Inspiration

I had a rare evening out to myself tonight. Tito came home and I took off. I rarely get times like this to myself so I took full advantage and did some things I haven't done in awhile - like take a leisurely walk around Home Goods and TJ Maxx for inspiration. Normally I go to these stores with two kids in tow and have to spend my time entertaining them, passing out snacks and usually have a time limit of about 20-30 mins tops to get my stuff done. No window shopping. No looking things over. If its clothing there's usually no time to try things on, so I buy and return if it doesn't fit.

But tonight I had three glorious hours to myself and took my time, looked things over, dreamt of what I would buy if I had all the money, and got inspired. I'm really obsessed (check my Pinterest DIY Home Projects and To Make boards for proof) with making our house more homey. And doing some painting and character building. So I'm always pinning things. Tonight I pinned in real life, but also browsed the canisters (I'm also getting ready for a major clean out/organization of my pantry, so stay tuned for photos of that!)

I found these three lamps and was inspired (the pink one I thought would be easy enough to do something similar as a DIY, the brown quatrefoil would look great as bedside lamps in my master bedroom, and the blue chevron looks so fun! There must have been a reason there was only one of those. Too cute!)

Be Sure To Tune In Tonight!

 A very special episode of Grey's Anatomy is airing tonight on ABC at 9/8 Central. The episode is entitled "Can't Fight This Feeling" and features actress Sarah Chalke as a mother fighting for a proper diagnosis of her son's illness. Ultimately, it's determined that he has Kawasaki Disease. Unfortunately, this instance of mis-diagnosis for Kawasaki Disease, or KD as it's called, is far more common than we realize.

I was diagnosed with KD at the age of 15 in 1993. At that time, all that was known about KD was that it had been around since the 1960's, when it was discovered by Dr. Kawasaki, in Japan. Doctors knew it affected the red blood cells, so children often presented with red, bloodshot eyes, red tongues with protruding tastebuds (called "Strawberry Tongue"), peeling skin on their hands and feet, swollen glands and a red, lacey rash all over their bodies accompanied by fever for 5 days or more. What they also knew was that it primarily affected boys under the age of 5. So when I presented at the age of 15, I was tested for everything else and it was never suspected that I had KD until I'd been sick for 10 days. When I was finally treated with gamma globulin, I was almost immediately better. Despite the treatment, I still developed coronary aneurysms on both my left and right coronary arteries.

With more awareness for this illness, we can help prevent delayed diagnosis, and hopefully prevent heart damage from occurring. Additionally, researchers are working to develop a diagnostic test and discovering genetic markers.

So please, watch the show tonight. Tell your friends, post it on Facebook, and tell everyone you know about the show and tell them to tell their friends.

The Kawasaki Disease Foundation is hosting a virtual viewing party on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow them on Twitter at @TheKDF and find them on Facebook by searching for The Kawasaki Disease Foundation. If you post something on either Twitter or the Facebook page, please hashtag it with #KDGA or #KawasakiDisease

"We're Going On A Trip..." A Little Einsteins 3 Year Old Birthday Party!

So Santi turned three last week, and after I dealt with the fact that he was actually growing up, I decided to plan a party for him. I started planning about 6 weeks ago, knowing I'd need some time to get some of the goodie bag things in order.

Santi has many things he likes, but a few things he really loves. Like all boys his age, he has a love for cars and trains and trucks. And garbage trucks. But none of those seemed interesting enough to have a party around. He also loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and a Spanish show called Pocoyo (I'm aware it's on Nick Jr. in English, but we watch the Spanish version only since we're teaching him Spanish.) For awhile I thought a Pocoyo party would be fun, but then realized that pretty much none of the guests would realize who Pocoyo was. So I decided to go with Santi's first love when planning - The Little Einsteins. He has been watching this show since he was 2 and LOVES it. As in, if I let him, he would sit and watch the shows for hours. Plus a lot of my friends kids also love the show, so I knew it would be fun for all.

