Carpe Diem: Seize the…Opportunity {Five Minute Friday}

May 25, 2012 by Jules 1 Comment

On Fridays over here a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking Link back at the gypsy mamma and invite others to join in.

Please give me your best five minutes on:

Opportunity…

Today I am grateful to have seized the day on more than one day this past week. It has flown by but not with a single missed opportunity! Last Sunday was our last day at our {potentially} last church as youth ministers. Our New Adventure has started.

Among Matt starting work at his new "office" with regular 'buisness hours', there has been tons of celebrating going on this week. We are exhausted and filled. God has filled us with so much love this past week from all those who love us so dearly. I know last weeks 5MF ended up being...contreversal even though I still not sure why. This week I wanted to share nothing but the positives of this past week.

Sunday night there were the Awana Awards! AND a going away party for us!Monday night we had a FUN staff going away cook out! Tuesday was officially Nakey Day! along with some Nakey Painting! Wednesday was Maggie's last night in Cubbies which included a PJ party!

Thursday night was our fellowship night with the Journey class!

Friday night was dinner with awesome friends!

Saturday was a birthday party at the park! AND Nanna's birthday, including dinner and icecream cake! Memorial Day Weekend and our fun has just begun. We're looking forward to slowing down but not until after the SPLASHPAD and picnic at the park tomorrow as we take our 1st true Sabbath in a long time! Fun way to celebrate our Freedom in Christ! Thanks to all those who are missing someone special today who gave their life for America. Let's be sure to remember The One who gave His life for Everyone's Eternal Freedom from sin!!!

Our fun will continue into next week as Matt and I go to a cabin for a couple nights {ALONE} to celebrate our 8-year-anniversary! {THANKS Nanna and Papaw!} So, if you don't hear from me...that's we're I am ;O)

Stop.

Hope you enjoyed our life via my camera. {THANKS Aunt TeaLee for letting me borrow yours after the 'bad guys' took mine!!! I promise I'll get a new one of my own soon ;o)} What are you doing in memory of those who have given their lives for our American freedoms?

Filed Under: 5 Minute Fridays, Being a Help-Meet, Parenting, Parties, The Ones about Link-Ups, The ones about the Rothacher Home

McDonald’s Play Place Party

February 15, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

One of the newly remolded McDonald’s near our home has an awesome Play Place! There’s tons of seating near the toy. It includes a toddler area. AND they have a bathroom out there for quick potties without running through the rest of the restaurant. My eldest has been suggesting we go there for her siblings birthday’s since seeing their party room near the toy the 1^st time.

We have made the commitment to only do BIG birthday parties for our children’s 1^st birthdays and then other big milestone birthdays as to stick to our guns about being frugal. {I LOVE HOSTING PARTIES!}

My middle child just turned 2 and my niece turns 8 the same month so we decided to celebrate both girls birthdays with family by having lunch at the Play Place. We weren’t inviting lots of other children so we didn’t pay to do the party room and chose to bring our own simple decorations and cake. *note: we ask permission form the employee in charge of the party room to make sure it was okay.

The birthday banner my Sis-in-love made me for Christmas last year and the giant cupcake pan was a gift from my mom. Izzie chose a pink {strawberry} cake and I decorated it with white frosting, red sprinkles, spray on frosting coloring, and a valentine cupcake topper.

We ate our lunch,

played a little while,

sang “Happy Birthday” to both girls, ate cake {and shared more than ½ with other children in the Play Place as well as McDonald’s employees}, and opened gifts.

Simple. Fun. Relaxed. Memorable.

Filed Under: Holidays, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Knight and Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {FOOD}

February 11, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

The Table:

I had a yellow table cloth left from our oldest daughters party and the blue table cloth I though I bought to layer on top ended up being goodie bags so I used this picnic table cloth I also already had. It worked. The flag streamers are made from scrapbook paper, hot glue, and ribbon.

