Monnnnnssssstttterrrrrrrs!

Thats what I yell when the boys are driving me bonkers....just kidding. okay, maybe not! I do call them kooky monsters when they get wild and fiesty. Briggy's favorite things right now are Blues Clues {only the episodes with Joe...not Steve!} and Monsters. {and Ollie likes everything Briggy does, because Ollie thinks Briggy is soooo cool!} I hope he still likes monsters around his 3rd birthday, because I've been stashing away cheapy monster finds and color ideas for his upcoming birthday party....which is six months away! Im hoping that I can find some monster halloween clearance at the CHRISTMAS TREE SHOP {yeahhhhH!} now that Dallas is getting one!
After making a turtle clipboard for Jane's birthday, I set aside my last 2 blue clipboards for the boys to make monster project holders! {Ollie will be coloring away before you know it!} and this clipboard is nice because it has a cover and I can keep Briggy's weekly alphabet and number activities as well as save=worthy drawings.
Ollie was taking a morning nap {now that he is waking up at 6:30-6:40 am and NOT nursing, he stays up and has his rice milk, eats breakfast, watches cartoons with Briggy and is pretty tired by 10 am. He'll sleep for *1:30-2 hours* and be ready for play time and lunch. Briggy goes down at 2-2:30 for a nap, and Im hoping Ollie does okay with his second nap around 2:30-3 so I can at least get an hour or so to myself in the afternoon. Its only day two of trying this schedule, so we'll see how it goes.
so, while Ollie was sleeping this morning, Briggy has coloring time, and I finished their notebooks---briggy had to carry it around for awhile before I could stash them for safe-keeping.
Arent they cute? The only problem i have with them is that Briggy's yellow monster is a bit see-through, so you can see the polka dots through the body. oh well. I like how the open mouth lets in the dots and they look like pearly whites! :)

ps--the font that I printed their names out with is called "smiley monster" its one of my fav-go to fonts...isnt it adorable, and the name is very fitting!

Proud Mommy!

Today was super busy for some reason. Or it felt super busy because Ollie is now waking up at a normal time (8:30ish) and awake and getting into things for those few hours that used to be low-key hours for me and brigs. A lot of whining, bumping into things, trying to climb up my leg, spilling drinks and oozing buggers. phew! the day and the life of a mommy!

During Briggy's coloring sessions today he made some really great drawings. This first one is of him {I usually talk about the pictures with him right after wards, and maybe I put the thoughts in his head after the fact, but its cute to hear his responses} He was quick to tell me that "No! mama! Nose!: after I pointed to the center circle thinking he was drawing his favorite one-eyed monster mike wazowski {we love monsters inc!} turns out that was "briggy's nose" and the eyes were the circles on the very top of the head. DUH! hahaha. So I asked what was all around him and he said "Balls, Balls, Bubble and loooonnnnnnn!" {balloon} Its pretty good, but not as good as the one he did a few weeks ago of Daddy.



Then we got to talking about monsters {because even though we are ending our SECOND week of M's {I got a little behind with the birthday party planning...and there was so much fun M stuff {not to mention thats a sound we are working extra hard on!} and he was drawing for a while, I was feeding ollie, and then I glanced over and saw this really awesome picture!



If you are familiar with Monsters Inc, this looks a lot like the skinny mean monster Randall. I asked Briggy if that was the mean guy Randall and he said. Yes, momma! but he nah meeee he freneeeeeee!" {hes not mean, hes friendly} so this is the friendly twin of randall :) I was really impressed. Im saving all these drawings and laminating them. I love his creativity and enthusiasm for doing "projects" with mommy. He is such a good boy. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds and hes making so much progress. He can do almost all the signs from the signing time dvd's that grandma tina bought for ollies birthday--he says the word, sings along AND does the sign. He knows them by heart even when the dvd isnt on {although its usually on constant repeat to avoid crazy temper tantrums....he is OBSESSED. We listen to the cd that came with it too....He is so stinkin smart!}

AND....if that wasnt enough.....

Oliver is pulling up and crawling amazingly well. A lot sooner then I think the OT even imagined. I can't wait til shes here next week so she can see the progress and have him show her how he can climb up the stairs! He did THE ENTIRE set up stairs this afternoon!! Of course I was right behind him the whole time and had to help him in the beginning get the hang of it, but he managed and did it! I was sooooooooooooo PROUD! That is HUGEEEEE. Hypotonia Schmypotonia---He is showing who's boss!! I am more than confident that we will reach our goal of him crawling properly and then walking by 18 months. At the rate he's going it could even be 15-16 months! But I dont want to get my hopes up....he is progressing so much, thats all that matters!

I love my buggery boys!

Here is all of us at the bday party!

{courtesy of the duttons--thank you!}

Diaper Cakes

While I've been trying to DITCH the diapers with Briggy {day one, today--not so great. im really thinking hes got no clue and not interested AT ALL with the potty...im going to give it another try tomorrow, and if its as bad as it was today, just wait a little longer...}
a friend of mine asked if I wouldnt mind making one girl and one boy diaper cakes for some baby showers she will be attending this month. I was kind of suprized she asked ME since there are professionals who do this stuff--or even craftier chicks in the ward, but..hey! i like making them, and it would be a good first experience in "selling my wares" ha! well, I am IN LOVE with the girly diaper cake. SO CUTE. The boy one is ALMOST as cute as I'd envisioned, but I really struggled with getting the onesie {the top layer} to not look messy. it just didnt fit very well on the cake and as much as I've fiddled and pinned it, it still looks a little lumpy to me. Still very cute, but not PERFECT.

