Noah's 3rd Farm Birthday Party

We hosted Noah's first and second birthday parties at home. I enjoyed them, I liked doing them at home. But August is hot in NC and it's hard to contain kids and parents indoors for the duration of the party. It's also a bit stressful for me to have everyone in the house. There's cleaning, cooking, decorating. This year the search was on for another venue. A venue with air conditioning. We decided early on that it would be a farm themed party. Luckily, Maple View Agricultural Education Center at Maple View Dairy Farm fit the bill perfectly. It's a huge air conditioned building, full kitchen, several classrooms, full bathrooms with soap! I found this party to be so low on the stress level, but obviously higher on the cost level.

Everyone's favorite part of this party was the bouncy house set up in the main room. The kids loved it!

We opted out of a class because the kids are three, but Maple View had several options that sounded really fun for an older crowd.

 

There was also a hay ride out to meet the 350 dairy cows. By the way did you know a cow has to have a calf before it can produce milk? And that a 24 hour old calf drinks 2 quarts of milk twice a day? We also got to bottle feed a little day old calf- so sweet! The hay ride was a bit long for three year olds, but I found all the information fascinating. They have a small barn area where we met the other small animals and a playground that we didn't check out due to the 90 degree day.

Another big hit of the party was Maple View Ice Cream. All the guests got the choice between strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla.

I thought the ice cream was better than the cake, but others said it was a toss up. Either way, it was really good. When I picked up the cake, it slid around in my car which was annoying, but my fault. I guess it didn't end up too awful.

Luckily, the building is huge because after the cake and ice cream the kids just wanted to run and run and run and play Ring Around the Rosy- so cute!

It was great fun to get everything ready for this party. I worked on it for a few weeks prior to the party during which Noah was having a really rough sleep period. Working on his party stuff helped me mentally keep Noah in a fun place. I was so happy with how everything turned out for this party. So cute! And look out, they might just turn up again for Noah's big 0-4!

One of my favorites was this barn I made. I'm so NOT crafty and this was my crown jewel. The pennant flags... DIE! This may or may not still be displayed in my home.

Speaking of crafty... I used cardboard letters, fabric, and a whole lot of Mod Podge to make the 'N' and 'MOO.' I'm not sure I'll ever do fabric letters again. It was kinda a pain in the ass and I just couldn't get it perfect.

I went all out with the food tent labels (the photos came out a bit bright): pitch fork & shovels (forks & spoons), hay bales (pretzels), chicken feed (Goldfish), apple orchard (loved adding the applesauce pouches!), farmers market, vegetable patch, tractor wheels (oreos), farm fresh milk, water trough, and a hand washing station (hand sanitizer).

How cute are the milk bottles and straws? We bought milk from Maple View (milk from the cows we saw!) and filled them up adding a chalkboard name tag, cow print straws and baker's string. The bottles came with tops and we just closed them up and sent them home with the kids as part of their favors.

Noah very cutely handed out all his favors to his friends, bandana's tied with twine. Inside were farm stickers & farm Wikki Stix, a little farm animal toy, and a farm animal stamp.

 

This three year old was ready to party, while the rest of us look totally exhausted.

Cake: Mama Corie's Confections

Door Sign/Food Tents/Favor Tags: Etsy Shop The Birthday House

Baskets/Milk Bottles: Etsy Shop Pink Lemonade Party

Favors: Amazon

Plates/Napkins: Amazon

 

Noah's actual birthday, eating the cake I actually made. We went to Pullen Park to ride the train in the morning, had cake for lunch, and went to Frankie's Fun Park for go-carts and mini-golf in the afternoon all per the birthday boy.

And who doesn't love a side-by-side com

Happy 3rd Birthday Noah!

