Today is my last day being 37. Which honestly wouldn’t be SO bad, but while you may call 37 “mid thirties” there is no denying that 38 is late 30’s pushing 40. Plus, I get to move up into the next less successful tier of boxes in the infertility statistics. FUN STUFF!

I am looking forward to reconnecting with  my classmates though.  The (waldorf) school I went to was tiny, so every classmate is like a long lost relative.. it will be fun to see what everyone is up to.

And now, so I don’t feel so impossibly old, a picture of me in my extreme youth:

Ah, I feel better already!

PS, is that like Jasper with long hair or what?

First, a little video..

And now, the details!

Well, overall I have to say that the party did NOT go as smoothly as last year.

First of all, about half of our guest list couldn’t make it because of vacation conflicts – the curse of a late August party I suppose. Next year I’ll have to do save the dates 6 months in advance as if it were a wedding! I actually stressed quite a bit about this because we decided to have a family and local friends party vs. a daycare friends party because Jasper has so many cousins that a party with all of his cousins PLUS his whole preschool class actually would have been about as big as a wedding! But in the end, only 5 of his cousins were able to make it plus one friend his own age and our across the street neighbors!  Then there were 4 babies 18 months or less, so there was a big age discrepancy between the guests.

Initially I was very sad that Jasper wouldn’t only have one guest his own age, but then I realized that he’s not that into big crowds anyway.. which was immediately confirmed when most of the guests arrived at once and Jasper went and hid in the corner! :)

There were lots of other issues because unlike last year, we had pretty much no one to help us set up and get ready. My dad was tied up getting his house ready for the relatives staying over, my sister + boyfriend + plus my good friend Amy arrived an hour or so early but I was expecting them sooner, my mom (who was a huge help last year) had to go get my grandmother and wasn’t able to help at all before or during the party.  The result was a bit chaotic!

I must say that Roxy and Amy did a great job with the last minute decorating (even though Jeff says it looked like a car dealership LOL!)

In the image above, you can see the only picture of the banner I worked so hard on but didn’t have time to take a proper picture of. Well, the next morning I did before taking it down, but I didn’t realize there was no card in my camera. DOH!

My mom had baked the cake, but brought it un-iced and unassembled to me about an hour before the party.  My best friend Alexis had borrowed the coloring gel I use to color the marshmallow fondant and had never returned it, a fact that I didn’t realize until 11pm the night before the party.. what this meant was I couldn’t color the fondant until the MORNING of the party after Michael’s opened so I could go get more gel.  But that meant that the fondant was too warm when I was trying to roll it out and decorate it only a few hours later (as the guests were arriving) so it was a huge disaster – Jeff nobly tried to fix it, but it was pretty hopelessly messy. PLUS there wasn’t enough icing and we forgot to bring it to room temperature before serving. OOPS!

Here it is in all it’s messy glory. And before you say it doesn’t look that bad, let me admit that I photoshopped it a little. What, you didn’t know that I’m that crazy? Well, yes, yes I am!

Other snafus included the NASTY costco crudite which must have been past it’s prime because the broccoli stunk up our house like nothing I’ve ever smelled – it was so bad I could smell it from outside when someone opened the door! And then of course there was the weather.

We got SO lucky that it didn’t rain like was predicted, but it ended up being ungodly hot.  But perhaps our biggest party planning mistake was not having the pizza arrive until 5:30 (the party started at 3pm.) I guess we miscalculated the arc of the party because many people had left by the time it arrived.. Sigh. I was pretty much begging people to stay for cake!

Lastly, I made the activities much too complicated to actually have time to properly execute – thank god some parents stepped in and helped the kids with their cape decorating and sock sidekick making crafts!  The older children really enjoyed it, so I’m glad we did it even though it was a bit overly ambitious. Here are the details in case you are planning your own overly ambitious super hero craft making party!

First, I purchased assorted bulk capes and masks from Abracadabrazoo and put them in each child’s goodie bag:

Even though it looks from the picture like every child’s bag had a superhero J for Jasper, they were actually individualized for each child (we just happened to have tons of “J” kids!)

The bags themselves and most of the items in them (superhero gummies, superhero tattoos, superhero rubber duckies etc) were from Oriental Trading Company.  We also stuffed each bag with a bright colored/patterned sock that we bought from Target so that they could do the build your own sock-puppet sidekick (more on that in a minute!)

For the 18 month and younger guests, we stuffed their bags with capes for when they are older and small plush toys!