Planning the party proved to be a little more challenging than I thought, since Disney runs the shows, but they haven't actually made any new shows since about 2009, so therefore they don't really have a lot of party merchandise with the show characters on them. So I decided to do what I always do and be creative and just DIY a lot of things.

First thing I had to nail down was a place to have the party, since having a bunch of kids in our house wasn't ideal, especially a bunch of energetic 3 year olds. So I managed to reserve a local community center. The bonuses of this place were that we only had to clean up the party room, it was cheap, and they had a strict two hour party time limit. Perfect amount of time to let everyone play and then go eat/celebrate downstairs. They had essentially a big rec room set up with kids ride on toys, climbing toys and slides for everyone to play on, which was nice, since we didn't have to bring anything.

After nailing down where it was going to be, I sent out the invitation. In the past, I've made up invites and mailed them out, but because it would have been cutting it close time-wise, I decided to just make an Evite and email it out, as well as invite people via Facebook.

The invite I made was the most interesting I could make it with the limitations of Evite:

Not super exciting, but it got the point across, right?

I then hit up my go-to spot for all things DIY - Pinterest. I searched for Little Einsteins birthday party and found a great post by seven thirty three where she'd done a lot of DIY Little Einsteins things and she had a bunch of free printables available.

I decided to print out the table toppers, water bottle labels and cupcake toppers, and used the cupcake toppers as stickers as well for the gift bags. I also headed to another party essential place - Oriental Trading and ordered goodie bags, music note pencils, bubbles crazy straws, and large music note decorations for the walls. Since I only had the first hour of the party (when everyone would be upstairs playing) to decorate, I didn't want to do too much, but wanted to have some things there that would be recognizable.

We picked a menu (strawberries, bananas (cut in half so there were more), a veggie tray and dip, chips and salsa, pink lemonade and blood orange Italian soda, water and pizza, and I started making the cupcake toppers, decorating and stuffing the goodie bags and creating the table toppers.

I went easy with these cupcake toppers and just glued them to cardstock (primary colors) and cut out the squares and then just taped the lollipop sticks (bought at Michael's about 2 years ago to make some treats for Santi's baptism, and I just keep pulling from them when needed.)

 

When I finally got to the party day, I had everything in the car, and sent my husband and kids upstairs to play while I set everything out. I managed to print out a sign for the door and did one of those "20 Questions" signs for Santi that are floating around Pinterest:

 

And then I set up the rest of the decorations:

We didn't have much to work with. :) Banner was one I'd picked up from Target for last year's Sesame Street party. Bucket is one I picked up at Target for Santi's baptism 2.5 years ago. Numbers were there already, but fit! :)

 

 

I took the page I'd printed off from online and put it on cardstock and then taped a barbecue skewer to the back and stuck it into some balloon weights we've had forever. Easy peasy. And I am glad I didn't do more because these got dismantled quickly once kids were there!

 

Gift bags (each contained a silly straw, bubbles, pencil with musical notes on it, stickers, and candy necklaces. I used the water bottle labels as the "thank you for coming to  my party" and just stuck them in the bags rather than tying them on.

I also gave everyone a "make your own baton" kit. I found this on the Disney website and bought the supplies (small dowels and smooth styrofoam balls) at Hobby Lobby. Put them all in a clear bag with the directions. I was originally going to make all of these but I'm glad I didn't because each kid talked about how fun it would be to paint it their own colors!

 

Cupcakes with the toppers - and I just noticed I bought "Mission" tortilla strips...appropriate since we were "on a mission!" for the Little Einsteins! I also got some gluten free cupcakes for a friend and a friend's child who are gluten free!

 

After decorating, I headed upstairs to where the kids were all playing and having a blast. I'm actually a little sad that we didn't get more than an hour up here!

After an hour, we came downstairs to eat and sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday boy (who thought it was great and clapped for himself at the end of the song!) 

