Stained Glass Shamrocks {and what they taught me about perfection}

Hi there, friends!

I am so sick of gloomy skies and snow. It was 37 and sunny the other day and I was this close to throwing the windows open! We need some color when we look out the window, and these fit the bill perfectly.

So this was my plan. Fill up a piece of contact paper with torn green tissue paper, trace some shamrocks on it, cut them out, and hang them on the wall. Easy peasy, right? We'll be done in, like, an hour, right? Right.

Plan: Fill a piece of contact paper with torn tissue paper.

Reality: A patchwork of tearing and sticking for small amounts of time over 3 days. Concerns from the 4 year old including, but not limited to: It's too many, what if I don't finish before dinner, that piece is too big, that piece is too small. Responses from Mama including, but not limited to: You can do it! Dinner is in 5 hours, you can do it. That piece is perfect, you can do it.

Jobs appear really big to her. We have learned that we need to break big things into smaller pieces, or she gets overwhelmed and doesn't know how to start. She's a bit like her Mama that way.

Plan: Trace shamrocks onto contact paper and cut them out. Follow the lines, of course. You know, because fine motor practice and life skills.

Reality: "I just want to cut a circle around them."
This is where I got stuck. I really wanted her to cut on those lines. I encouraged. I offered her the bigger one with bigger curves. I cut out the bigger ones to show her how simple it was. I pushed. And still, "I just want to cut a circle around them."

Ok. Here's the thing. She gets overwhelmed. She is absolutely terrified of making mistakes. It's hard to find the balance between encouraging her to do her best work, and letting her set her own standards of success. Will there be times that I need to set the standard of following the directions correctly? Of course. Was this one of them? Not even a little bit.

So I don't have a window full of perfectly cut out shamrocks (because, let's face it, that was my plan). What I do have is something that Abbey can look at every day and see success. She finished a project and it made our house prettier. And because she felt successful, she wanted to do more

It's not spring without a rainbow, right?

.

"Now it looks like spring all the time!"

Yes it does, baby girl, yes it does. And you did it!

Be blessed,
Heather

Rainbow Birthday Party

Hello friends!

My baby turned 3 last week.

um.....what?? I don't remember signing off on that.

I wanted to have a big party for my big girl this year. Last year we had just moved and most of our life was in boxes, so I didn't have party planning in me. We had a day at the park and a Cars cake, and it was great, but this year I really wanted to do it up!

This was my first time doing a "theme" party, so I went with something that I thought would be pretty simple, and threw Abbey a Rainbow Party!

The first thing I found was this tutorial for rainbow cake at Omnomicon. I showed the picture to Abbey and she told people for weeks that she was having a rainbow cake! No turning back now!

Let me just say...this cake was awesome! I might just make this a birthday tradition. The tutorial was easy to follow, and while it's a little tedious, it is totally worth the effort.

I made some cupcakes too.

I went super simple for the food table. No fancy decorations, just some simple rainbow balloons.

I thought the cake was so pretty on the inside that I kept it simple on the outside. White frosting. Done.

I used my Valentine's Day Treat Tray did double duty as a cupcake tray. I put some rainbow candies in the bowl at the top.

 I was inspired by QuickDish's rainbow fruit skewers. Aren't they pretty?! We made a stack of these, and then a huge bowl of fruit salad with the rest of the fruit. Again, easy peasy.
p.s. apparently taking pictures of your messy rainbow batter bowls is mandatory! haha!

The backyard was where all the fun happened.  Decor was simple. The only thing I hung up were these pretty rainbow twirlies I found at JoAnn's for half off!

They're really pretty. I think we're going to leave them up for the summer!

We knew it was going to be a hot day, so we planned on lots of water play. At this age trying to do anything structured is like herding cats, and since simple was the name of the game, we just didn't bother. We set up a whole bunch of simple activities under the shade of a tree, and just left everything open in a very invitation-to-play style.

We had an art table, which got lots of action!

There was a wading pool with rainbow squirters and sponge balls. I used the tutorial at One Charming Party to make the sponge balls, and they are so much fun! 

The kids had tons of fun. We had a hard time getting them to stop playing so they could eat!

We put the sprinkler under the trampoline. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it!

This might be one of my favorite pictures from the day. This guy found Abbey's Paper Jamz guitar and would not put it down. I'm not sure why the trampoline was his spot of choice, but it was. He's a Worship Director's kid, can you tell? Haha!

All of Abbey's friends got to take home a goody bag. Again, simple stuff. A mini-notebook, some crayons, and some rainbow candy. They also got to pick out one of the squirters from the pool.

Anyone who follows me on Instagram (@heather_kate) saw this picture:

I had this great idea to put Tootsie Roll of each color in the bag to make a rainbow. Um...about that. There was one blue in the whole bag! Rainbow fail. Rainbow Twizzlers it is!

I think the party was a success. Don't ask me, just check out this face:

Be blessed!

Heather