When I am not able to blog regularly, I feel a bit like when I was in college and didn’t check in with my parents as much as usual. I wasn’t necessarily obligated to tell them why I hadn’t had time to call, yet felt like it was the right thing to do. Similarly, I want to fill you guys in on what’s been going on over here.
My sweet Meghan had a birthday last week, and birthday party preparations, along with her grandparents visiting, is part of what kept me away from my (somewhat) regular posting.
The list of recipes and posts I want to share with you keeps getting longer, but for now I’ll share a few photos from Meghan’s Minnie Mouse birthday party.
Meghan’s never been to Disney World, but she’s in love with all things Disney, from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to the princesses. She’s counting down the days until we can “get on an airplane and go to Disney Land and see the Magic Castle.” No, we don’t have any vacations on the books. She still talks about it like it’s happening.
So when she requested a Minnie Mouse birthday party, I was happy to at least give her that.
I have to say, I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. On one hand, who can even remember what life was like before blogs, Facebook, and Pinterest? We are all connected in a way unprecedented in history. Ideas flow freely from a small town in Arkansas to London to South Africa.
This connectedness and sharing of ideas, however, leads to me wanting to do it all. Who wants to buy a package of Minnie Mouse birthday hats and paper plates and call it a day when you can create all these cute decorations and live the life of a fancy event planner?
Yeah. It sounds good until you’re knee deep in dollar store headbands, black duct tape, ribbon, and a hot glue gun trying to create something that doesn’t look like a third grade art project.
Since all the little party preparation projects took a million times longer than I anticipated (why don’t I learn??), I decided to keep the food part simple. The party was not during a meal time, so we only had snacks and dessert. I bought almost everything ready-made.
The only things I made were the dipped pretzel sticks and cupcakes.
The pretzel rods were dipped in melted chocolate and covered with chocolate chips and naturally-colored pink decorating sugar. (India Tree Natural Pink Decorating Sugar, 3.5oz bottle
that I bought on Amazon.) I also used India Tree’s natural food coloring to make the white chocolate pink. (You can get it here: India Tree Decorating Colors Set
) *Disclaimer: those are both affiliate links*
This year Meghan got her favorite flavor for the cupcakes, chocolate. I did make them gluten and dairy-free so I could enjoy them, too. They were not sugar-free this year. I did a trial run with xylitol and that batch didn’t go over so well, so I decided to go ahead and let her birthday cupcakes be the regular, sugary kind. They were good and nobody guessed they were gluten-free or dairy-free.
I didn’t do a great job taking pictures at her party, and I didn’t even get a family picture. Later that day, however, we did get a picture with all four of us.
This picture also gives you a clue as to the other thing that’s been robbing my time and keeping me away from blogging. We’re building a new house!
Construction is under way and we are overwhelmed with the endless decisions we need to make. Some of it is a lot of fun (choosing kitchen cabinets and countertops!), some of it is boring (picking a roof color), and some of it is downright tedious (researching appliances). All of it takes a lot of time. So I apologize in advanced that my posting may continue to be on the sporadic side for a while. Thank you for being the most patient readers in the world.
Question: What is taking up a lot of your time these days?
I know this was posted awhile back, but do you still have the recipe you used to make the dairy free chocolate cupcakes? I would love to know where you got it or if you have posted it and I have just missed it. Thanks!
This is really, really bad, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I used! I’m so sorry. 🙁
You did an amazing job on your little ones party!! I am trying to do a Minnie Mouse party for my little ones 2nd Birthday in May. Pinterest has me hooked on doing all homemade decorations,lol. I was curious where you found your We’ve got ears say cheers sign, I have been unable to find a printable. Thanks so much!!
Yeah–Pinterest is dangerous in that way!! I actually just made the sign on my word processing program. I believe I googled “Minnie silhouette” and just cut and pasted the image I found. I also downloaded the Disney font–it was a free font, but I can’t remember the website now. Good luck with your preparations! 🙂
What a great looking party!! You are one amazing mom 😀
Aww, thanks Heidi. 🙂
Happy Birthday Meghan! You did a great job on the party.
What keeps me busy? Let’s see, up at 6am, do a load of laundry, get dressed, get 2 year old dressed, get us all out the door by 7:45am, work a full-time (outside the home) job, squeeze my CrossFit workout in 4 days a week, run home, shower, start dinner (luckily I prep on Sundays and meal plan so making wholesome, real, homeade food is a bit more doable than it used to be), hubby cleans up while I do the evening routine/fights with the 2 year old, last minute pick up and prep lunches for the following day, then crash! Sigh…
Wow! I’m super impressed, especially that you do all of that and still make time to plan and prep meals so your family can have wholesome food. Incredible job!
Thank you! I have bloggers like you and a few others that give me the daily support and inspiration to make “keeping “crap” out of our foods” doable for a full-time working mommy. I may not be perfect in this area all the time, but I keep it a priority for our family. I get so aggravated when I see people using the excuse that they don’t have time/money/energy to eat clean and healthy. You make the time and sacrifice if it is important to you. I would rather people say, “I choose to not make that a priority” rather than saying you don’t have time or money for it.
so cute! And congrats on the house! And what’s taking up my time these days? ….a 3 week old and toddler! Haven’t blogged in 2 weeks but hoping to get back on it soon. Very nice party!
Congrats!!! When I had #2 my world was turned upside down. Give yourself some time to adjust and don’t worry if you can’t do it all right away! 🙂
Such a cute party–great job! I totally know what you mean how the internet really sucks you in to making and doing way more than you first intend or have time to! Happy Birthday to Meghan! And congrats on a new house–how exciting! And stressful! And daunting with all those decisions! But exciting!
Fall Cleaning and House Fix Up 2012 is taking up most of my time these days. Not to mention soccer practice, games, homework, and all the other fun stuff. The blog continues to be neglected, but that’s the way it goes sometimes!
Yeah, life gets in the way. 🙂 But that’s okay! I’ve made up my mind to only blog if it isn’t going to stress me out or cause me to be less of a mom/wife/homemaker/etc. I’m not in it to make big bucks anyway. 🙂
Happy 4th Birthday Meghan! Emily loves disney too and was excited to see the party pictures. Congrats on the new house, we are thinking of the same plans here in Missouri. I hate to ask, but could you tell me again how to pronounce your name Maryea, I looked for the post from a while back but could not locate it!
Thank you, Connie. It’s Mu-rye-uh, like Mariah Carey. 🙂 I put it on my About Page, but I should probably add something to my main page, too.
Happy Birthday Meghan! How you managed to create such an awesome party for Meghan in addition to all of your other projects and tasks is mind blowing. You go girl!
Thank you, Ann-Louise. Now I’m just trying to catch up on sleep!!
Busy busy!!! It looks like a wonderful party, though! Too cute 😀
Good luck on your home building-I know how stressful that can be…
Thanks, Alex. It is stressful, but a lot of fun, too!
My time is occupied by my sweet blessing! 🙂 …..(and laundry, and housework, and being a wife, and cooking, and all that other good stuff.)
What a cute birthday party! It looks fantastic, Maryea! I bet she felt like such a loved and lucky little girl on her birthday! 🙂 ….Aw! Happy Birthday Meghan!!!
A new house?! AMAZING! I hope it goes really smooth for your family! …..Researching appliances is no fun- our washing machine broke last week and I had to do some quick research so that I could wash the millions of baby clothes that contain spit up in our home.
That’s the best thing to have occupy your time! 🙂 Yeah, you definitely need a washing machine with a baby in the house!