Shaun the Sheep Bday

Well Ceej's 2nd birthday came and went!!! Wow... I can hardly believe my little babe is 2 now... not so little anymore :(

If you couldn't guess from his party invitations we went for a "Shaun the Sheep" birthday event! Thanks to Pinterest I was able to find a few cute things to try myself!

"carrot" utensils

After all..... sheep love to eat carrots right?! At least they do on Shaun the Sheep anyway....

pom-pom sheep

Each cousin that made it to the party got to take home their very own miniature sheep! Can you tell which one is Shaun?!

Sheep craft for kiddos

It really was too bad the second I get everything in place for the party......... it started raining!

the aftermath of the rain.....

pin the tail on the sheep

We just moved the party inside and did our crafts and played a little pin the tail on the sheep! Then we dined on sheep cupcakes and sheep poop! :)

sheep cupcakes

sheep "poop" (a.k.a. chocolate covered raisins, peanuts, or almonds)

All in all I'd say the kiddos had a good time. A big thank you for Pinterest for the idea on the cupcakes, carrot utensils, pom-pom sheep, and sheep craft! The sheep poop was all my idea though!!!

I even found these cute carrot bubble containers for all the kids as well.

carrot bubbles

You can find the links for any of the sheep ideas here.............

Pom-pom sheep......... pom-pom shaun tutorial

Sheep craft................. cotton ball sheep craft

As far as the sheep cupcakes go........... the Pinterest original looked like this....

pinterest original inspiration

my version of the cupcakes

I modified mine to look more Shaun-esque. I used marshmallow fondant to form the sheep heads and ears and you can find the recipe here: marshmallow-fondant recipe . When I first looked at the recipe I was like what is icing sugar?! But turns out its just powdered sugar! I bought candy eyes (who knew they had such a thing?!) at Target :)

I have to say Ceej's Shaun the Sheep party was OFF THE BAAAAA! :)

For the Love of ELMO

So I don't know when exactly.... but Ceej has developed a love for our furry friend, Elmo. He received some Elmo pj's over Christmas (thanks Grandma!!! :) ) and the other day while I was trying to change his diaper I went to take of these said Elmo pj bottoms. He threw the biggest fit. He did not want to take Elmo off... even if it meant getting a nice clean diaper! Finally I side-tracked him enough to get them off... we were going to get dressed for the day... but instead he had to put the Elmo bottoms back on!!! I decided it wasn't worth the battle (we weren't going anywhere that day anyway) so I let him keep them on.

He did the same thing on Sunday morning when it came time to go to church.... although this time JDub got to see the wrath of our almost 2 year old... Daddy won of course... we weren't going to wear Elmo to church on Easter Sunday!!!

I think I first picked up on Ceej's obsession when we were reading our "10 Minutes Til Bedtime" book. There's a lot going on in this book for the little amount of reading there actually is. At first I was annoyed with the book (thanks Grandma!!!) but I actually like it now. Ceej points out his favorite things and sometimes uses his words... But you can count on him finding this...........

Can you see it? I didn't even notice it because there is so much going with all the hamsters... but of course my lil Ceej would find Elmo in all that! Don't even try to turn the page until he has pointed him out! And sometimes we have to go back for a second peek at the end of the book as well...

Anyway... with all the Elmo love around here I came across these pair of jeans.

I believe they were hand-me-downs from a cousin... and well as you can see they've had a lot of wear and tear on them! They are only 2T as well... I thought since we are lacking on Elmo clothes maybe I could make some!

I took my hand at drawing our little red friend....

And made some extra copies of his eyes and nose and mouth......

I just love my scraps! If JDub had his way they would be in the trash but I have managed to turn them into something! I had fleece in red, orange, and white....

Good Friday

We hear "Thank God it's Friday" (T.G.I.F.) a lot. But let us thank God for Good Friday. Honestly I don't like thinking about Good Friday. It makes me so sad and hurts my heart. To think of poor, sinless, Jesus dying that horrible death...... for me... for ALL of us. I know it was all in the plan... God knew all along it had to happen and so did Jesus. But its still not fun to think about... but we do need to remember that suffering. If you have some time this weekend you should take a look at Psalms 22. You can see how something that was written years before Jesus even came on this earth, prophesied what was going to take place on Good Friday. You can also take a look at Matthew 27:27-31,  Mark 15:16-20 and John 19:16-37.

I do thank God it is Friday today. I don't want this weekend to be all about the Easter Bunny and egg hunts..... But for the kids sake we'll be sure to have a little bit of both!

We've been doing our Resurrection eggs frequently over the last couple of weeks. If you have never heard of these you should make some! The kids really love opening and closing the eggs and its visual too! The eggs follow the story of Good Friday through Easter. Each egg represents something Jesus had to go through.

a cross representing the cross Jesus was crucified on

a sword representing the sword the soldiers pierced
 Jesus' side with after he passed

Thankfully I had 2 sets of resurrection eggs! (We made one at my MOPS group this year and we did 3 years ago as well!) Of course my boys end up running around trying to stab each other with the swords... Bubba did a better job of listening and following along with each egg patiently.... Ceej on the other hand had his eggs strewn all over the place, eating half the bread in #1.... stealing the money out of #2....  but I think its good to show our kids these things! And while they might not fully understand now... at least hopefully they'll be a little more aware.