course the games I choose are always theme related.
For example, Zeenah’s 3rd birthday was a monkey theme. So instead of the traditional pass the parcel I had pass the monkey.
I used a stuffed monkey that they passed around. Whenever the music stopped the person that had the monkey got to leave the circle and choose a gift from the “Box”.
Last person got to keep the stuffed monkey as their prize.
I take every opportunity I get to get artistic and crafty.
The minute I found these cute little plush bananas I had a light bulb moment…..
A Banana toss would be a perfect “Monkey Themed” game.
First on the agenda was to get a big cardboard box.
Perfect, conveniently I have a gift shop that I always save some shipping boxes just for occasions such as these!
I took the box and outlines the monkey I wanted.
I then cut out the “mouth” intended for the banana’s to be tossed into.
Off course after that was my favorite part which is painting!!!
It was even better than the way I imagined… The girls were super excited after I had finished it that they played with it constantly before the big debut on the birthday.
For a 3 year old birthday I figured 2 games was just enough and I was right!!!
We had the singing of the birthday shortly after and a chance in Making Life Memorable for everyone involved.
Sep19
Friday weekend or not??
It’s always funny how as a mom you can’t decide if you do or don’t have a weekend.
Don’t get me wrong!!!! I love spending time with my kids and being creative every chance that I get. But at the same time there’s a fine line between enjoyment and borderline going insane with activities.
Thinking a weekend will be a weekend is a joke for any mom with kids under the age of probably 10/11. At that age kids don’t want their mom or parent and just want to hang out with their friends and parent’s are glorified and unpaid chauffeurs.
Let’s take today for example. A day were you’d think I would have a chance to at least get a few extra Zzzzzzs. Nope not true!
Wake up early and start doing homework with Jennah knowing that wee need to squeeze as much in because we have a busy weekend and week. Mean while Zeenah’s doing a page of her workbook and insisting to do it her way.
I quickly jump in the shower and we head out for a breakfast & play date with a friend and her kids to discovery mall.
Thank fully while the kiddos are in the play area we do get a chance to have some grown up talk over coffee….with our eyes peeled at the kids direction. Yet every whine, cry or scream we hear we assume its our children.
After a full morning we come back home in the afternoon to more home work and active learning play. Because God forbid should I rest right?
Next we are all dressed up to head to a birthday at the Little Gym.
So I ask myself probably more often than not are my girls going to be able to keep up with me or is it the other way around.
At the end of the day I still seem to think I didn’t cover something. One thing is for sure, I’m positive I’m Making Life Memorable for our little family one day at a time.
Sep18
Paper Mache
There is something fascinating about getting your hands dirty and being messy while doing some craft or arts project. I’m not talking about just for kids but also as an adult.
Maybe it’s the feeling like you’re a kid again and reliving your childhood but I never realized how thrilling it was until I actually got my hands dirty.
Part of planning my girls’ birthdays is making the piñata. An easy yet long process because of drying time, especially if you want to make it into a specific shape.
The key to making a good piñata isn’t just the design but also having a really good Paper Mache recipe.
I would love to use professional Modge podge but unfortunately it’s not sold in bulk and isn’t cost effective for big destroyable projects.
Many recipes use Elmer’s or white glue as an adhesive which also falls into the same category as my former statement.
I’m all for saving a Fils (or more) in everything I do and I would rather save the money for something that’s more lasting than a piñata that’s going to be beaten to death and thrown into the recycle bin.
Hence I present to you a fabulous Paper Mache recipe that’s easy to make and fantastic to handle.
Mix the following ingredients:
2 Cups Flour
4 Cups Water
2 Tablespoons Salt (optional, prevents rotting)
All you need now are newspaper strips, dip each strip into the Paper Mache paste and get dirty!!!
Have fun Making Life Memorable extra messy!!
See hoe you can use this recipe in my LadyBug Piñata Post!
Sep6
LadyBug Photo Booth
One of my favorite parts of planning the girls’ birthdays is getting creative with a photo Booth. The more I do them the more I begin to elaborate.
Last year Zeenah chose to have a Ladybird birthday. I had made everything black and red with whatever I can make. From table cloths to paper pompoms. It also made my life easier in thinking of ideas for the photo props.
