Halloween Happy Face!

To complete our year of the circus, Blair was a lion tamer “happy face” (clown) for Halloween this year. I asked a former student of mine to make her costume, and it was so cute!

A lion tamer clown and a lion!

She was so proud of her pumpkins. We spent the morning carving and decorating three of them! They turned out cute!

Photography by blair.

We hitched the trailer up to the car and went out with our good friends from here, Aunt Melissa, and Jordan. The kids We all had so much fun, and the weather was perfect! We thought it was going to be super cold, but 71 at 5:30pm began a beautiful evening of awesome fall weather!

Brad took a harvest break to come drive the truck! Blair was so excited!

Leighton rode on the trailer too. I didn’t make him wear his costume. :)

I can’t really say that Blair got a whole lot of good candy – ie candy I would eat :) (thanks to Neena, I got plenty), but she had fun, which is all that matters. Plus I had a bag of chocolate stashed at home :).

Harvest Visits

We have had beautiful weather lately, and Brad is in full on cotton harvest mode. When he has cotton defoliated, he runs hard to get it in before rain, if possible. Late nights, meal delivery, and field visits are all in order this time of year. In the evening, we might take supper, ride for a bit, or just go say hi before the kids' bedtime.
We had to go to Atlanta yesterday for appointments for Blair, and all she talked about on the way home was going out "to ride with my dada." We didn't get to ride because it was late when we got home, but she was so excited just to see Brad.

 

She sees those cotton picker lights heading toward us and lights up, "Who's coming?!"

Late nights are rough for all of us, but these visits are so special as well - Blair's excitement is adorable!

Blair’s Circus Birthday Party – Put on a Happy Face!

For months now, Blair has been all about the circus. She sings all of the songs on the Circus KidSongs DVD and wants to be a clown for Halloween… and when she grows up. Olivia Saves the Circus is one of her very favorite books. So it was only fitting that we have a circus birthday party this year. It turned out so cute!

The inspiration for the party obviously came from what Blair wanted based on her experience with KidSongs and Olivia the pig – clowns and lion tamers were the most important!

The decorations were a mixture of things. The first thing I bought was the plates and napkins from Target.

Then the theme really took off with the circus party printables from Bird’s Party Cirus Birthday.

The printables from Bird’s Party were perfect. Brad’s mom and little sister spent weeks cutting, decorating, and glittering them, and his big sister and I put it all together for the party!

The table decorations were made of plastic popcorn boxes I got at the dollar store. In each box, we put one piece of styrofoam and filled it in with aquarium rocks to hold the suckers and circus icons.

Brad’s mom made the suckers out of the colored Wilton candy melts and Wilton Big Top molds.

We sent the suckers and little popcorn boxes of animal crackers home as favors. I filled small treat bags and tied them with a ribbon. (I really wanted to do popcorn, but we haven’t given Blair popcorn yet, and we had kids younger than her at the party. Our pedi says she can have popcorn when she can spell it!)

I like to do food that Blair likes and try to make it work with the theme. The circus party food:

• Hot dogs
• Elephant shaped PB&J “for the elephant lovers”
• Lion shaped ham and cheese “for the lion tamers”
• “Juggling fruit” skewers
• “Tight rope” string cheese
• “Elephant ear” chips
• Zebra pies
• Pimento cheese on raisin bread
• Chocolate covered frozen banana “monkey pops”

I used the Wilton Jungle Pals Cookie Cutter Set for the sandwiches. The zebra pie recipe is here on my blog. I made the banana pops at the beginning of the week and stored them until the party. I wrapped a piece of styrofoam in wrapping paper and stuck them in for serving.

The cake my mom made was amazing as always. The “lion tamer” was on Blair’s strawberry layer. The top tent layer was pound cake, and the happy face layer was chocolate. I thought it was a perfect time to do a non-stacked cake. Mom found the perfect cake stand for the occasion!

The lion tutorial is on the My Cake School blog.

For the party entertainment, my sister Molly and her boyfriend were the clowns. I could not have hired a better pair of clowns – they were perfect! I bought the wigs, suspenders, tights, noses, and rainbow eyelashes at the party store. Molly did the rest – how cute were they?!

Blair LOVED it! It’s a good thing; I was scared of clowns as a child.

We are blessed to have very talented family and friends. My parents’ neighbor came to make balloon animals for the kids. He is amazing! They had bracelets, monkeys on trees, fishing poles with fish, poodles, horses, and he even made some antlers!

Perfect for Josh’s getup: a balloon hat and fishing pole with a precious fish!

One of Brad’s mom’s friends came and painted faces. Everyone looked so cute!

We had a bouncy house for the sole reason that I had never really allowed Blair to play in one. Plus Olivia is the Queen of the Trampoline in her book!

Two other ideas I took from Bird’s Party were the duck pond, which every one enjoyed more than you would think and the photo booth.

We all had a blast in the photo booth. Brad’s mom made the frame part, and I had the easy job of gathering items for the booth box. At Halloween, that type stuff is everywhere! The cost does add up quickly though!

More to come about the big 4!

Irish Twins

Who’d have thought we’d have two babies in one year?! Not me, especially since Leighton was born in July! Thankfully I still only have to get up with Leighton at night. The new baby keeps his daddy up.

Meet the new baby. He/she is nameless so far.

Cotton harvest has officially begun! We’ll be packing lunches and making at home take out for supper (or he just eats it cold when he gets home!). We head out to the field for family time on a Friday night. We get to enjoy our south Georgia snow!

Family Friday Night – all four of us piled up in the picker!

Beautiful views every day all day from the driver’s seat.

I’ll post more pictures of the new baby and how she works – I think she’s a she. :)

Blair is four!

Happy birthday to my big-eyed beauty!

The birthday girl had a pretty good birthday. We started out with the requested waffle for breakfast – with candles.

 

While we were eating, Aunt Linnie called. She also had calls from Gigi, Aunt Mo, GT, Aunt Kimmie, and Aunt Melissa.

I put her down for an early nap, and we headed off to the fair for the afternoon. It crossed my mind that she was mighty whiney in the morning, but I figured she was tired.

We wanted to take her to the circus at the fair. She is all about the circus. She wants to be a “happy face” when she grows up (a clown), and she wants a lion tamer on her cake. And a lion tamer she will have!

We got to the fair, ate a late lunch (yummy gyro!), and headed to the circus tent.

Loves her daddy!

The circus was pretty good. There’s only so much they can do in a tiny tent with a tiny ring. Blair wanted them to sing the songs from her circus movie!

She wanted to see the happy faces, but they didn’t have any in their circus. So… we walked the entire fair over and over looking for the strolling clown, and he was nowhere to be found. And then we realized that Blair had a fever.

So her birthday was a little tough with her not feeling well that afternoon and evening, but I think she’ll make it up at her party, which we had to postpone. However, next week works out better for almost everyone I talked to, so yay! All the little activities I had planned can still all happen next week too, so yay! We’ll party next weekend!

It’s been birthday central around here (especially at Grandmom’s where they have been working on decorations for a couple of weeks!). I can’t wait for her to have her party. She LOVES all birthdays, especially hers! It’s going to be a lot of fun!