To save energy and make life generally easier, I did cupcakes for Melody’s 6th birthday party. She asked for a Doc McStuffins themed party. I did pink and purple cupcakes, but I also decided to add cupcake toppers to make them fit within the theme even more.
October was full of lots of fun but super busy. Brad was gone the majority of the month making it even harder! But we survived and have officially entered the Holiday Season!
This year we planned ahead a Saturday that was ideal for us and the Owen group to visit the Pumpkin Patch. I was a bit nervous with it being “peak” weekend, but to my surprise it was truly the best day. The weather was great, and the crowds were actually low. We didn’t have really any lines to wait in for food or “rides”, and we were able to accomplish most things.
Whenever Brad travels for a long a time, we try to do something special for him each day on those longer trips. This year Melody has been big into lunchbox notes. Brad even pre-wrote a few for me to put in her lunch box on Fridays. So we made him his own set for each day he was gone plus a week extra. I wrote some and Melody wrote others. It was a neat way to have him something special each day, and it was something to look forward to while gone.
For Brad's birthday, we had a G.I. Joe themed birthday. I decided to make shirts for all of us to wear on his birthday. They said GI Mom, GI Dad, and GI Kid. It was a surprise for Brad, so we had to tell him to get dressed for with his eyes closed.
I love Halloween. I love the decorations. I love the fun. And I love planning the costumes. This year was a busy October. Brad was out of town until the 28th of October. So many of the things going on was spent without him. Even decorating happened after he left for his work trip. But we made it work the best we could, and we did try and have as much fun as possible!
For Brad’s birthday this year, Melody wanted us to do a G.I. Joe themed party. Now this party is just for the 3 of us, but I still go all out. I decided to make a G.I. Joe logo banner to hang between our sconces. It was not too hard using black, white, blue, and red cardstock. I found the font online for free, and simply recreated it!
On our cruise in April, we decided to rent a cabana while visiting Carnival’s “private” island, Princess Cays. We went back and forth since the cost was roughly $220 total (which I think is a great price when splitting between 4 people). But she did it in March and really liked it, plus I wanted a bit of privacy, a cool A/C spot, and a place guaranteed for us.
Follow along as I update this page with all of my blog posts about my cruise back in April!
For my cousin’s bridal shower, she wanted the food to be a “chip” and dip style charcuterie set up. She gave us a list of her favorites dips and dippers to go along with it. So most of this was not an original idea by myself. Her and her maid of honor did a good job coming up with different food.
For Brad’s birthday, Melody made him a book. It was a fun craft that Melody enjoyed making for him. I always try to come up with fun crafts for her to make for him, and it gets harder and harder. But I found these blank books at Target, and I thought they would be perfect!
I heard of popsicle baths on instagram from Busy Toddler. She has lots of great tips and tricks for little ones. We have done a few with Melody for various reasons. We have done them when she wasn’t feeling super well, and sometimes we do it as a fun treat. But they are fun and unique for kiddos!
While at Dollywood in May, we had lunch at Till and Harvest. A friend of mine had warned us of potential long lines the later you wait in the lunch hour to eat, so we arrived a little before 11. We were all a little queasy from rides, so we needed the food and the break. Not to my surprise, there was no line.
For Brad’s birthday, Melody wanted to do a GI Joe themed birthday. I was torn on how to handle his cake since you cannot really find old school GI Joe cakes at Publix. I honestly am not even sure if the newer GI Joe movies are even represented at Publix. But we wanted old school 100%. So after some research, I noticed they had a camo cake. It was not exactly how I wanted, but after some talking with the bakery, they were able to do exactly what I wanted. A round camouflaged cake with nothing extra about it. Then I made a topper using cardstock. The topper was three levels. Each level looked like the GI Joe logo and read Happy, Birthday, Daddy. I used toothpicks and wooden skewers taped to the back to keep it in place. It was perfect!
Back in August, a friend of mine introduced me to EveryPlate. You may remember last year I tried Green Chef. I loved the idea and concept, but the cost was not worth it, the produce was inconsistently bad, and the food itself was too flavorful. Normally flavor is good, but it was sometimes not the best. However, the friend of my was introduced to EveryPlate and raved about it. The cost was reasonable, the produce and meat were always good, the delivery days were great and reliable, and the taste was great.
For my cousin’s bridal shower, the theme itself was miss to mrs. In addition we were doing a chip and did charcuterie style food setup. With that, they wanted the food to all be labeled. And I was in charge of making said labels. I wanted to do something using chalkboards because I thought that would be nice. I did some searching at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s as well as online with Amazon.
September was busy as we were back in full force with school and extracurriculars. Brad also traveled some for work, and Melody got to experience her first field trip at school. I am so happy at all the “normal” things coming back to this school year. She was even able to have her grandparents come eat lunch with her for grandparents day too. What I assume is due to COVID happening in 2020, they have also implemented several “e-learning” days. It was actually really nice, and I look forward to the next one. I hosted a bridal shower for my cousin, and Melody got to try on some flower girl dresses for the wedding coming up in November. We also got down most of our Halloween decor, so Melody is having a blast trying to scare us with fake spiders! October is setting up to also be a highly busy month. Stay tuned!
The decorations for Melody’s 6th birthday party were fairly easy to do. The theme Melody picked was Doc McStuffins. I mostly used toys and books Melody already had, so I only had to really buy tablecloths and cardstock!
So this post is over a year late. I actually found this in my drafts and could not believe I had not finished it. Just a bunch of pictures. So I wanted to share it finally!
On our cruise back in August, we had some delicious food options available to us. We cruised on the Carnival Liberty for 4 nights. This particular cruise ship was larger than ones I had previously taken, and there were definitely more options to take advantage of when we were hungry. Unlike past cruises, if I were ever hungry, it was easy to find something to eat. That was not always the case before. There was such variety, we did not even get to try all of the inclusive dining options. But I did snag some pictures of most of those to share.
