Cat in the Hat Party

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I've posted on the blog. Yikes!  Well, mainly it's because I went back to work full time.  And, then, I planned 2 parties in one weekend - Nikhil's 3rd birthday party and my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party.

So, I'm finally posting pictures from Nikhil's birthday.  The party just kept getting bigger and bigger - I'm not sure how.  I did a Cat in the Hat theme, since he loves the TV show, it's one of his favorites.  But, I did want to use all the Dr. Seuss pre-made stuff that's for sale, I wanted to do things myself.  My friend, Daphne Hargrove, took most of the pictures.  She's an amazing photographer and was so sweet to come armed with her camera.

I swiped the idea for the invite from this blog.  It had a lot of great ideas on there for Dr. Seuss food ideas, but since we were having the party around dinner time, I didn't really use any of the food ideas.

When guests arrived, they were greeted with a Dr. Seuss book to sign.

I rented 3 kids tables with these cute chairs (I think the total was like $30!) and then put them all together.  I wanted the kids to have their own table, since there were 25 children invited and they seemed to love having their own seats.

I made coloring book Cat in the Hat placemats and the orange fish out of cloth as table decorations.  I was surprised how much the kids enjoyed coloring.

For the adult tables, I made red/white striped hats out of Gerber puffs cans and red flower pom poms.

The big splurge was getting a bounce house.  But, it was well worth the money - everyone enjoyed it, and I loved seeing Nikhil's face as the castle was inflated.

And, after the party, my parents and my mother-in-law jumped in the bounce house too!

Instead of a gift, my parents got Nikhil a balloon guy and this guy was terrific.  Nikhil was so happy.

 Of course Nikhil wanted a Thomas the Train balloon.

Here's the food stations.  I didn't keep with the Cat in the Hat theme just because I wanted to have food that people would actually eat. I had a separate adult and keiki menu.  And, we also had a sushi bar - it was actually a really good deal and we had more than enough food.  

I spent the most time on the dessert table.  It was the first dessert table I've made though i bought cute red and white striped straws for bottles of milk and I totally forgot the milk.  I made the birthday sign on my printer and strung it with ribbon.  Our surgical coordinator made the delicious cake pops and the cake.  They were such a hit.

 The same blog had this great tutorial on this DIY cupcake stand.  I pinned it on pinterest and it's been repinned like 60 times. Kind of neat.  My parents helped me make it.

 I've seen tons of Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes with blue cotton candy topping all over the internet. But all the sites reported how the cotton candy melts after like 10 minutes and since we live in Hawaii, I didn't think it was a good idea.  Plus, even though I like sugar, even I thought a red velvet cupcake topped with cotton candy didn't sound that tasty, so I just dyed the frosting blue.

My mother-in-law bought this singing candle which unfolded into a flower when lit.  It kept singing, even after we threw it in the trash for 2 days (we were warned about this!)

 My niece, Maya, who came all the way from Boston to celebrate her cousin's 3rd birthday!

 My dad and Taj

Family portrait

My good friend, Hope, and her son.

Our AWESOME nanny Shawna and her fiance.

And, here's the final shot of the gift bag table.

And, yes, I was crazy enough to hand paint those little clothes pins.

All in all, a great birthday party for Nikhil!  You can see all of the pictures from the party here

It's a Blue Christmas

It's a blue Christmas - not because we're sad, but because this is the year of  blue for us.  Blue car, blue dresser, and now a blue tree. Maybe it all started with Thomas the train and my son's love of the color blue.  Though, our house is also very blue/brown as well, and I can't credit Nikhil with that one.  I usually do red/gold ornaments for our Christmas tree, but I was at Walmart the other day and saw these "shatterproof" ornaments, so I decided to try them out.  They had these beautiful turquoise colored ones, so of course, I had to get those.  And, let me tell you, shatterproof is the only way to go with a 2 year old boy.

The ornaments did live up to their name and at $5 for 12, they are a good deal.  Every year, we are always cleaning up shards of cheap glass from ornaments that have accidentally fallen off the tree and this year, we've been lucky with the new ornaments.