The lollipop girly diaper cake is 65 pampers diapers, 8 washcloths, a fleece recieving blankey and a onesie!
I plan on "serving" it on a hot pink tray with yellow polkadot paper for it to sit on.

Here is the back of the cake {which isnt as glam as the front--but its not supposed to be. Just wanted it to look a little bit finished in case it was used as a centerpiece}


The request for the boy diaper cake was to be blue and brown--when I was at the store and saw this cute blue and brown squirrel onesie, I knew that was my theme!
This diaper cake has 65 pampers diapers, squirrel onesie, fleece recieving blanket and cute nut, squirrel and other woodland creature cake toppers.

The NUTSO part of me wants to take it all apart and try to fix the onesie {i tried it on the second tier before and I didnt fit right either} but then the other part of me has lots of other projects that need to get done this week and I dont want to start over again! Do you think im being too critical and it looks fine? Be honest!
Here's the back:


I had fun making them. Im hoping some other ladies might ask her who made them and want me to make more...I would love to do different themed ones..there are so many possibilities!

While I was working on finishing touches this morning, this is what Briggy was *trying* to do....

THIS! hahaha! play bouncey ball and pee at the same time. NOT HAPPENING!

Bananas & BBQ Birthday Bash!

I wish I had a better camera and skills to take better photos, but I'll post a few up now just to show how much fun my little ollie man had! Some friends {with a much better camera} got some fun pics of the kids in action and even a family shot of all four of us! hopefully I can post those later in the week...but for now, here is the party set up:

this was the main "treats" table with all the cupcakes and snacks. I had banana cupcakes with yellow cream cheese frosting and chocolate sprinkles and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and yellow sprinkles. They were topped off with cute monkey cupcake toppers {from the martha stewart party kit} I had 2-tiered yellow treat trays that I made filled with slices of chocolate chip banana bread. In the monkey cups was "monkey munch"! {pretzels, popcorn, banana chips and craisins} I really wanted to make a banner that said "treats" to sling on the front of the table, but the polka dot trim had to do...i ran out of time!!






When you first walked in the house you were greeted by the one and only banner {can you tell im a little ticked i didnt get around to doing more?!} It says OLIVER and 1s--im actually going to back the individual banner circles with heavier cardstock or chipboard and make a scrap flipbook of a few of the favorite pics from the day.
The present table {before guests arrived} also had all the favor bags lined up on it. I couldnt fit the monkey beach balls in the bags, so I had to put them in the baskets below. The kids had fun playing with those all throughout the party. {Briggy found those REAL quick and was throwing them around at everyone!}
Inside the favors were little treat bags that said "Im bananas over you" with monkey and banana stickers with banana runts and banana chips inside as well as a little bottle of monkey bubbles. fun!





The kitchen bar with alllllllll theeeeeeeeeee fooooooooooooooooooood. of course i went wayyyyyyyyyy overboard as usual and made wayyyyy tooooo muchhhhh foooood! but all the salads and bbq pulled pork came out yummy, so leftovers are welcome :)
Just a small detail, but the brown forks and napkins were placed in glass jars with yellow polka dot ribbon and the yellow cups all had monkey name tags on them for everyone to write their names. with all these summer BUGS going around, I thought i'd limit exposure as much as possible!





Ollie getting EXCITED to monkey around and PARRRRRTYYYY!



I LOOOOVVVVED their yellow and brown polo shirts! when I saw these on clearance a while back I had to snatch matching shirts for Briggy and Ollie! I love themmm! they matched perfect with the party theme/color scheme! {mommy wore yellow and brown and daddy wore brown too! awhhhh! we're dorks!}

Eating a yummy banana birthday cupcake {with no yummy frosting...so sad!} he didnt mind at all though, he loved his new sweet snack! I bought the cutest bib that said "1st birthday" with a monkey dangling on it. And of course I forgot to put it on him! oh well. I may just take a pretend shot of him in it later....

Here are some of our fun guests! Ollie had lots of little girls attend....he is SUCH a stud muffin :) The Romney's little boy Scott thought Ollie's hair was "soo cool!" :P







Ah! I just realized I dont have any pictures of Briggy on my camera! the duttons took lots of great pics of him getting MESSY! with chocolate cupcakes and having fun. So as not to leave him out, here was him the other day trying on his new swim gear for the pool. The neighborhood pool was closed because someone rented it out for a party...but after getting him all suited up we didnt have the heart to not play and "swim" so we went out in the backyard. He loves his "super hero" swim suit. hahaha! it was hilarious watching him move, dance and play in that!!


We had lots and lots of funnnnnn! I can't believe my little chunky monkey ollie is growing up so fast!

Im linking up to one of my favorite party sites!
*almost all decor and bits and pieces were homemade--however, the monkey cups and cupcake toppers came from a martha stewart party kit {that i believe is discontinued}