For the cape decorating,  I bought sheets of sticky felt in different bright solid colors, glitter glue, sticky felt in small precut shapes like stars and fabric paint.  I wanted each child to be able to cut out an emblem shape and the shape of the first letter of their own name, so I ended up buying some cute shapes in MDF wood that I found in the wood craft section of the craft store. I had a heart, star and oval shape for the emblems and a letter for each child (it actually came in handy there were about 5 Js!)

I think the kids did a fantastic job – but it was definitely more for the older children… but Jasper’s three older girl cousins helped him make one too!

The sock puppet sidekick was Jeff’s idea – here he is showing the kids how to create one:

We got googly eyes, felt sticky letters, red felt sheets and some sticky velcro dots so the kids could make a cape for their sidekicks!

Here are some other image s of the day:

The last “game” we did was pin the emblem on Super Jasperman – this was the only game Jasper and Jonas (his one friend his age!) could participate in.  This year we I got a 20×30 image printed on posterboard at Costco – I think it was $16 – quite a deal!

Jasper went first, and as soon as he walked right up and put the emblem in the exact right spot we realized he could see right through the handkerchief!  Oh well, it’s nice for the birthday boy to “win” even if it is by unintentionally cheating!

After our last game, the pizza finally came, followed shortly after by the cake. Jasper was VERY excited about cake this year. In fact, when he woke up on his birthday day he told us that his cake and his party were sad waiting for him!

Here he is blowing out his candles.. (or trying anyway)

Daddy to the rescue!

Cousin Jenny feeding him :)

Then, of course, my favorite part: the Photobooth!
Like last year, I ordered some of the props from Maro Designs on Etsy and a few others from Party Pleasantries.

After most of the guests had left, we moved inside to open some gifts. I’ll never forget Jasper’s reaction to the hand painted bear card that his Auntie Roxy made him: He ran over to it, kissed it on the nose and then pulled it flat to his chest and gave it a huge hug! So CUTE!

So that’s pretty much it. I don’t know HOW we did it last year that it was so much more relaxed and ran so much more smoothly, because this year definitely did not follow suit!

In fact, when Jasper and I were talking about his party a few weeks ago and I asked him what his favorite part was he replied “When my cousins took care of me when you were talking to other people!”. Yeesh. My goal for next year’s birthday is to actually spend some of it with Jasper!

I am so behind on blogging!! It has been a crazy week and I know the birthday party recap is going to take a bit of time to write.. in the meantime, here is my annual “Jasper’s Year in pictures” video.

And the ONLY reason that I had time to get this done is that Lightroom 3 makes it  SO easy to create slideshows like this! This was created completely within lightroom, no need to export any images anywhere.

I’ll just tell you how I made it easy on myself..

I created a “smart collection” that contained ONLY the images I’d edited since Jasper’s last birthday. Sure, I would still have to go through and pick out the ones that are of Jasper vs. clients or other things (keywording also really helps here!), but this gets me a LOT closer and gives me a much more reasonable number of images to sift through.

The reason I can distinguish between edited and non edited is that I edit ALL my files in Lightroom and then in Photoshop, so my edited files all are PSD files vs the unfinished RAW files.   Lightroom makes it very easy for you to pull ONLY the images that are PSD files into a smart collection and you can put a custom date range in there too!

Here’s how you make a smart collection like mine:

1) Click on the + sign next to collections and choose “smart collection” from the options.

2) Set up your filters, in my case I chose “file type” PSD

3) Click on the + sign to add more filters. I added a “captured after” date and set it to his birthday in 2010 and then another “captured before” date and set it to his birthday this year.

Here’s what my smart collection filter screen looked like:

Then I went to my new smart collection and added the images of Jasper I wanted to use to a quick collection by hitting the “B” key  and then selected all and created a new collection called “Jasper’s Third year”.

To create the slideshow:

Once I had the images, I switched over to the slideshow module where I added a soundtrack (music from triplescoop.com) and the titles. I set the transition speed to .5 seconds and selected “fit to music” so it autocalculated the slide duration so everything would be time correctly and that’s it!  Choose export to video from the slideshow menu and choose your resolution.

Hope that helps someone – it’s so simple to do in LR that even the busiest mom/photographer can find the time to create at least ONE slideshow a year right? :)

If you are old enough to be reading this, you are probably old enough to know that the date of this post is NOT your actual birthday and wonder why.  Well dear one, you will have also probably figured out by then that your mother has a tendency to go “over the top” with things (as your Daddy would say) and your birthday fell just one day before your birthday party… so Mommy was a madwoman trying to get everything ready to throw you a SUPER birthday bash the next day. Will you forgive me? I hope so!

