National Western Rodeo Jan 2014

We went to the Rodeo with Jack and Cherry and Chad and Christine. We had a blast! The kids did great. Andy loved hanging out with "papa" and he said "neigh-neigh" so many times. Jay loved watching the bull riding AND eating snacks. I tried to take a picture with Andy and all he wanted was to go back and sit by Grandpa. Thanks for the fun times guys.

Jan 2014 picts

A cute video compilation of Jay and Andy

Pictures from Island Milliken (Sept 2013)

Another post I really wanted to do is from during the flooding in September, so I can remember what happened. Here is the main intersection during the flood:

One of the Bridges that goes into Milliken:

What happened when a car crossed the barrier:

Another bridge:

This was the map I studied with possible routes out of town:

This was two rivers, another way out of town that was not an option: BEFORE THE FLOOD:

AFTER THE FLOOD:

Julie and I got a little ways into town and found a street/river with a matress floating in it:

This was Monday...everything happened Friday, Saturday and Sunday...

Jay's Thomas the Train Birthday Party

I know this happened this past summer, and I am already thinking about his next party, but I wanted to share with the Pintrest world and remind myself of the details. Jay decided he wanted a Thomas the Train birthday party early on in the year, and it was so fun to plan.

I started by doing a Photo shoot with him in the Thomas hat from his costume, scanning in some stickers from a sticker book and creating the invite in Photoshop. I blurred out the address and phone number.

I started early on the decorations, using a stop sign my dad made and mounting the railroad crossing sign on top. I created the Thomas box from a toilet box, blue wrapping paper I got from Goodwill, red tape, black and yellow construction paper, and I used my projector at school to pull up a website of a thomas face and trace it onto tagboard. I used black and silver sharpie to fill it in. It took a while, but it was worth it as the kids had a great time with it, and the track on the ground running through the house then served a purpose:

My favorite part of the decorations was the food. I created labels for everything using the scanned stickers, and the food cars turned out great.

This website was a big part of the inspiration: Burdette Family Creations I had 2 coal cars, one with brownies, and one with Oreo Cookie Balls. The dairy car had cheese cubes. The Grain cars had pumpkin bread, veggie sticks, and Doritos. The Jobe logs were pretzel rods dipped in almond bark. The caboose kabobs were fruit on a kabob stick. The cotton car was popcorn puffs (or pirate's booty). The produce car was veggies. The hopper car had veggie dip along with some other condiments for the "Station House Sandwiches".

The Trains on the tables came from a hand-me-down remote control Thomas, and a flashlight Thomas I found at Goodwill.

The cake was made by my friend Kristie (who babysat Jay when he was younger) at Iced by Kristie

I wanted the drinks to look like this:

But on a large scale it didn't work as well as I had hoped:

For decorations, I had this displayed on the TV screen but it got turned off part way through the party:

I hung some string tied with Balloons on them above the window, had tracks in blue painters tape stuck to the ground from outside the front door to the back screen door.

I also posted pictures around the room from when Jay rode on the real Thomas the Train earlier in the year, and of him with "Sir Topham Hat".

The guests were invited to wear hats (50% clearance at Target), and Bandana's (2/$1 at the Dollar Tree):

We played Thomas Bingo (which is digital and comes with a DVD) that I found for .50 at a garage sale. I had the wooden Thomas trains set up in the basement on the train table, but I don't think many kids ventured down there because it was such a nice day outside. I also printed Thomas the Train coloring pages found HERE. I found these printable Thomas bingo game cards, but didn't end up using it.

Each guest got a baggie with some Thomas prizes from Oriental Trading company and some Thomas fruit snacks (.50/box of 8 with sale and coupons). I think I threw a few other things in but I don't remember what.

I found Thomas valentines for 75% off after Valentines day and spent some time cutting just the trains out to paste on the bags (which I had from a previous party), so they were .50 total (2 boxes). Everyone had a great time, and although the box train was a last minute idea, I'm glad I made it because they had a lot of fun!