 

Falling Into Summer Flashbacks

I love every season equally.  I really do.  I'm always just as excited for the next season to arrive as the last; and always ready for the current season to end.  Last weekend I spent all my time working on my photo book and got so excited for Fall.  Noah had just started walking last August so he was getting better by Fall and we had so much fun.  What's not to like: Parade of Homes, the NC State Fair, two (or maybe even three) pumpkin patches with hay rides, Halloween, UNC Football and hosting Homecoming, cooler mornings and evenings meaning open windows, sweaters, boots, chili in the crockpot.

But entering Fall means saying goodbye to Summer. And we had some good times.  So here's a little flashback to our Summer of Fun.  Again while doing my photo book project I realized all the fun we had and I only posted one or two photos of our beach vacation!  I did Dump my May photos, recap my solo trip with Noah to Jersey & the Editor's solo trip with Noah to Boston, and showed off my birthday horseback riding photos, but here is the summer fun I left out.

Swimming in the neighborhood pool at least twice a week.

June 4th- evening walks to the American Tobacco Trail to look for "diggers."

June 10- Feeding the Bears at the N.C. Museum of Life & Science.

Bears: Gus, Mimi, Virginia, & Yona

This was supposed to be a sold out tour and ended up being just us and some of our besties- a very private event.

June 19- Herndon Farms blueberry picking; of course Noah's more interested in the kitty, Bandit (who's name Noah remembered when we went back a few weeks later- this kid's memory is amazing).

Arriving at Carolina Beach June 23rd for our vacation.  Noah was so excited the minute we stepped into our condo rental; he literally ran to the window.  And then out on the beach after dinner that evening he ran and ran and ran!

June 26- We took a break from the beach.  Breakfast at Kate's Pancakes; Noah loves pancakes and was super excited about this.  We went to the Fort Fisher Aquarium and then took the ferry to Southport.  The ferry (with Mom's car in the background) was a big hit and is still talked about.

Beach Baby.  Noah loves tunnels... I was dubbed the tunnel maker of the trip.

June 29- Our last night on the beach.

June 30- Someone was very happy to have his family home.

July 6- A trip to Marbles after a long hiatus (it gets so crowded!)

July 17- Visiting the fire station where my brother works.  #2 station for a boy who's almost 2.

July 22- Our only Durham Bulls game of the season.

July 28- After a trip to the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, Noah took a little pony & wagon ride with Marbles the mini horse.  I love how Noah's arm is slung over the seat, just waiting on his lady friend. Noah now calls all horses Marbles...  

July 30- Our first visit to Into The Midst at the N.C. Museum of Life & Science.  Of course, I had Noah in his bathing suit and he wanted nothing to do with the midst, but enjoyed the tunnels and ladders.

Aug 11- Our 2nd trip (yes, we all enjoyed it that much) to One World, One Sky at the Morehead Planetarium to see the Big Bird & Elmo show.  Elmo came with Noah for the 2nd showing.

  

Aug 17- We loaded into the car with friends for a day trip to Wrightsville Beach.  We amazed the kids with an Elmo video on the car's DVD player for the last 45 minutes of the ride (first DVD showing in our vehicle!).  Both kids still talk about wanting to go back to the beach, together (with Elmo).  I love how you can tell that we had fun by the amount of sand on Noah's hat.

 

Aug 18- Cow Parade with Alexander Moo-lian, one sharply dressed cow.  

And that was our summer in quick photo review.  I'd say it was a pretty good summer!  And we are starting Fall off right- we've already visited a pumpkin patch, complete with hay, train, & pony ride!

Celebrating My Birthday- At Home Edition

When I started to sit down and write this post about my birthday I realized I probably needed to separate it into to My Birthday At Home and My Birthday Abroad.  I am not one of those people who celebrates their birthday for a whole week; but since I have a Holiday Weekend birthday sometimes I get more than just one day or we celebrate on days that aren't actually my birthday.  This year my birthday seemed to stretch on for most of the week and it was actually a lot of fun.