I wonder if you remember anything about your third birthday? (I have vague memories of mine, how amazing to think you might be old enough to form long term memories now!)  Will you remember how you woke up and asked mommy and daddy if it was your Birthday and when we said yes, you said “Is my party downstairs?” And later told us that your cake and your party were sad waiting for you!  then how you bounded down the stairs and saw the word’s biggest train table that daddy stayed up ALL night putting together.

Later you unwrapped the “supersuit” that mommy got you, and did a super pose so that mommy could take a picture:

Then you went to preschool and were SO excited because Mommy was going to bring you CHOCOLATE cupcakes  to share with your friends!  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so excited for anything as when you ran over to the table to sit down and inhale that cupcake.

After your little party at pre-school, Mommy took you to her studio to take some quick birthday shots. It was the first time I can remember you actually cooperating on a photoshoot! We had fun, you particularly love the fact that the big couch was on wheels:

Later that night, we went to see the Hibachi chefs cook dinner at the table. You thought the fire and smoke was so cool, and loved how the chef would throw food for daddy to catch in his mouth!

It was a good day. Before bed, mommy & daddy told you the story of the day you were born which you love to hear. It made me so proud to think how much you’ve grown and changed since then.. and a little sad too that you are growing and changing SO fast!

When I think of you at this age, I think of the sound of you laughing while rough-housing with daddy, the way you do unexpected nice things like hold the door open for me, or say nice things like “Mommy, you are beautiful!” Or the way you are so stubborn, determined and SMART that you went from totally un-potty trained to completely potty trained in the span of a day or so.   I think of how I love to cuddle with you before bed to ready you stories, and how I love seeing your smiling face first thing in the morning asking me if it’s wake up time yet.

Yesterday we were driving in Daddy’s car and you were repeating everything the “car lady” said to daddy.  When we were listening to our horoscopes it asked what sign and Daddy said “Libra” so we could hear mommy’s horoscope.  You had to repeat it of course, but not being wise to the ways of astrology you yelled “Zebra!” instead, which made Daddy and I laugh for a very long time with love and pride in our eyes.  That’s how I want to remember this time in your life always.

I love you so much my little Honey Bear, I can’t wait to see what next year will bring!

xoxo, Mommy

At any rate, the theme is a cute one and I need to get ON it!! (Any tips would be greatly appreciated!) Here’s what I have so far:

I know I want to do a photobooth again this year, but I’m torn between ordering this cityscape backdrop from lemondrop stop :

or having Jeff design something more vintage comic book themed, but then I’d have to worry about how to get it printed big enough to attach to my seamless paper. Probably the backdrop is the way to go!

And then I need to work out party games etc.. I was thinking maybe design your own superhero mask? I tried making one for Jasper over the weekend.. he loves it even though I think I made it too tight!

It has a little thunderbolt on the side that you can see in this picture:

The cape is the cape from his superman costume of two years ago.. but it has velcro meant to attach to a shirt, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll order him one from etsy that velcros around the neck.

I just purchased a few of the props like we used last year from Maro designs on etsy:

There is no shortage of superhero cape sellers on etsy, as it turns out I’m rather picky about capes so I have some decisions to make!

And as for a gift for Jasper – I think it’s going to be hard to top the badass trikey we got him last year (seen in the picture above!) so any suggestions for gifts for a three year old boy would be greatly appreciated!

OK, so that’s the video highlight reel, here are all the details: In general, the colors were kraft paper brown with blue highlights because blue is Japer’s favorite color! There were other touches of red like in the red bandana napkins and red checkered table cloths.

The invitations..

Sunflowers were a great decoration, $7.99 a bunch at the supermarket, stuck in a water pot:

I designed a wanted poster and had two 16×20s printed at costco for $6 each. We put one on the front door and one out back above the drinks. The cow skull decoration was from Party city. You can also see the cow print balloons we ordered from shindigz, I tied them with natural color raffia as well as a teal ribbon.

The birthday banner was incredibly easy to make, much easier than last year’s. I just bought 8×5x11 cardstock in a color called “paper bag” from the craft store. I printed directly on it (no cutting, yay!) and then attached them to hemp twine with clothes pins. Easy Peasy.

The table was decorated with mason Jars full of peanuts:

I used design elements from the invitations to print out fun little labels for some of the snacks, including Trail mix as pictured here, “BBQ Spuds” for the BBQ potato chips, “wagon wheels” for the round pretzels and “kettle corn” for the popcorn.  I just cut out the rectangle and then used a glue stick to attach them to a larger rectangle that I cut out of some Amy Butler scrapbooking  paper I bought ages ago and never found the use for until now!

