ELLIOTT IS FIVE

My boy is officially five years old and I have some serious mixed feelings about it. Part of me wanted to leap for joy for him while the other part sobbed into a pillow. How on earth is he five? I still can't believe it. To celebrate our little man we had a party and a picnic. He wanted a space themed birthday party and luckily the place we wanted to have the party has a space themed party room. It was meant to be. The kids got to play till their little hearts could take no more, then we moved into the party room for cupcakes and gifts. I normally would throw the party at our house, but this was a nice change of pace. It was so much easier than worrying about cleaning, decorating, preparing food, etc. Not to mention our place is pretty small so parties feel a bit like sardines in a can. On Sunday - his actual birthday - his only request was to have a picnic in the living room. Done! It was so easy and a lot of fun. He loved every minute of it. Here are a few pictures from his birthday weekend.

You love that crazy hair, don't you? He did too.

Happy birthday, Elliott! We are so happy to call you ours.

VALENTINE PARTY STRAWS

We are heading out for the weekend, but before we do we have one more project for you. Are you getting pumped up for Valentine's day? We are! When I was growing up, my mom used to make us themed breakfasts for holidays and we kids loved it. I am trying to keep up the tradition with Elliott by making some themed items for his breakfasts like pink pancakes etc. These straws are super fast to make and a lot of fun to use and they are perfect for Valentine's day! You can see the full tutorial over here on Momtastic. 

WATERCOLOR GIFT BAGS

Like a lot of kids, Elliott is really into painting. He paints most days and most days his choice of paint is watercolor. Of course I love it too, so that might have something to do with it. For his birthday, I wanted to wrap his gifts in something he would love and when I saw these white paper bags I knew they would be perfect for watercolor. Most gift bags you'll see have a shiny coating on them which would prevent you from doing much of anything fun with it. This is just thick white paper so it makes for a great blank canvas. To make your own, just grab some paper gift bags (I found mine at our local party store), stick something like cardboard inside before you start painting to prevent the paint from bleeding through, and go to town with your mad art skills!  They are really easy to make and I guarantee the kiddos will love it. And what would be even more fun, let the kid do the painting for a little friend's gift! Both kids will get a kick out of it.

NEW BUSINESS CARDS + DOWNLOAD

I have more details from Elliott's party on the way, but before Alt becomes a distant fond memory, I thought I would share this with you. Alt is awesome for so many reasons, but one of my favorites is the business cards. There were so many clever and creative cards this year! These are the cards that I passed out. I might be a tiny bit obsessed with temporary tattoos (the first step is admitting it) so I knew that I wanted to design some tattoos to go along with my cards and I think they turned out really well. I had my cards printed off by Moo. And let me tell you, these cards feel and look amazing. For anyone looking for a great business card printer, I definitely recommend them. And because I love you so very much, I am making all of the tattoos downloadable for you! You're welcome. The balloon dogs were a hit at Alt, I hope you love them too! You can print off the balloon dogs here, and the paper airplanes and dinosaurs here. 

C'mon. You know you want one. 

SPACE PARTY INVITES

Elliott decided he wanted a space birthday party this year so space it is! I am so relieved that my kid doesn't want a cartoon character themed party. Call me a bad parent, but I am pretty sure I would refuse if he asked for that. I found some moon stress balls for super cheap and thought they would be the perfect fun element to send to our friends to get them excited for the party. They are a little darker than I would expect the moon to be. They kind of look more like meteors. Right? Either way, they work! I made a quick and simple invite to attach to them and sent them on their way. I blocked out the address information for this post for kind of obvious reasons. I hope our friends love them as much as we do!