Olympics Viewing Party!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympics. It's something about all those young hopes and dreams, perseverance, hard work. It's incredibly impressive and drives our household into Olympic obsession every time they roll around. Joel and I actually went to the last Olympic summer games in London and we originally planned on attending Rio this year with our whole family. Alas, we are not. BUT we will be watching the Opening Ceremony tomorrow night with fanfare and you can too! Even if you didn't plan ahead (like us), you can pull together an easy fun evening with these ideas. Go for it.

 1 / printable world flags 2 / Olympic bingo 3 / easy Olympic cookies  

4 / DIY laurel headbands 5 / printable diving lady straws

Cameron's 5th Ping Pong Birthday Party!

Wowsers. I. am. exhausted. Between a big work deadline, Cam being home sick, getting the house ready for a ton of visiting family, and Cam's 5th birthday party this past weekend, I need a big time break. But even given my current need to hibernate, I felt I'd be remiss in not sharing a few pics from her fab ping pong party. It was so incredibly low key for us, but so, so fantastic! Which leads me to believe that we will be having many more such shindigs for future birthdays.

New Year's Eve Party Animals!

Since we love to celebrate for no reason at all, it probably won't come as a surprise to you that we are all big fans of celebrating New Year's Eve. And nothing says New Year's Eve more than black + gold and glittering confetti. So I was in love with The Land of Nod's Meri Meri New Year's Eve party collection the moment I saw it. It's sophisticated, but still fun and would work equally well for a grown-up party as it did for my little party animals. Our early celebration is up over at Honest to Nod today -- go check it out!

It's Tailgate Time!

Fall is football season in our house and our kids LOVE it. It's really sweet to hear them ask Joel "is it football time, yet?" and to hear the Eagles fight song belted out over and over again. I also happen to love the game -- watching it, playing it, and partying with it. We love to take our kids to live sports games and the pre-game tailgating events, but we haven't yet felt comfortable that they are old enough for the not-always-family-friendly event that is live NFL football (although I've taken the kids to high school games and they loved it). So I'd love to bring some of that same spirit and goodies into our home for game time watching. Here's what I'm loving for a kid-friendly tailgate at home!

1 / my kids can eat their weight in peanuts. I'm still working on a less messy way to eat them at home, but when I do, I think these DIY bags would be so cute.

2 / gold foam fingers!?! Cam would be all over these.

3 / as they've inherited my love to decorate for any occasion, I think our kids would love to make these cute football lanterns.

4 / this football bingo was made especially for the Super Bowl, but I love the idea of using pictures and numbers for a kid-friendly game.

5 / I'd use these free football sheets from The Celebration Shoppe to make fun placemats for the kids, who love to nosh while watching the game.

6 / Frito Pie. It's a must.

7 / An edible pennant garland. Love.

8 / I think these DIY duct tape football mason jars would be super fun. Plus, I love a flagged striped straw.

9 / after peanuts, popcorn is the kids' next favorite game time snack. These football themed popcorn boxes make it even better.