This was a big glass jar of iced tea and lemonade:

The party favor bags were from Oriental trading. They came with the boot bags AND the goodies to go inside for $4 each. I added in a blue bandana for boys and a pink one for girls and the sheriff’s badges  so I could put each child’s name on it to personalize the bags:

The cake was the same recipe from Last year (thanks again to Kimberly!) but thank god this year I learned to delegate and had my mom bake the cake and make the icing.   I still had to assemble and frost the cake and make the marshmallow fondant shapes.  I was SO glad I posted the recipe and Kimberly’s tips on my blog last year because I referred back to them OFTEN. The black fondant was a PITA because it took like half the bottle of Wilton’s coloring to get it black, and even then it didn’t look so black:

It looked better from far away and with a cowboy carrying it :)

I’m including this shot because you can see how the red, blue and kraft brown colors work together with the napkins and plates and table cloth:

At the last minute I had a panic that even doing the double recipe that the cake was too small to feed 40 people, so we also bought giant cupcakes from costco that I made these cupcake toppers for:

I say “made” rather than “used” because I had my friend Jen help me finish these just before the party and then of course I totally forgot to use them :( This shot was staged for the sake of the blog! The J*J is for “Jasper Jack.”

OK, now on to the fun & games!

We used Jasper’s rocking horse and a wood wreath thing that I found at the dollar store to play “coral the horsie” where the kids had to toss the hoop around the horses neck. I don’t have a picture of the game, but here is Jasper and Daphne enjoying the horsie:

I WANTED to do a “shoot out” game with water pistols where you would line two kids up and see who could squirt a plastic cup off the ledge first, but the kids were enjoying themselves so much just running around I sort of gave up on doing organized games altogether.  I couldn’t even FIND water gun pistols anywhere, only these spaceship looking ones that the kids enjoyed playing with:

I also had a hot potato like game with a plastic snake lined up, but again we sort of just let things happen. I’m posting about it here just in case anyone was looking for cute cowboy game ideas!

Now, onto the photo fun..

This was a cheap plastic banner from Shindigz that we couldn’t figure out where to hang so that the opening would be accessible. Then I realized Jasper’s playhouse was a great spot because it has a low doorway!

Here is a pullback. You can also see the prop table for the “photobooth”  which I am about to explain…

PHOTOBOOTH:

I used my 53″ savage sky blue seamless and my backdrop stands and put them on the side of the deck. Out of the way, but still part of the party.  I put out a table with props including cowboy hats of course, a red feather boa I bought at party city, a Melissa & Doug cowboy guitar I bought a while back at HomeGoods and these adorable props from Maro Designs.

As I would mingle and greet everyone, I would eventually ask them to step over to the photobooth to get a picture.. which is why it was nice that it was close by. Here is a pull back that shows the area I had it setup in, you can see the setup on the left:

And here are some of the pictures:

There are soooo many more, here is a link to the full photobooth set on flickr. I love them all! I ordered 4×6 “proof prints” with black borders that only cost .25 each and I will include the prints with the thank you cards.   I will also make a little album for Jasper to remember everyone who came to celebrate his second birthday party with him!

Whew! I think I covered everything.. let me know if you have any questions.  Oh, one last thing, ordering Pizza instead of cooking or doing BBQ for everyone like last year was the BEST decision we could have made. I was able to enjoy this party so much more than last year where I was stressed beyond belief.. we also got incredibly lucky with the weather, all in all it was an amazing day and I thank everyone who helped make it happen. My mom for baking the cake, my cousin Ryan for helping out with the decorations and party games and Jen for her expert cupcake topper making skills.

The only downside to having the perfect party is how to top it next year? :)

Daddy bought Jasper the COOLEST shwinn trikey, red and chrome with flames and a wood ride on board, a bell AND a horn.. and of course, a harley davidson helmet to match:

Later, mommy and mum-mum brought cupcakes that Auntie Alexis (and recent culinary school grad!) made him. Blue of course!!

jasper and his daycare teacher carol

Not sure what the head on the hand was all about, but he looks sort of like “Another birthday mom? Yawn.”

But, I knew he was enjoying himself as soon as he finished his cupcake and started chanting “More, more, more!”

The next two days were filled with furious party preparations.. the party was AMAZING!  Stay tuned for the details!

