Toy Story Halloween Costumes

If you follow us you already know that we love Cars and Toy Story and have had Birthday Parties for both.

Well this Halloween we went as a Toy Story Family, since that was a bit easier than cars ;)

I love doing themed halloween costumes but I got to always make sure the costume is simple and easy  for my husband. This year all he had to do was slip this over whatever he was wearing. The year before I gave him a black turtle neck, some levi's and told him to wear his glasses and boom he was Steve Jobs

HOW WE MADE THESE COSTUMES 

We bought the Buzz Lightyear wings and and hat at a garage sell but we made everything else. The front of Buzz Lightyear was a printable from my sons Toy Story Photo Booth Props. You can get the Free Printable Here. 

Woody already had levis and a yellow church shirt so we found him a hat and a vest at then dollar store, and I cut a piece of red fabric out for him. 

Jessie, I bought two of the woody vests and cut one up to hot glue to her pants, then I hot glued some yellow felt and red string to a white stained white shirt. I made her wig from yarn by crocheting a beanie hat and then tying the yarn to that base, it was fun to see my bald baby with hair ;)

Potato Heads, I took some tan fabric folded it in half glue most of the sides together, leaving just enough room up top to put our arms through. Then I cut a hole for our heads and glued felt faces on.

My favorite part was the SLINKY Trick or Treat Baskets. I covered took two oatmeal boxes and covered them in brown paper bags. I then took a slinky and poked each end into one of the boxes and hot glued it on. I then hot glued Ribbon for handles (which surprisingly held up) and I hot fluid felt for a face and ears and a little tail on the other box.

This Trick or Treat Box was great for keeping the family together, and moving in the same direction!

We attended our churches annual Trunk-r-Treat. I love Trunk-r-Treats because they are safer and supervised. We decorated our trunk as ANDY'S ROOM using a tablecloth and more of the FREE PRINTABLES from my sons Toy Story Birthday Party. And we had a toy chest that is decorated as Andy's toy chest and we handed our candy out in that, and played songs from the movie!

We had fun with these costumes all year, they were added to the dress up box and brought fun into our house all year long. I call Him Wood Year or Buzz Lighty!

Have fun this halloween!

Toy Story Birthday Party

So my oldest just turned 3 and we celebrated with a toy story party. This is the boys new favorite show. (We finally graduated from CARS)

First was the invite, the famous etch-a-sketch was used in our design. Free Printable Here

Next the DECOR got a roll of sky blue paper from the dollar store, unrolled it , cut it in half and then hung it on the wall for a backdrop, I then cut out white clouds and taped them onto the backdrop. For the table we put a white table cloth down, cut out black spots to go on top and the used a red table cloth, folded for a table runner down the center.

For food we had PIZZA PLANET PIZZA

And for the cake we had the three eyed alien cupcakes! I like cupcakes cause they are smaller then a slice of cake usually is.

Last of all we used our backdrop as a toy story photo booth. My son loved the props and would name which prop belonged to which character. Here is a Free Printable of the TOY STORY Props

Despicable Me - Birthday Party

Got to catch up on some birthdays, this little guy is now 3 years old. so yeah I'm behind ;)

For his first birthday we did a minion theme from the movie "Despicable Me" The boys have a little stuffed minion that giggles and they LOVE it!

I didn't have much time to plan his party, we literally had it 2 days after we moved across the country.

I sent out these announcements,

Bought a mini disco ball,

and made ugly minion cupcakes!

It was so much fun! I just love it when they are one and you give them a cupcake for the first time.... at first they don't know what to do with it, but they figure it out after a few test licks ;)

Easy Easter Service Project for kids

Last year for Easter, our sweet neighbor left this at our door...

My kids loved it so much and we decided to do it for our neighbors this year.

All you need is...

• An Egg Carton
• Plastic Easter eggs
• Stuff to Fill eggs with
• and This Printable to put on top

We chose to fill our eggs with...

