November 2011 - Page 4 of 6

As many of you know my littlest guy just turned one. It’s a tradition in our family (you know since we’ve done it twice now) to go all out for their first birthday party. It’s a big milestone and besides that mommy can do whatever she chooses because at one the birthday boy doesn’t care to have any input. Yay! I decided on a Little Guy in a Tie party theme, but was struggling with a color scheme until I found the shirt.

Thank you Target for providing the perfect shirt for the occasion (which everyone at the party thought I made) and thus deciding the color scheme for me. You may have also spotted the “perfect shirt” on my oldest in my DIY photo booth post.

What’s a tie party without a tie party banner?

Cut out ties and letters with my silhouette and attached it all with glue dots.

And what’s a tie party banner without a whole bunch of food to match. I thought it would be fun to make all of the food in the color scheme of green, white and black. Sounds weird, but there is a surprising amount of tasty food in those colors.

On the menu:

-Water with Lime

-Pinwheel wraps

-Green Grapes

-Green Apple Slices

-Green onion & cream cheese appetizer

-Build your own salad:

mixed greens

spinach

olives

mushrooms

grilled chicken

mozzarella cheese

cucumbers

green onions

boiled eggs

ranch dressing

poppyseed dressing

Menu continued:

-Tortilla Chips

-Guacamole

-Spinach Dip

-Potato Chips

-Veggie Tray:

sugar snap peas

broccoli

cauliflower

cucumber

pickles

celery

jicama

olives

dill dip

-Sourdough Bread

-Laughing Cow Light Swiss Cheese Spread

-Linda’s Cheesy Chip Dip

(Large tub cottage cheese, 8 oz. cream cheese room temp, slightly less than 1/2 tsp of onion salt and garlic salt, mix together with a hand mixer)

Kiddie Menu:

-Apple Juice

-Diced Pears

-String Cheese

-Applesauce

-Natural White Cheddar Cheetos

Printable food labels from the adorable Halloween Pack from Kiki Creates.

More food I ran out of time to put out:

-Pear slices

-Green Jello with Cool Whip

-PB&J on white bread

-Sprite

This post is getting rather lengthy so we will break it off now, but stay tuned for posts on tie party activities, treats, & take homes.

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I am SUPER excited to be doing a guest post for Michelle on her creative “A Little Tipsy” blog! I think she just comes up with the cutest ideas! I also LOVE that she caters to those living on a budget!! 🙂 The hubster & I are on a little bit of a budget right now since he decided to go back to school….so any fun craft I can do for UNDER $20, I am all over! 🙂

I am Tara, one of the *divas* blogging for the website, The Dating Divas.

I am married to my best friend, addicted to crafting & coming up with creative dates for my sweetie & me, AND I loooove blogging with some of my closest friends. Life is good! On The Dating Divas website, we are all about coming up with creative dates & crafty ideas that will help strengthen our relationships…and I have the PERFECT one to share with you. Michelle thought this crafty idea would be PERFECT for this time of year to share with her readers….and I have to agree! Ready for some fun?!?

The Spouse Countdown to Xmas

Are you ready for the hustle & bustle of Christmas to begin?? Oooohhh…I am! I absolutely LOVE Christmas time!! *sigh* OK….”observation time”…..I feel that when the Christmas season hits, we usually tend to focus more on the kids….don’t you agree?? Of course, the wonder and joy on their faces when they experience a FABULOUS Christmas…definitely HELPS. {lol}If you want to make sure your spouse knows how much you adore him/her during THIS holiday season…and doesn’t feel neglected….have I got an idea for you! Cuz ya know….Christmas isn’t JUST for the little ones…. ☺

Two years ago, I decided I wanted my husband to have something FUN to look forward to when December hit….so I created the FIRST set of “Jamie’s Christmas Countdown”. Twenty-five days of L.O.V.E. just for him! I am going to show you my original Countdown to xmas…and if you are SUPER busy…..{Who isn’t, right?!?}…..there is a “quick” version that you can instantly download! 🙂

I grabbed a spool of beautiful cherry red ribbon, 25 clothespins, some removable clips that you can put on your walls….without ruining them. They are pretty cheap and you can purchase them anywhere – I got mine at Walmart.I then sat down….numbered a piece of paper from 1-25 and went to town planning my countdown! I put stars next to the nights that were Fridays & Saturdays….since those were the nights that I KNEW we would have time to either do a date night or stay up late. Next to each number I wrote one of three things:

A Compliment – something I LOVED about him {this made up 2/3 of the countdown}

A Service – something I was going to do for him {this was 1/2 of the last 1/3 of the countdown}

A FUN Christmas Activity – something we could go and do together….having to do with the season {this made up the remaining 1/2 of the last 1/3 of the countdown}

I made sure that they were ALL mixed up. BTW – don’t try to book every last weekend….things will come up, so make sure your schedule is flexible! Also – HE might secretly be planning fun things for you…so make sure to keep some of your weekend nights open. I would let him know in advance what particular nights you have “set” plans…..just mark put a heart on those days on your family calendar & tell him that those are nights he should keep open.

