Rowan's Third Birthday!!!

(Cross-posted to Little Red Rowan)

Rowan is 3 years old. Can we just take a moment to marvel at that?

We couldn't celebrate his birthday on the 11th (more on that later), so we did a party with the grandparents the weekend before. We decided to have a Pigeon Party, since he totally love the Pigeon Books, and so do I.

It was very cute and laid back. I realized (today) that I had ideas for games, but I didn't actually do anything for them. We had only invited one other kiddo, and she and her parents couldn't come because SOMEONE decided to show up in their family a few weeks early. So it was only adults, so I guess we didn't need games.

I made pigeon cake pops ...

Beth gave me a cake-pop pan to try. This makes the balls with just cake, not cake mixed with frosting. So it makes them healthy, right?!

The only problem(s) with this method is:
1) when the balls get stuck in the pan. After a few batches, I found that COPIOUS amounts of Pam/cooking spray does the trick. I mean COPIOUS amounts, on both pans. Crisco/grease didn't work.
2) I only had one pan, so I could only do 12 at a time. It took about 4 batches to get through all the batter I had, which was about an hour of baking, plus about 10 minutes in between each for cooling. It took A LONG time.
3) the wrong amount of batter means to balls are not quite round. Too much leaves a little seam around the ball, and too little leaves the ball a little flat on top.

But in the end, they were pretty good.

Beaks. The cake pop book called for candy-covered sunflower seeds. You can buy these online or at baking supply stores, but only in big huge bags. I needed approximately 20. So I just took some of my candy melts, made them yellow, and covered a few seeds from my tin of trail mix.

It was ok, Probably needed to thin out the candy more (as I noticed later while dipping the pops), but not too bad.

Cake. I used this recipe, and it was AMAZING. Cut it in half, and it was STILL a lot of cake.

Dipping. Colored the candy melts blue, and thinned it out with vegetable oil. I needed to thin it A LOT more than I remember doing in the past, but it was so thick. I had just enough for 24 pops.

Eyes. Wilton makes candy eyes, but again, I didn't need 100 of them. And I was trying to do this a inexpensively as possible. I colored the eyes with gel color, white/sparking and black. It worked pretty well, though some of them "dropped" a little.

But they were yummy!!!

Decorations. God, I love Pinterest. So many Free ideas for Free decorations.

I chose the pigeon balloons ...

and pigeon toilet paper rolls (printable template here) ...

... and the classic streamers and balloons and my mom's birthday banner.

Food. Well, it was a Hot Dog party, right!!!

Hot dogs and mac & cheese (with french fried onions like at Eatery). 

And then presents. We decided on a play Coffee Maker and a balance bike. However, he's still too short for the bike. With the seat ALL the way down, he can JUST touch the ground with his toes. So I guess we'll stick with the tricycle for a few months.

Happy Birthday, kiddo!!!

Birthdays ... uhg

I'm feeling so much UHG about the kiddo's upcoming birthday. First, he'll be 3 years old, which is like, what? No ... what? But, like, .... what? I'm having a hard time with it.

Second, I won't actually get to celebrate his birthday on his birthday. I am having Radioactive Iodine treatment on the 11th, after which I will need to be quarantined from the entire human race for 3 days. Just me and my Netflix and my knitting and painful salivary glands. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm am looking forward to -- also not having an overactive thyroid, which sucks, let me tell you. But the fact that I don't get to do birthing things with him, that sucks even more.

Finally, he'll be three. Wait, I already said that. It deserves saying again. He'll be three. He was never a terrible two-year old, but all of a sudden, as Three starts to peer around the corner, he's turned into this ... well ... toddler! UHG! He's such a ... TODDLER!!! He doesn't listen to reason, he doesn't want to do what I tell him to do, he's gone from only freaking out at me in the privacy of our own home to freaking out at me wherever we happen to me, which usually means there are other people around who, you know, notice the small child flailing around on the floor and the mother trying to keep her cool.

But anyway ...

Birthday things. Probably the weekend before. Which is fine, he can't read a calendar ... yet. He can tell time, and use a mouse (not that that's relevant to reading a calendar, he just happened to learn that today).

Themes ...

He's a big fan of the Mo Willems Pigon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the Pigeon Finds a Hotdog, etc.), and sometimes they talk about hotdogs. Because hot dogs are awesome. In Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late he dreams about a Hot Dog Party. So we could do that.

I've also been knitting Pigeon Hats and putting them on Etsy, so he's used to A LOT of pigeons around the house.

So we could have a Hot Dog Party. Only problem is we don't have a grill, and if you're going to cook 800 hotdogs for a party, it would be nice to have them on a grill.