• Popcorn
• Cereal
• Jelly Beans
• Little Finger Nail Polish
• Chocolate Eggs
• Blue Tootsie Rolls
• Dried Fruit
• A Easter Story (we chose a spiritual one called the empty egg)
• Animal Crackers
• Yogurt Pretzels
• and Stickers

The kids helped me fill them (and eat some too of course)

And them we went and hid them on people's lawn and then rang the door bell and gave them the empty container. 

My kids squealed as they watched the kids find there eggs. And since my kids are still really young and don't quite understand the whole concept. They helped the neighbors find some that they hid and would shout with JOY, " OPEN, YUMMY" or " THERE IS CANDY IN THAT ONE"

{I think my kids are seeing that sometimes it is more fulfilling to make others happy instead of ourselves. And I think that is what Jesus Christ would want them to learn this Easter Season }

Happy Easter!

What convinced me to Print my Pictures

Each year (after I delete all the bad/usless pictures) I usually have taken 1000 pictures, and they just sit on my phone until I put them on the computer.... to sit on my computer.  I decided it's time to print my pictures.

Before I get to the reasons why I now print my pictures, let's talk about the reasons I didn't print my pictures...



1) Mostly cause I'm LAZY

2) It's hard getting them from my phone to the place to print- by hard I guess I don't really mean hard, more like it was too much of a hassle. I couldn't motivate my self to download the pictures to the computer and then copy them onto a hard drive or CD, or use a web browser that wasn't user friendly

3) I had to go pick them up- when you have three kids in car seats, you only want to leave the house for groceries or fun, little errands are not worth your energy anymore

4) Price- printed photos were more money then I wanted to spend, and the apps for phones that were easy to use, charged a lot for shipping

THEN  I watched Shark Tank one night and met GROOVE BOOK

Here is why I print with groove book

1) the app is so easy to use

2) they mail them to me (it took mine 2-3 weeks)

3) it is CHEAP - 100 photos for 2.99 that includes the photos and shipping....what?!

4) I like the Quality of the paper and color. The color matches what I see on my phone, and while the paper is a little bit thinner, I think it is still good quality

5) if for some reason my phone dies, or I loose my backup's or technology ceases to exist (noooo)......  I have a hard copy of my photos



6) I put a title of the book on front and call it the easy way to scrapbook....done. (But for you hard core scrapbookers the pictures are perforated, so they are easy to tear out)

7) my kids like flipping through the books way more then looking at them on the computer. There is just something about them being tangible.



8) they make great gifts as bragging books for Grandparents ;) and it is so easy to add on a copy of a book, defiantly what my mom will be getting every year for Mothers Day!

9) I can easily tear them out since the pages are perforated. Then I can put them in a picture frame or give them to family/friends



10 each picture has a Date Stamp above the picture with the date and time it was taken. Which is great for Photo Journaling

11) even my lazy self can do it in no time at all



Ok so DO YOU WANT TO TRY IT?

Your first book is on me, thats right you can print your first one for FREE with my code
CARSTENS20

If you end up not liking it you can unsubscribe, but if you are like me you will be a Huge Fan and very excited to start your next book! My next one will be baby pictures ;) 

http://www.groovebook.com

*they are printed glossy
*they only print for smart phones, so when I have pictures on my computer I want I either share them or email them from my computer to my phone
* if the are not sized 4x6 there will be little white bars printed on the top and bottom so no one/thing is cropped out of the picture, refer to picture under reason #7 why printing with GrooveBook is AWESOME

Parks and Recreation Valentines-Free Download

Who Loves the show Parks and Recreations? It is our new favorite and we are always quoting it.

 This year I made you some Parks and Rec Valentines

  Download them HERE *NOTE* on my computer they show up pixelated and very weird looking, but when you download them they look just fine.

  Download them HERE *NOTE* on my computer they show up pixelated and very weird looking, but when you download them they look just fine.

Here are some other Valentines you can download for free. From some other fun bloggers.

These are some adorable designs form Devyn Marie Designs

This candy bar wrapper is a fun idea from One Willis Family

These adorable pencil toppers from A Pocket Full of LDS Prints

or this Valentine banner from C {dot} Love