Anytime Notes from a Mom in CH or The Stir Crazy Moms' Guide to Durham post about something Noah & I make it our mission to check it out too.  They have the best ideas and give you all the dirty details, so it's fair to say I hang on their coat tails often.   When one of them checked out Dead Broke Horse Farm I knew this is what I wanted to do for my birthday.  I rode horses from age 5 to 13 or 14 as my 'sport.'  I love horses and have ridden on my birthday with the Editor in the past.  Dead Broke Horse Farm is only 30 minutes away from us (toward Raleigh but actually a Durham address).  We bought a Groupon for a Hand Led Horse Ride and arrived at 10am on Sunday morning.  As far as you could see were beautiful rolling hills and horses!  Horses in pastures, horses getting saddled, horses getting sprayed down. They also had dogs, cats, chickens, pigeons, rabbits, mini horses, and who knows what else! You know how some people are dog-people or cat-people, but not people-people?  These people are horse-people not people-people.  We just looked around for about 15 minutes before anyone acknowledged that we were there and had us sign away our lives.  Finally it was time to ride.  We got Noah outfitted with a helmet (I chose to forgo... if I fall off while someone else is leading us I've got some issues), and I jumped up on Julie.  Noah immediately reached up his arms and said, "Baby riding too?"  We had been preparing him for this moment all week, "You are going to sit on a horse' back."  But you never know what you are going to get with a newly emotional two year old.  We seemed to have lucked out on this particular day.  Toddler was in!  

Dead Broke has big saddles and we both fit really comfortably into the saddle.  Noah was calm and so relaxed on the horse!  Bailey, our teenage guide, led Julie through the woods for about 40 minutes telling us about Dead Broke and all the horses (130 acres with over 100 horses!)  We went up and down hills and even got to 'jump' a fallen tree branch.  I had the best time; I really love horses.  It was also really nice not to have to worry about the horse at all because Bailey was in control of her; I only had to worry about Noah.  And bonus points because Noah loved it! He had a great time too and even a week later when I say, "We're going to do something fun today, " he asked if we were going to ride horses again.  The Editor could have ridden with us or walked beside.  He chose to walk and take photos.  There is no doubt in my mind we will be back.  I'm ready the next time anyone wants to check it out.  (For the 2yr old crowd you have the choice of doing Hand Led ride with a parent or a Trail Ride with your toddler accompanied by a guide.)

On Monday, I didn't do anything birthday related, but I had requested some homemade baked goods for my birthday this year.  The week before the Editor and Noah had a few quiet moments downstairs (I presume trying to decide what to make).  I don't love surprises and lucky for me when I came downstairs that day Noah proudly exclaimed, "Cake! Cupcakes!"  If I could just get him to be a little bit more decisive he'd be completely in my corner.  So on Monday I pulled my beloved Kitchenaide out with a few instructions to the Editor and retreated upstairs.  I heard a lot of banging and a few, "Don't touch!" but I was released about an hour later and the house smelled great!  Noah and the Editor baked Lemon Blossom cupcakes with a lemon drizzle on top.  And of course, we had to eat one right away.  They tasted great, especially since the Editor has never baked before.  I'd love for this to be a yearly tradition but I'm not sure the Editor agrees.

Tuesday was actually my 32nd birthday and we had a regular day planned, as in it was a Noah day.  We were going to give Kindermusik a try with a friend in the morning and had playgroup after lunch.  We did make dinner reservations at a favorite of mine, Acme in Carrboro.  Lucky for me, they have a Tuesday special, $12 Tuesdays where all entrees are $12 on Tuesdays (was that self explanatory?).  We started the day with presents, which is the best way to start! Noah gave me a book for us to read together about a day out with mom, Noah & the Editor gave me an inital necklace I've been eyeing for a long time with an 'N' in it, and Tucker got me a new vacuum.  I kid, I kid.  The Editor got me a new vacuum and yes I know as a woman I'm supposed to be disgusted by this blatant symbol of my role in the house blah blah blah.  But my vacuum has been slowly losing plastic pieces, and I've hated it since day one.  Honestly, I cannot wait to test out my Dyson Animal and have a whole new vacuuming experience.

