So here we are again...

Hello again, blog world.  I must say that I'm pretty proud of myself today; I feel like I may have actually earned a bid for Mom of the Year - a REAL one, not just the sarcastic one I usually award myself when something devastating happens, like Charlie falling down the stairs and scraping his face up or Ollie eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches all day long.  No sir, today, I may have earned an honest-to-goodness Mom of the Year nod....or at least a Little Mom on the Prairie Award. 

I usually wake up with the birds but have fallen into a sloppy routine this summer (I'm blaming Jonathan's new and seemingly ever changing work schedule), but today I was up at 5:45 (still late by my standards, but I'm breaking myself in easy), did my cheesy early 90's workout DVD, showered, retrieved Charlie from his crib, made homemade blueberry muffins, made yogurt (in the crock pot!), washed some dishes....and that was all before lunch time!  Yes, let's just say I feel like I've had an insanely productive day.  Go me.

I never thought I'd be the chick to make homemade yogurt, but as I started realizing just how much I was spending each week on plain yogurt, it made me a little ill.  Compounding the sick feeling was the sheer amount of waste it was creating - 2 or 3 large plastic tubs each week??!  I tried making myself feel better about the plastic tubs by washing them and coming up with ways to reuse them: storing bulletin board trim at school, stashing craft supplies, creating station tubs and games for center time at school....all of those were great ways to use those 24oz tubs I was accumulating, but I was running out of storage room in my kitchen, and since I'm currently between classrooms (left my old job and waiting for the new school/classroom to finish being built so I can get in it), it was getting ridiculous and something else had to be done.  Cue pinterest (of course) where I started looking around for homemade yogurt recipes.  There was one in a Mason jar....seriously.....but it wasn't nearly as simple as turning on my crock pot, taking the temperature every hour or so, and letting the "live and active cultures" do the rest.  I was worried that the yogurt might taste funny, but today's batch is my 2nd, and I think it tastes even better than the stuff from the store.  And not only am I not wasting those silly plastic tubs, I'm also getting WAY more yogurt for WAY less money.  It's awesome.

So to get back on track here, the REAL reason I started this blog was to post about some of the cool things that I do/find/make/want, and one of the coolest things I've done so far is throw Ollie a pretty rocking Mario Brother's themed birthday party.  Now don't get me wrong, not all of these ideas were original, and certainly not all of it was my own doing, but it turned out super well, and since I was in charge of the application of it all, I'm claiming it all as my own personal victory.  Before I get too far into this, I should explain that we are OLD SCHOOL Mario at our house.  None of this new-age Wii Mario with their blue overalls.  At our house, Mario rocks out the red overalls, Luigi the green ones, and there's only ONE princess to save and that's Peach.  So this is the kind of party we threw.  Old school, vintage Mario a la Captain Lou and The Super Mario Brothers Super Show.

No party is complete without a birthday banner, so here I made one out of squares to mimic the blocks that Mario is always breaking apart.  I flanked it with 2 Piranha Plants with a Goomba trapped between them.

It was pretty easy to construct all of these items using construction paper and various shapes that were easy to cut - I didn't even use my Cricut!  The pots were just rectangles overlapping, then the stems and leaves.  I cut big red "U" shapes and topped them with white hearts and polka dots of different sizes (using my 3/4" and 1" paper punches).

Food is always super important.  The fare this day? Italian, or course.  A yummy pasta dish from a Kraft magazine I had lying around, salad, bread, plain noodles for the youngsters who were opposed to saucy pasta, and some fruits/veggies.  Now I know you're looking at this and thinking...."yes, but what about that GIANT Mario head poking around back there???"

What? This guy?  Just an awesome paper machie Mario head that one of my friends from school made.  Pretty sweet, huh?  He was destined to be a pinata, but I didn't have the heart to smash him to bits, so he made a great table decoration instead.  And there's a vintage Mario coin bank standing next to him.  Cute, huh?  I'm sure glad my brother decided he didn't need such a childish collectible anymore!

The cake (made by my awesome mother-in-law) was a real hit.  Simple, but really spot-on for the party, even if the characters ARE wearing their new-age blue coveralls.  She got the little figures at the local party store and cut the stars and dots out of fondant.

Cake is never enough, so we also had some Question Blocks made out of rice krispie treats.  Clearly I made these, which is why they are lopsided.  Had my mother-in-law made them, they would have been precisely trimmed into perfect cubes.  I'm more of an estimator, myself.  Especially when it comes to measurement.

Extra cake batter meant little star-shaped cakes too.  The cupcakes aren't pictured, but they had the same blue icing as the cake with little cake toppers made from stickers and a 3" scalloped paper punch.  Super cute.  And before you ask, the answer is No, there is NEVER too much cake.

 Ollie was just turning 4 and so most of her friends are the same age, which means they're too young for any crazy party games, but we did have one: Smush the Goomba.  I think I snagged this one from somewhere else online, but I decorated orange balloons with Goomba faces, attached brown feet to them, and set the kids loose to try their hand at Goomba Stomping like the Marios do.  Ollie told me it was her favorite part of the day.

 More Goombas and Piranha plants decorated the windows!

 Such a fun idea.  WE made mustaches out of black felt, hot glued them to color coordinated straws, and let everyone wear their mustaches in pictures.  You can't really tell, but the Mario mustaches are extra ruffly on the bottom (like his real 'stache is) and the Luigi ones are smoother.  It was a huge hit, even with the adults.  My fantastic sister-in-law made Mario and Luigi hats for the kids out of fleece, so the kids had hats to wear for the party too.

All in all, a super fun birthday theme, and Ollie totally loved it.  Here we are as a family sporting our mustaches and Mario/Luigi hats.  The Toad hat was left over from the previous Halloween when we all dressed up as Mario characters.  Ollie was Mario, Jonathan was Luigi, Charlie was Toad, and I was Princess Peach.  We got quite a few compliments.

Maybe that gave someone out there some ideas for their own Mario party!  For now, I'm off to tackle my still unfinished Interactive Writer's Notebook.....