Even though he likes his hot dogs cold now. Yuck. Apparenty my brother used to do the same thing when he was little.

But maybe the food isn't important.


Cake. now CAKE is important.

Thinking I could do a bus-shaped cake and draw the pigeon in the window.

Or a pigeon-shaped cake (but that pan might be hard to find, for free)

Or just a regular cake with a pigeon drawn on it ...

Or ...

too ambitious? He would just love them.


Decorations.
God I love pinterest.

So simple.
And we could do games like Pin the Pigeon on the bus, or whatever. Toss the pigeon into the thing. Don't let the pigeon do something. Nothing over the top, because this might just be the grandparents. We don't have very many little friends at the moment.

Travel Carseat Desk

Next week we hit the road for our Summer vacation! Up to MA for 4th of July, then to NH to the lake house, a quick jaunt up to Maine with just me and the hubby for a few days w/out the kiddo, back to NH, back to MA, and then back home.

Problem: This will involve a lot of time in the car for our city kid, which usually involves a lot of crying, several boxes of Goldfish Crackers, and anywhere between a little bit to a lot of vomit.




Solution: Lots of activities and a DYI travel desk to keep those activities in order. We've tried balancing a book on his lap before, with varying results.




Inspiration: I mean, Pinterest of course. But more specifically ...

DIY Travel Lap Tray by Pretty Prudent


DYI Magnetic Travel Tray by Craft, Interrupted


Lap Desk by MerMag



Dilemmas: His carseat has big arm-rest/cup-holders, so this has to sit on top of those. Our "bad" cookie sheet isn't long enough, and I don't want to destroy our "good" cookie sheet (the above ideas involve putting velcro strips on the cookie sheet itself or drilling into it).




Plan: Attach the cookie sheet to the lap pillow in a non-permanent way by 1) putting non-slip drawer liner material on the pillow top, so the cookie sheet won't slide so much, and 2) attaching a tie to the pillow that can tread through the (already there) hole in the cookie sheet (I have no idea why there is a hole there. May want to drill a matching hole on the other side, which won't affect the cookie functioning of the cookie sheet.)


Materials:

• 1 metal cookie sheet (mine is 17"x11" on the bottom, 19"x12" to the top with the handles)
• Non-Slip Drawer liner material, cut to fit bottom of cookie sheet (in this case, 17"x11")
• Fabric for Lap pillow. I'm making mine a little wider than the cookie sheet, to fit the width of the carseat (21"x12", two pieces)
• Fabric for pockets, to hang over the sides of the carseat (2 pieces 12"x7", 2 pieces 12"x8")
• Stuffing for pillow
• Ribbon for ties
• Hot glue or Fabric Glue
• Sewing stuff (needle/machine, thread, scissors, measuring tape)

Steps:

1) Measure and cut fabric. I had some leftover from R's Baby Doll Carrier, so I used the Blue for the top of the pillow (where the cookie sheet will sit) and the backs of the pockets, the Striped for the bottom of the pillow, and the Lions for the front of the pockets. Cut non-slip drawer liner.




2) Pockets. On front panels, fold down top edge about 1/4" and sew. Pin front and back panels together with wrong sides showing, and sew right, bottom, and left edges (leaving top edge open). Turn right-side out. Repeat for second pocket.










3) Pillow. Pin top and bottom panels together with wrong sides showing, and sew top and bottom edges (leaving side edges open). On side openings, fold down edges about 1/4" on both the top and bottom pieces (make sure the top and bottom pieces line up when you "close" the pillow) and sew around on each side. Turn right-side out.








4) Attach pockets. With the Top of the pillow facing up, insert the top 1/2" of one pocket in a side opening, facing up. Pin the pillow opening closed, securing the pocket. Sew that side edge closed.
On the other side, insert the top 1/2" of the other pocket (facing up) in the other side opening. Pin it to the Top panel only, and sew across to attach the pocket but NOT to close the side opening (because we still have to fill the pillow).








5) Attach any ribbons, straps, or strings before filling pillow. (not shown)


6) Glue non-slip drawer liner to the Top of the pillow. (you will notice from the pictures that I did this step earlier. In fact, I tried sewing the liner onto to the fabric. Bad idea, if you're a beginner like me, because it stretched and my fabric puckered and it didn't line up right. And it was a pain in the butt to maneuver around because it was so grippy. Just glue it toward the end. I used hot glue).




7) Fill pillow with stuffing until desired fullness. Sew final side opening closed.






8) Pack up the toys and hit the road! (hopefully this will work and I'll a great in-action photo to post here next week!)