Happy Anniversary!

It was our wedding anniversary a couple of days ago.  We've been married for 7 years.  Wowzers.  We celebrated the big day by going out for dinner... without Baby Chuck! (Thanks Tita Tina for being brave enough to watch our little monster!) 

I love my son, but it was really really REALLY nice to eat dinner without him.

Throughout the night we tried our very best to (a) not talk about Baby Chuck and (b) eat slowly.  Since becoming parents our conversations revolve around our son.  Dinner topics include dissecting his moods, sleep habits, bowel movements (tmi?), and skin.  I'm quite embarrassed by the number of times I start statements with"Baby Chuck did this today...."

Our manners have also seriously slid down the tubes.  We shovel a whole ton of food into our mouths as fast as we can.  Forget about savoring the meals.  Napkins?  Hah!  No time to wipe our mouths. Knives?  Nope.  That's a luxury.  We just use forks (or one hand.).   The other hand is always spooning, mushing, wiping or entertaining baby.  Dinner time is battle time.  Those who follow dinner etiquette starve.  Only the impolite survive.

So it should come as no surprise to you that we really appreciated that alone time.  Maybe we can try this whole date night thing again?  (Anybody interested in babysitting?)



Today I spent some time looking through some old wedding stuff.  I found these messages written by our guests 7 years ago.  (Instead of a guestbook we asked guests to write on paper "leaves" which were then hung on twigs.)  I laughed a whole lot when I saw these.  Some of our guests got really creative...  

Hungry Caterpillar party prep: DIY Photobooth props

So first we made a Number 1 pinata.  Then we made a Hungry Caterpillar themed bingo board.  Now it's time for photobooth props!

I've never seen a real live photobooth before.  But, I've drooled over so many online that I wanted to try the whole activity out too. (Has anyone out there ever used a photobooth?  I think you just provide guests with some props and a nice background, right?)  Anyhoo... I'm lucky enough that Tito Ric has real photography backdrops that we can use.  I'm just providing the Hungry Caterpillar themed props.  Old cereal boxes and cardboard boxes (stolen from our building's garbage pile- yay garbage) were used to create these colorful props.  I painted them with craft paint "Eric Carle" style.  Here's how a couple turned out:

(Note:  I really wanted to take photos of all the props, but hubby reminded me that I should leave some surprise for the guests.  So, you'll have to wait to see all the props later!)

The mask looks like a bunny... but it's meant to be the hungry caterpillar.

 I can't wait to see the kids and their parents playing around with the props.

Hungry Caterpillar party prep: DIY Caterpillar Bingo

Here's my second completed project:  Hungry Caterpillar Bingo

I figured I would need more than a pinata to keep our young guests entertained.  I loved playing Bingo as a kid, so I created these Hungry Caterpillar themed bingo boards.  I placed different images from Eric Carle's book into each square.  Here are 11 different 4x4 Bingo boards that I created:

(Note:  Once again, I am not ashamed to admit that I am a big time copycat.  I used copied images to create my Hungry Caterpillar invite.  This time I copied quite a few of my Bingo images from Patty's blog.  Thank you Patty!)  

Hungry Caterpillar 4x4 Bingo