 

In addition to the tree, I saw this DIY Christmas ornament tutorial on younghouse love's website from their Pinterest challenge.  The step by step instructions are here (with a video tutorial).  I thought it would be a neat thing to do with my son, since he really loves arts and crafts.  We added a bunch of different colors to each ornament to make it more fun.  My niece, Bella, was visiting, so we did some more ornaments together.  I found the plain glass ornaments at Ben Franklin and had a bunch of acrylic Folk art paints from other projects.  

Aren't they pretty?  I love the swirls.  Merry Christmas everyone!

It's a Thomas Halloween

Happy Halloween!  Of course, we had a very Thomas Halloween here in our house.  I was googling different Halloween costumes for Nikhil a few weeks ago, trying to pick something he liked.  I was considering Angry Birds, but the ready made costumes were $50 and to DIY required a lot of sewing (something I really don't like to do!)

And, then I found a couple ideas online for making Thomas.  I'm much better at doing crafty things like gluing cardboard boxes together, and Nikhil gave his seal of approval, so Thomas it was!

Here's what I was doing 2 days before I delivered Taj.

I just glued 2 cardboard boxes together, then cut the number 1 and the red stripe out of construction paper.  I used black posterboard to make the cylindrical prop for the Thomas face so it stuck out a bit and wasn't flat.  The funnel was just a toilet paper roll wrapped in the black posterboard.  We cut strips out of fabric and hot glued them to the interior of the box to be "suspenders" for Thomas.

I had some help from my Dad, who painted Thomas 2 different colors to get the exact shade.  Now some may think, well it's a costume for a 2 year old, how exact does it need to be?  Then, you certainly haven't met Nikhil.  He's like quality control for Thomas drawings.  If I leave off one wheel or change the color of one line when drawing Thomas for him, he says, "No Mommy, like this".  So, I wanted it to be perfect.

Here we are the night before to do some final measurements.  But, Nikhil wouldn't take Thomas off.

Nikhil had a costume sharing day at school the week before Halloween.  He was so proud to wear Thomas.  It was certainly worth all the hard work!  One of the little girls in his class wanted a Thomas costume too!

For Halloween, when asked what his name was, he always answered "Thomas!"

And, to add to our Thomas Halloween, Jeff spent over 4 hours, carving our jack-o-lantern.  Here's the product of his hard work. Niki loved it!!

It's Not Grey's Anatomy

In honor of the Grey's Anatomy season premiere, I thought I would include a funny picture of myself down below.  But, it first needs some explanation.  One of the things that always bothers me about Grey's is not their mispronunciation of medical terminology, or even the crazy plot lines or incestuous relationships amongst each other (after all, my hubby was my co-resident.  Though, actually, I guess technically, I was his senior resident, so I was more like Sheperd to his Meredith?).  Anyway, what bothers me is their scrubs.  Their scrubs are so tailored and figure flattering.  Let me tell you, when I wear scrubs, I look like I'm playing dress up in clown clothes and have to roll the pants up at the waist and try to tuck the shirt in a bit to look more professional.  Also, why do none of these surgical residents wear clogs?

So, getting back to my picture.  I was operating last week at Kapiolani where I usually get my size XS scrubs from the scrub machine, automatically programmed. The Kapiolani scrubs actually run small and the XS make me feel like I'm on Grey's Anatomy.  Though I would need to get up early and put my hair in hot rollers to really achieve Meredith or Christina's look. However, I did forget that it had been 4 weeks since I last operated there and now at 32 weeks, I perhaps may not fit into my usual size scrubs.  I was running late, I tossed on my scrubs and felt a bit drafty.  If you look closely, you can see that my scrub shirt doesn't exactly cover my belly.

Well, I figured that this midriff baring scrubs look may not exactly inspire confidence in the parents of the patients I was going to operate upon, so I figured out how to change my size in the machine and was able to retrieve a more appropriate size. 

And, then, I just had to include this pic of our son.  He put his pants on by himself on this day.  Usually, he has trouble getting the pants over his butt, but not this time.  What I loved, is how cutely he posed when I asked him!