I typed up all of my different cards & scrapbooked each one. I went overboard that year and decided to do them ALL different themes/colors/sizes. Yep, I was crazy…in love! haha….I know, I know….cheesy….

Here are a few of the “Compliment” cards:

{Click On The Picture To Enlarge & Read Text}

Make sure you take this opportunity to point out to your spouse ALL of the wonderful things that you love about him/her! You can NEVER compliment a person too much!! Let them know how much you adore the funny quirks…that only YOU know about! 🙂 I had so much fun reflecting on our years together and jotting down the things I loved about him.

NEXT – the “Service” cards!

Here’s an example of one of mine:

{Click On The Picture To Enlarge & Read Text}

One night he came home to a trail of rose petals leading to our Master Bathtub where a candlelit bubble bath waited. {Wink} …thus the term “bubbly”….

Think about things your spouse would REALLY enjoy…and then use those as your “sevice” cards! For example, my husband LOVES back scratches…and I give super “wimpy” ones…..or so he says. 🙂 In my defense, uhhhhh….ok, so I AM a wimp! {lol} Anyway, I promised to give him an AMAZING backrub! I also don’t love to cook….please don’t judge me, all you CHEFS out there….so I made the ultimate sacrifice and told him I would create ANY dessert he wanted. {That was a HUGE sacrifice on my part….and do you know what he “ordered”?? Apple pie! You better believe I made it from scratch! Longest five hours of my life. J/K…maybe it only took me three?!?}

You get my point, right? Remember that December is going to be a CRAZY busy month for you…so don’t promise anything you can’t deliver on! 🙂 LAST but not least are the actual FUN Christmas activities that you will do together. I chose to keep them all a secret and use the cards as “teasers”.

Here are a few of mine:

{Click On The Picture To Enlarge & Read Text}

Some other activities I planned for us was a Christmas “Movie-a-thon” & watching all of our FAVs while eating our favorite Christmas treats, checking out the lights at Temple Square {this was when we lived in Utah}, planning a night under the stars {we camped out by the Christmas Tree on a blow-up mattress}, going to the Festival of Trees with his family, etc. They don’t ALL have to be Christmas-related! We had an entire night of Wii games. There are SO many fun Christmas things you can do together! This is where you can also involve the whole family! Have a “make a gingerbread house” night or decorate Christmas cookies or go caroling to your neighbors. Just make sure they are all activities that he {or she} would enjoy! THEN – you, of course, need to end the Countdown to Xmas with a LOVE note!!

{Click On The Picture To Enlarge & Read Text}”]

Now – if you are thinking….TARA!! Are you crazy?!? When am I going to find time to scrapbook 25 cards?? No worries! I found a pre-made cute Christmas notecard that you can download to use for YOUR cards. Just So Scrappy has super cute digiscrapbooking kits. She created a FREE {ooooohhhh…and we LOVE free….} download that would be perfect for this countdown idea!

Click HERE to be sent to that post. Just scroll all the way to the end of her post and the download is at the end. You can place the card png image on a Word document and size it to be ANY size you would like! I would suggest printing these on white cardstock….as they are in color. Cut them out and if you would like to make them “pop”, adhere them to Christmas-colored paper.

I also typed up the numbers #1-25 in my FAVORITE font….that you can download & cut apart. THEN – instead of putting your cards in an envelope, just flip them over and adhere the numbers on the back. Click HERE for that free printable. Wa-LAH! You are done!

Oh yeah….don’t forget to jot the actual “script” on each card! 🙂

I then put up the removeable hooks in our entryway, strung the festive ribbon along it, and clothespinned the cards up. It looked FAB-U-LOUS!!

I made sure to put up his countdown to xmas the last day of November….before he got home from work. He was extremely surprised to come home to this and was SO excited when I explained that he would get to read one each morning for the entire month of December!

If you still have children at home, you can involve them by letting them “help” Daddy read his card each morning. You could make this countdown something for the whole family….but in my humble opinion…I think your spouse would be pretty touched if you did this JUST for him/her!!

.…AND….this was one of our most “commented on” Christmas decor!! All of our friends and family LOVED not only the idea behind this….but how festive it was and how it completely dressed up our entryway! 🙂 Have fun creating your OWN Christmas Countdown!

So what is OUR website all about? I told you a little above….but in case you were curious….our website is what happens when a BUNCH of super crafty friends get together & come up with solutions for strengthening their marriages.

We blog about amazing & creative date ideas, fun gift ideas for our spouses, quick & easy romance ideas, CRAFTY tutorials, and MUCH, much more!! ANYTHING that would help enhance our already ROCKIN’ marriages!! We even decided to share tips on how to look good for our man AND ideas on how to keep things HOT in a certain room…..

…but you are gonna have to visit our blog for THAT!

Stop on by The Dating Divas to get more ROMANCE tips so you can keep dating that amazing spouse of yours! We love spreading the word about our blog….and we hope it will strengthen YOUR relationship as much as it has ours!!

Thanks again for letting me hang out with the ” Tipsy” crew today!