Follow the yellow brick road

I'd like to once again thank the creators of Picmonkey for giving us an editing site that is so incredibly easy to use and reminiscent of its former counterpart which is now deceased and rhymed with Schmicnic.

Because of Picmonkey, I'm able to take this picture:

and turn it into this picture:

which is clearly more authentic since we all know the bricks were really yellow. Never mind that a few of our sidewalk bricks are especially dingy and look a little black. Just ignore those.

I took this pic of my girl on her birthday and it totally defines what she's into at the moment. I need to blow this up poster-size and frame it immediately.

Like, right now.

But this post isn't really about Picmonkey, although it is complete and total awesomesauce. It's about the fact that I am in party.planning.mode. In the party 'zone', if you will. I've made lists of things to make, lists of things to buy, lists of recipes to find, lists of things to sew. Hello, my name is Mary Kathryn and I'm a list maker. I am so stinkin excited about putting this party together that it's like having a Christmas in May. That's right. If you want to give me a present, just ask me to throw a themed party. Dina and I would totally be BFF's if we knew each other. Totally.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you've probably noticed that I've been pinning

Oz-ness like crazy. You can check out my party board HERE, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite ideas that I'm planning to use for the girls' party. And yes, that's plural because we'll be celebrating both our girlies at this party since they are both major Wizard of Oz fans at the moment, and they also happen to have birthdays 13 days apart.

I love the party favor baskets that Kate found at Michael's:

Source: mykidseatoffthefloor.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

(from my kids eat off the floor)

Love the yellow bulletin board paper turned yellow brick road for this party:

Source: catchmyparty.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

(from catch my party)

Love these apple tree centerpieces I found on Kara's party ideas:

Source: karaspartyideas.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Love these Louboutin's:

Source: weheartit.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Oh wait, how'd those get in there?

Back to the parties...

The absolute most spare-no-dime-on-the-party-and-send-all-the-guests-home-with-a-truckload-of-stuff would have to be this one:

Source: karaspartyideas.blogspot.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

Not only is it beautifully styled, but each of the party guests went home with a Dorothy dress, a pair of ruby slippers, a stuffed lion, tinman, scarecrow, and Dorothy, a stuffed Toto in a basket, and, hmmmm... I've probably left something out. You'll just have to see it for yourself, and know this: while we won't be sending everyone home with a duffle bag full of Oz swag, the bar has been set very very high and I'm going to do my best as a mother and a human to at least reach some level of amazingness akin to this party. As God as my witness....

And good gravy please tell me you noticed the party guests plates were each on a piece of tree trunk. Sheesh.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some party prep to attend to. And please, for the love, someone buy me those shoes cause I needs em.

weekend recap

Happy Monday to ya, friends!

Hope you had a fab weekend.

I suffered a bit of heartburn and nausea and diarrhea and I think I may have also developed an ulcer after watching the Tide on Saturday night.

Heartbreaking loss.

Heartbreaking.

But life goes on...

Roll Tide, y'all.

As I've mentioned here before, as the week goes along with me teaching full time and mom-ing full time and sewing full time and making sure something gets into the bellies of my family, I lose more and more sleep. Fridays are the worst. The worst. Sometimes I feel like I could fall over at any moment and I'm sure I would, if not for the huge quantities of coffee I drink throughout the day. On Friday as O and I walked through the door from school, I had a hankering for some rice. Quick rice. Throw-it-in-the-microwave-and-eat-it-90-seconds-later rice. I pulled it out of the pantry, threw it in the microwave, and listened to it explode 60 seconds later.

When the kind people at Uncle Bens tell you to rip the top off of the package before cooking, they mean it. I was too tired to even follow the directions on a bag of rice y'all.

sheesh.

Thank goodness for Saturday, and thank goodness there was nothing on my schedule early in the wee hours. After sleeping as late as the girls would allow, I headed to a craft fair I read about on facebook. It took place in the gym of the church where we are currently holding services and while I didn't take any pics, there were lots of goodies there. I came home with a fabulous scarf and a little girl. Because I'd taken her with me. I didn't steal her.

After MM and I left the craft fair, we headed to- where else....Target.

I have to share one small glance at how crazy-packed-with-people my town was over the weekend.

This was the lot next to Target and the mall-

campers and RV's as far as the eye could see.

They were also packed into several other lots that are now vacant due to the tornado. They were everywhere.

Everywhere.

The 'game of the century' draws quite a large crowd.

Moving on.

I tried desperately to get a decent picture of the kiddos in their church clothes before nap time yesterday, not just because they're pretty darn tootin' cute, but also because the girls were sporting their Missoni for the first time.

If I've said it once, I've said it a gajillion times-

It's flippin hard to get a pic of these 3. Two seconds after I'd snapped these, MM was climbing backwards down the steps, Oliver was running to the backdoor, and E was soprano singing and twirling.

Valiant effort though, right?

Last night, we turned to TBS just in time to see the twister knock Dorothy onto her bed. Once E realized what we were watching, she made a mad dash for her closet and retrieved her Dorothy dress. Because that's the only way to watch The Wizard of Oz. In your Dorothy dress and sparkly shoes and a stuffed dog under your arm. Good gravy she may look just like her Daddy, but that girl is MY child.

The 4 of us sat and watched the movie while we waited for Daddy to get home from his. Several of the men from our church went to see the film Courageous yesterday and hubs raved about it when he got home. So glad he was able to go. Have any of you seen it?

****

I'll be attending 2 more craft fairs in the near future and once I have all the details, I'll share them here for those of you who are local.

And....

Don't forget that you have until Thursday night to enter my current giveaway for a $30 shop credit! I'm celebrating reaching another milestone here at the blog, and as a 'thank you' to YOU, my readers, one of you will win your choice of some goods from my shop. Just go to THIS post and leave a comment telling me something that you're thankful for. That's it! You can come back each day and enter, but all entries must be on THIS post to count. I'll be choosing a winner Thursday night via random.org and will post the winning comment on Friday (11.11.11). For extra entries, you can also tweet or facebook about this giveaway- just be sure to leave another comment telling me which one you did.

Happy Monday!