Today you are two. Or, “one, two” as you would say it, holding up just one finger from each hand because you can’t yet hold down your two little fingers to make two with one hand:

It seems impossible to me that in just two short years you went from being a little helpless lump to the impish and independent boy that you are today. In some ways it has FLOWN by, but in other ways those “dark ages” seem like, well, ages ago.. the screaming & sleepless nights seem like a bad dream now replaced with playing games, tickle fights and conversations about your day.

Of course there are still traces of that willful baby – some things never change! Like when we were SO excited that you finally learned all your colors, not anticipating that it would mean that you would pick a favorite color (blue) and insist that EVERYTHING must now be blue. Leave it to you to assert your opinion over every new milestone as it comes.

I can’t get you to march to the beat of anyone’s drum but your own (if everyone else at gymboree is doing a group activity I can be sure you’ll want NOTHING to do with it!) but by now I’ve stopped trying. You are your own little soul with your own ideas and as much as mommy wishes you could be a little more cooperative, a little less independent, I know those qualities will serve you we ll some day. I have no doubt that the world will fall at your feet when you put your mind to what it is you want out of life, if for no other reason than that you will not stop until you get what you want!

But most of all you are FUN to be around.

Sometimes because you are trying to be funny or doing something silly, but mostly just being you, or the way you express yourself. I wish I could video the way you talk right now so I can always remember how everything is like a question with the pitch of your voice rising at the end of every sentence (just like you did when you would point and go “eeeeeh??” before you could talk!). Or the way you say certain words, like “chicken uggets” or “Ailey IN in stead of alien, or Oport or airflane or how you still call a phone a “Lolo” (for hello, hello) even though I know you know the correct world for phone.

You are good at pretty much anything you try, you can hit the HELL out a ball with a bat, pedal your tricyle like there’ s no tomorrow, throw and catch and play a mean harmonica, and you can figure ANYTHING out if you just put your mind to it.. there is almost no child safety device you can’t outsmart (outlet covers? I’ll just take them off mom!) or door or latch you can’ t figure out how to open. I should have known there would be trouble when you started being able to twist a top on and off at barely 9 months!

But what people really remark on is your sweet nature. Adults and kids alike love to be around you, because you are curious, interested in people, sweet and mellow (so they tell me!) I can see it now that you are actually starting to play WITH other kids instead of along side. You RARELY steal a toy, are almost always willing to share or offer to share when asked, you never hit or are mean for no reason, you are a sweet boy that draws everyone in around you. Luckily that sweetness still includes a willingness to dole out long hugs to mommy & daddy, snuggles and cuddling before bed and kisses MOST of the time we ask. I think I try to store them up, wary of the day that they won’t be so forthcoming.

As I was preparing this little video for you (because you LOVE Jasper videos!) I was struck by how incredibly much you’ve changed just in the past 4 months, let alone past year. The baby fat neck rolls are gone, the wispy hair, the chubby cheeks. You are a BOY now, and mommy and daddy are so proud of you for everything you do. You may change, every minute, every day, every year but that my dear sweet son will never change.

We love you more than you can ever even imagine..

xoxo Mommy & Daddy

Music Credit: “It’s a Big World” Renee & Jeremy.

excuse the crappy iPhone picture!

I’ve been asked so many times what would be a good gift for Jasper for his birthday and I’m kind of lost.. I always say books are great, and  he needs some new bath toys.  I think I want to get him the little tykes basketball set, but that’s all I’ve got!

One thing I know he would love is some sort of play (soft and light – nerf?) helmet, he’s OBSESSED with helmets (see above). It’s funny too because he knows which activities require one: baseball, football, motorcycle.  Whenever he plays one of these things he runs to get that yellow “helmet” which is actually a construction hat that came with another toy and is giant on his head and falls off every time he moves!  Other things he likes are boats & airplanes.. I got really excited when I saw the Lego City airplane toy on TV but then realized it said for 6+ :(

What are you getting your two year old f or what DID you get (or someone else get) your two year old for their birthday that they loved??

I finally found some time to design the invites – I can’t wait to get them back from the printer!

I haven’t made too much progress on the rest of the planning, though I did find a great random (church?) web page about cowboy games:

http://www.eldrbarry.net/vbs/6/wntdgame.htm

I’ve been wondering if instead of a western backdrop and props for a “photobooth” set up if I can’t convince Jeff to put his amazing artistic skills to use and do one of those cut out things that you stick your faces through? We’ll see!  This is one of those times when I’m so sad that Polaroid is no more, I still have a camera somewhere, but the film is hard to come by.