After an hour or so, everyone started to leave, so we cleaned up, brought the stuff to the car, and headed home where Gaby napped and Santi happily opened gifts and played! We all had a great time, but Santi said it was his favorite party ever! So definitely his best so far apparently!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Preview - Santi's 3rd Birthday Party

So the party is tomorrow, and I'll be working on a post about it, but I wanted to share some of the little details. He's having a Little Einsteins party at a local indoor play space. Should be fun, and he's really excited about it all!

Sign that I made that will hang at the entrance of the building

 I downloaded these cute printable for table toppers and cupcake toppers from one of my favorite blogs, seven thirty three

Finished cupcake toppers ready to go onto cupcakes!

Check back soon for more info on the party details!

Pink Eye

Goopy yellow goo, red, bloodshot eyes, scratching and rubbing of eyes - this is all going on in my house right now as both of my kids had pink eye. And Gaby has an ear infection as well.

We ended up at the Urgent Care last night after our doc recommended it, and are glad we went despite the fact that we didn't get home or get to bed until 10:30pm.

Both kiddos are on antibiotics (Gaby an oral one and Santi eye drops.) Getting drops into a toddlers eyes is akin to wrestling an alligator. He's quick and strong for someone who only weighs 39lbs and it takes the two of us to give him the drops. Oh and did I mention he needs them THREE times a day? Yeah, so fun. But thankfully we only have 6 more days of them.

So even though they're not contagious anymore, we are staying put at the house through Wednesday. Lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and experiments for kids a la Pinterest.

Feeling Crafty

I've had a long while since I've felt the urge to do something really crafty. But my cousin just had a little boy and I needed to get a couple of things out to her including some cute little outfits for her little man.

So I holed up in my craft room (aka my master bedroom closet where I have my craft stuff) to sew a couple of things for the baby. I wanted to make a taggie blanket, since I made one for Gaby and she loves it, as well as I've made a couple for friends kids and they love them too. And I also wanted to make a smaller taggie crinkle toy for him. I wanted to attempt putting a letter "M" on it in a different fabric as well for his name (Michael) but hadn't ever done that before so it'd be a first for me. I'd gone to Hobby Lobby and picked out a cute blue and brown fabric that would match with the light green of the minky fabric I'd picked out for the taggie toy.

I sketched out the "M" and then just zig zag stitched it to the front piece, then followed the tutorial from this blog (Domestic Charm) which I'd found on Pinterest. These blankets are super easy to make, but I always refer back to the tutorial just as check when making them since I don't make them all the time. For the taggie toy I also place some cellophane and batting inside so it was squishy and crinkly.

And here's the final products:

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out for me not being a super sewer. I had issues with my sewing machine while sewing (the thread from the main spool running through the needle kept breaking) so it took me about an hour to put both of these together since I had to keep stopping and rethreading the needle. But thankfully, they all turned out, and I'll be able to pack these up along with the other baby goodies and mail them out to her this week!

Kawasaki Disease in the mainstream media again

So it's been a busy week for Kawasaki Disease, and I'm excited to share this!

Set your DVRs and tune in to Grey's Anatomy on March 28th where the episode, entitled "Can't Fight This Feeling" will feature actress Sarah Chalke (from Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother) as a mom with a child with Kawasaki Disease. This is exciting as it will hopefully bring even more awareness of KD and the signs and symptoms. Read an article about the episode here: http://tvline.com/2013/03/07/greys-anatomy-season-9-spoilers-sarah-chalke-kawasaki-disease/

Additionally, Gary Busey, who is currently appearing on the Celebrity Apprentice, is helping to raise awareness of KD through his own foundation, The Busey Family Foundation which was founded last year to help raise awareness about KD and funds is here http://www.buseyfoundation.org/ 

And KING5 News here in Seattle recently ran a story regarding KD and soy being a possible trigger:  http://www.king5.com/health/Seattle-Childrens-researcher-believes-soy-could-trigger-Kawasaki-disease-193406981.html