Lulu is having a pinball themed 11th birthday party this year! She won a free party at our local Pinball Outreach Project, a non-profit that restores pinball machines and let's families come and play for free on the weekends. Eddie and the girls visited their "we've moved" party this past winter and Lulu entered in the prize drawing. Winning your own private 2 hour pinball party is a pretty cool gig!

Of course, we needed to have themed invitations so I started figuring out what I would do to make that happen. (It did involve lots of shiny silver duct tape!) I'm happy to share the end result, which has been well received by both the client and the guest recipients and their parents!

The outside of the flip-open invitation I constructed of cardstock and lots of shiny silver duct tape reads "Insert Coins" 

Upon opening the invitation, the details about Lulu's party were styled on the upper side of the invitation to look like the headboard of a pinball machine. On the bottom, a miniature working pinball machine with actual plunger to send the ball up into the game! I was able to buy two packages of 6 assorted mini-pinball games on Amazon. Enough for ten invitations and one each leftover for the girls to have their own.

Lots of duct tape used to secure the mini-pinball game to the invitation...

I slipped each closed invitation into a goody bag along with a couple of gold foil chocolate coins...It did say "Insert Coins" right??

Then sealed each tightly shut with a "you're invited" sticker designed to match the invitations.

This was then finally slipped into a small padded envelope with an on-theme address label addressed to each kid before it headed off to the post office.

Lulu invited 10 friends, a pretty split mix of half boys, half girls. I had 10 matching goody bags left so I made up 10 goody bags to pass out at the end of the party that each include more gold foil coins, large silver gumballs (that look like pinballs! 2-3 will be used to decorate Lulu's cake), a small bottle of bubbles, and a smoothie flavored lip balm.

Every day, Lulu gives us a countdown to the number of days until her birthday, and then, her birthday party. Just wait until she sees what I have designed for her pinball theme birthday cake!

Bean fell asleep in our bed two nights ago. This is how we found her when we came upstairs from watching TV to go to bed:

I love that she fell asleep literally with the pencil in her hand. Luckily, she didn't poke herself in the face with it!

Here is her super sweet note to her BFF Beatrix who lives back in Maryland, now:

Her note translates as:

Dear Beatrix,

I hope you like your new school. I miss you a lot. 

Love,

Jojo

I adore Bean's curls! I let her go to school with curly bedhead, which is especially good when she'd had a shower or bath the night before and washed her hair. This particular morning, I just delighted in her curls and she indulged me in a few snaps before the school bell rang...

My girl!!! XOXO

Lulu was a part of OBOB (Oregon Battle Of the Books) this year, and team captain once again, to boot! They named their team "Hilarious Hedgehogs" and Lulu came up with the artwork for their team shirts. 

She did the design on the computer, I printed it out on fabric, then cut, stitched the edges and then affixed to pink t-shirts where I stitched around the image edges, again. I took artistic liberty and added blue rhinestone eyes to each of the 5 shirts using the awesome Bedazzler Mary gave me several years ago. (I just LOVE that thing!) I knew the girls would love the rhinestones and I was right. 

The girls got lots of compliments on their shirts from students, parents and staff the day of their competition. They didn't advance to the semi-finals, but they all had a great time and that's what counts at the end of the day. 

Bean made this in school today. Isn't he super cute?

First grade art is the BEST!!!

We heard Bean played the guitar in our bed while Eddie and I watched TV downstairs. When we came up to bed ourselves, I chuckled at the sight of finding her passed out with her guitar next to her. Too tuckered to put it away...!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started the morning off with cinnamon rolls for breakfast! This was a surprise for the girls. They had no idea...

Both girls got chocolate bars and a joint family gift of the card game Exploding Kittens...

Of course Bean got the chocolate bar with the cute kitten on it.

Lulu is my million dollar baby!

Ooops! These are upside down. Sorry! Bean made her own Valentine's for the kids in her classroom and naturally, they involved a picture of Chi which she drew herself.

This is so stinkin cute!!! Bean made her own Valentine's box. All I did was cut out and curve the ears. She did the rest herself. Who is it? Chi of course!

My mom dropped off a red velvet cake for us from JaCiva's for Valentine's Day. OMG, so GOOD! Eddie and I had a piece for lunch, you know, purely to make sure that it wasn't poisoned and for quality control assurances...

A slice of red velvet cake and buttercream heaven...

We had heart-shaped hamburgers for dinner 'cause that's how we roll...

I took four picture of Lulu before she'd smile for me. Pre-teenagers!

Bean and her burger masterpiece.

She used Trader Joe's Curly Lentil Chips to make a silly face. Clever girl, that one.