Our day went really well until it was time for dinner.  We had the first reservation (5:30 pm) because we are taking a toddler to a more grownup restaurant.  Well we got stuck in some major traffic.  In fact it wasn't just regular UNC traffic, there was an accident.  So we were running way late.  We called Acme and they gave us their spiel about giving up our reservation after 15 minutes; if we got there after 5:45 they would seat us outside.  Okay, no problem, it was a gorgeous day.  Well we got there at around 5:53pm and they sat us inside with an "oh, it's no problem' attitude.  Good thing too because there were only about 3 tables occupied at the time.  Crab cake dinner was excellent and we did a little walk around Carrboro for ice cream after (let's face it the 6 cucpcakes were all but gone at this point anyways).  

 Stayed tuned for the Abroad Edition of Celebrating My Birthday.  And of course, by Abroad I mean New Jersey and NYC! Here are two sneak peak photos!

  

30+2 on 9-04

After Noah's birthday (and a cousin's birthday, a brother's birthday, a cousin's daughter's birthday, and my dad's birthday) it's MY Birthday!  I was due to be born on August 24th but am a September baby- happily.  When Noah was due on July 31st I wished, and hoped, and wished some more that he would be born in July.  My family has too many August birthdays, including one before his, but he was a late comer like myself.  

I actually really like my 9-04 birthday.  7 is my favorite number, but 9-04 is a close second.  Anytime I can catch 9:04 on the clock is like a little celebration. I actually say it out loud, even if I'm alone, "9-04!"  And by catch I don't mean seeing that it's 9:01 and then looking at the clock every so often to see if it's 9:04 yet.  I mean, happening to glance at the clock and see that it's 9:04 exactly.  And you know this happens at least once every couple of days.  I consider this very lucky because I'm a kind of a dork like that.

The best thing about my birthday is that it's always Labor Day week. So it's always a long weekend and short work week, even if my b-day doesn't fall on the actual holiday there are perks.  And it's always warm enough for the beach!

This year I'm turning 32 (yes, I'm a year older than my birthday twin- Beyonce).  Here are 3 things that I'm super excited about:

1- Jeffrey Lewis is returning to Bravo on Sept 4th for a new season of Flipping Out!  I LOVE Jeff Lewis and Flipping Out so I'm super excited.

2-  My cousin got 2 tickets to Live! with Kelly for Sept 6th.  I am flying up on the 5th and going to the show with her!  I love Kelly Ripa and watch this show (or DVR it) every day.  Noah loves Kelly too; he dances with her, likes the beach balls, the prize wheel, claps for her. It's too cute.  And now he'll get to watch to see if Mommy makes it on TV on Kelly's show.  I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this.  We found out about a month ago and it's all me and my cousin can talk about (who will be the co-host, who will be the guests, what is Kelly going to wear, will Mark Consuelos be there).  It's the perfect birthday present that just happened.  (Please help me figure out what to wear... I know ... not that it matters, I'm not going to be on TV... but still!)

3- Melissa Etheridge's new album is dropping on Sept 4th  Okay, I don't care about this AT ALL, but it's true and in keeping with my 3-2 theme I had to have something else.

And 2 things we are doing to celebrate:

1- The Husband & I have horseback ridden on my birthday before.  I rode for 8 years as a kid, so I love it.  This year, after scoping out Notes from a Mom in CH's fun day at Dead Broke Horse Farm I immediately said this is what I want to do on my birthday.  And we snagged a Groupon thanks to a friend looking out for me!  I cannot wait to ride a horse with Noah.  He's never ridden one before, but he did drive one in Raleigh after a visit to the Natural Science Museum and he loved it.