I made callout signs that said “No bugging allowed” and “Happy Birthday Zeenah!”
I also got red sunglasses from the 100fils store and added googly eyes and antennas using black pipe cleaners.
Conveniently I also found Red Happy Birthday sunglasses and a Glittery red cowboy hat that I didn’t have to add anything too!
Next came the actual photo Booth. We are very lucky to have a great big olive tree with amazing branches to hang things on. My decorating engineer (AKA my husband) had the task of implementing my visualization.
We had a great red vintage looking frame that we hung on our Olive tree and a collection of home made red pompoms. Off course the first picture to be taken in the booth has to be a CUTE sister picture before we bring out the sillies!!
Zeenah insisted that I buy the same dress for Jennah because according to her she wanted to be “twins”
Then off course it was photo time for the kids with the props With friends and family. It was so enjoyable seeing all the kids grabbing props and posing for the camera. It became a form of entertainment for the kids.
I hope this has inspired a few ideas for your net birthday even and helps in Making Life Memorable for you!
Feb19
Photo Booth
One of my favorite things to prepare for the girls’ birthdays are props for our DIY photobooth. There are companies out there that set it up for you but I like to do it myself and people nowadays are all photographers with their smart phones so they get to play and have fun on their own without a professional “probing”
We always have a theme for our birthdays so I always have to make sure that the props I make are related. Then I just add the usual things like funky sunglasses, Boas, decorative items that can be used as props.
For Zeenah’s 3rd birthday she wanted a monkey theme so I had printed out a template of a monkey mask.
I then cut out the outline of the mask on brown cardstock. The details of the face and ears with off-white paper.
The step of cutting out the eye holes evenly was a challenge but I managed to do it.
I added a little flower on the monkey’s ear and a little detail on the nose.
Off course the last step is adding the stick for kids to hold the mask up. I use craft sticks that have rounded tips (if I have them available or can find them) I have used the wooden skewers in the past but made sure I taped the sharp ends.
The next on my list was to make a sign to put on the Prop table. I was lucky to find funky frames at one of the local 100fils stores (the Kuwaiti equivalent of the dollar store) so I bought all the colors they had. I knew they would come in handy some day.
Lastly was the setup of the actual booth. We’re lucky to have a big garden that hosts our birthdays. We have an olive tree that provides the best branches to hang an empty frame border, balloons, paper chains and whatever else I can think of. Here’s me posing with my monkey sunglasses during Zeenah’s 3rd Birthday.
Jennah’s 7th birthday she had chosen a queen of hearts theme.
I absolutely and utterly enjoyed planning and decorating for it.
It was so hard to actually make decisions to STOP.
I had made lots of props for that. Queen of hearts hair & Crown, Heart lips, Cheshire cat smile, Mini Golden crown and Teedle Dee/Dum cap.
An Now it’s time to plan Zeenah’s 4th Birthday coming in March!!!
Its all about making life memorable!!
Nov27
Jennah’s 7th Birthday
We Love having themed birthday parties and there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing it all come together.
This year Jennah chose to have a Queen of Hearts birthday party. A basic red & black with hearts, “How hard could that be??” I thought! Well in my head things always seem to start simple but I’m not one that does simple. I loooooooooooooooooooooove over the top! “Bigger” and “more is more” is my thing.
So I go old fashioned and grab a pen and paper and start writing my to dos.
1. Invitation & Guest list
2. Cake
3. Set-up
4. Menu & cake
5. Favors
6. Games
Off course I wrote that list but knew that things will definitely be added along the way.
First on the list invitations & Guests.
So I pull out the file on my computer with last years list and print it out. We had a few scratched out names and I also had to give Jennah her list of school kids that she made.
Then the fun part of designing the invitation.
I knew I wanted to have red envelopes and red cardstock for the card. So it was important to make a run to a stationary store before undertaking the design stage. I had to get the envelopes first because only then would I know what size to make the invite.
My second decisions was to design the card for printing on regular white A4. It would just make my life so much easier in getting the color scheme.
A few hours behind the computer and a little cutting here and there.
The final result of a few hours work was something I was very proud of!
7th Birthday memories are beginning to shape up. After all it’s about “Making Life Memorable!”