The feast was an attempt at “Mid-evil Carnival food/ Knight-ish food”.

We made {frozen and cooked according to the package} Corn Dogs!
The holder is a round cardboard cake thing that I covered in tin foil and poked holes through with scissors.

Cotton candy on Popsicle sticks {and my hubs thought I’d never find enough uses for that giant box of 1000 sticks…}. I took tubs of $1.00 cotton candy from Wal-Mart and unrolled it. Then I rerolled sections of it back onto sticks. The only way it would have been cooler is if it were blue…but the pink kinda looks like it goes with the red ;o)

We went with a kid-friendly, less waist version of caramel apple!

Cake balls {affectionately named cannonballs} made from the left over parts of the cake that were cut off to make the castle and smash cake!

Pretzel rods dipped in almond bark with added theme colored sprinkles, aka Pretzel Swards!

This bucket is one we had around the house for Benjamin that I’d found for $1.00 at the Goodwill! Chunked out cutlery in it- voila!

Ice cream, pre-scooped into punch cups and placed back into the freezer right before the party to save time and make for easy serving!

This is the wooden highchair we’ve used for all of children. We just took the cushion off so it wouldn’t get stained by the chocolate, left the plastic tray on for protection, and added part of the flag streamer I made.

Yep! I put on an apron and took his diapered-self straight to the kitchen sink for a quick scrub down before getting redressed for the pinata and presents!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: cake balls, corn dog stand, corn dogs, cotton candy, DIY, party food, pretzel rods, swords

Knight in Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {CAKE}

February 8, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

Hosting a Knight in Shining Armor 1^st Birthday Party

My husband and I have decided that we won’t be doing huge parties every year for our children. But we will do bigger parties for milestone birthdays. For our oldest daughter’s 1^st birthday we did a “Princess Party over the 4^th of July holiday so all our parents could be in attendance. For our younger daughter we did a “Snow Princess Party” in the middle of January. Since I’m a bit on the OCD side of things when it comes to things like name, photo sessions within the 1^st year, and birthday party consistency among my children I thought it would be only appropriate to do a “Prince Party” for my son’s 1^st birthday. My hubs wasn’t a huge fan of the sissy options out there. We chatted for a while and landed on a “Knight Party”! Sticks with the royalty theme but a bit more masculine!

I’m going to do a series of post since walking you through all the DYI party details got pretty lengthy. Today I’ll tell you about the

CAKE

I love how this cake turned out! I discovered a new thing called ‘sugar sheets’ at Wal-Mart. Since I haven’t’ perfected my cake decorating skills to this kind of level it was a GREAT option! It was about $3-4 a sheet. It only took one sheet to make this cake. I made a simple box of devil’s food chocolate cake in a 11x14 rectangle pan. I had my husband sketch this castle {found on Google images line drawings} with a black edible marker, then I cut out the castle.

After the cake was baked but before frosting I laid this on top and cut the outer shape of the castle out. I also cut out the door. Then I placed plastic wrap under the edges of the cake as to not get frosting on the cake stand/carrier and frosted the sides and top of the cake with chocolate frosting. I let that try and then added a second coat. I took the backing off the sugar sheet and placed it on top of the moist frosting so it would adhere well. I found the dragon on picnic.com, made it red and printed {this same dragon was used several places throughout the party}. I cut triangles and taped them to tooth picks for the flags.

See how it became glossy and looks more like real frosting after adhering!

SMASH CAKE {My MOM MASTERPIECE}:

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: 1st birthday, 1st birthday party, birthday cake, castle cake, DIY, knight in shining armor, themed party

They have the same birthdays AND anniversary???

October 17, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

This post is for my amazing parents!

Today is their birthdayS {and I do mean both of them}!!! And if that's not crazy enough, it's their anniversary as well! Yep, they got married ON their 20th birthday! Can anyone say CAKE - a wedding cake AND 2 birthday cakes!