2- The Husband always gets me the most delicious strawberry custard cake with brownie crust from Goodberries for my birthday. It is so yummy, and I usually eat the whole thing over the course of two weeks.  This year I have requested asked nicely that he & Noah bake me some sort of birthday dessert (cake/cupcake/whatnot).  I cannot wait to see how this turns out! I am the baker in our family and as far as I know, the Husband hasn't baked anything before.  Luckily, Noah helps me out quite a bit and should be able to direct the Husband to where the Kitchenaid is and how to pour in the sugar.

Two weeks (and one day) until birthday!

EDIT: I just found out that Live! with Kelly is announcing their new permanent co-host on... 9-04! Another reason to celebrate!  Which means I'll be seeing their 3rd day on the job (officially). Who's it going to be- Nick Lachey or Michael Strahan?

Animal Anxieties

Noah loves animals ... in books.  Now cats and dogs are no problem for Noah, but anything else causes some anxiety.  We read about animals all.the.time!  The first animal sound Noah made was "Moo" at my cousin's house right after his first birthday while reading our favorite, Is Your Mama a Llama?   We visited Max at the Museum of Life and Science a few months earlier that summer and Noah was okay with him until he started actually mooing.  Poor Max; Noah has never been a fan.

Max

In March, Noah and I visited the NC Zoo.  This was our second visit; the first visit he was all about the chimps.  He looked at them forever.  This visit- nope.  He was not having it.  He was seriously scared and wanted to stay as far away as possible.  I'm pretty sure he didn't think there was glass between us.  He eventually warmed up to the elephant, but initially he ran away.

Even though I know he's still wary of Max at Life and Science along with the donkey, goats, and sheep he warmed up to the bunnies and pigs on our last visit.  The next day we were going to Farm Animal Days.  If you are a mom in our area you've heard about this.  Three days a year, for a few hours each day, the NCSU College of Agriculture lets you come on their farm to touch the baby animals and eat ice cream for free.  How could you not want to go?  So their website says that 9am is one of their not busy times.  We headed over to get there at 9 and were slammed with a minivan SUV traffic jam before we even hit the driveway.  Almost 15 minutes later we were parking in a field surrounded by what someone Tweeted as Woodstock for Honda Odyssey's.  It was SO crowded.  Noah has never been anywhere so crowded besides the fair and he was in the stroller then.

We started with baby bunnies.  Nope, Noah would not touch a bunny let alone let go of my shirt and hair to get close to one.  I should have brought the Ergo.  Next baby chicks.  So cute but no dice.

The signs all over the chick area said to wash your hand immediately after touching these little cuties.  Well of course, I couldn't find the hand washing station immediately.  All the while Noah practiced his gentle touches all over my face.  Good thing he didn't touch the chick all that much.  Once we found that hand washing station I could barely pump the water out anyways.  Good thing for wipes!

He did touch a baby goat; is that a kid?  He's into goats right now. I think he thinks it's fun to say.  No lamb though; it was so soft.  He has no idea what he's missing.  We tried to take a picture with the lamb.

From the goats and sheep we could see the tractors.  There were maybe 5 of them.  Noah really wanted to get on a tractor.  He just kept saying it over and over again.  Unfortunately the lines were too long for us to wait.  Poor kid, this was the only thing he wanted to do.  Maybe next year.  Instead I drug him over to the cows for a bit more torture. 

 Yes, those are baby tears because we are too close to the mom and baby cow in the pen behind us.

But he dried his tears and actually started talking about the cows.

Because he found some about 200 yards away with a body of water between them and him.  Can you just barely see the black dots in this photo? Those are the cows he started yabbering about.

And then the moment I was most looking forward to.

A little open space to sit in the sun with some strawberry ice cream.  And though exhausted, Noah did not nap after our farm adventure (we are on an every other day schedule this was an off day). But we still had a great day and I'll be looking forward to another Farm Animal Day next year with a little less anxiety.