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Party Planning: Clara's First Birthday
Clara's big birthday shindig is tomorrow! Along with her actual birthday. It seems utterly insane to think that this time last year she was just arriving. Oy, how time flies. And since so many of you were asking for par-tay details I figured I'd toss up a quick little pre-party-prep post about all of my "supplies" for the bean's big day. You'll have to excuse me if you think I'm going overboard. I'm just a little obsessed with our girl and we're so honored and excited to celebrate her first year here (more on the reasons for my über appreciative b-day behavior here).
First I made Martha's ubiquitous paper poms with tissue paper and some string in our three main party colors (blue, green, and pink- just like her nursery).
You'll probably remember those colors from her invite (which we made here). Those hues are based on her bedroom- she just loves blue, green, and a hint of pink. At least for now. She'll probably go through a goth black-loving phase someday so I'll take pink, blue, and green while I can.
Now we have a handy little numbered photo. Because we all know I like listing stuff. Explanations below.
- This is a cloth party hat that gets passed around our entire family for every child's birthday. It was last worn in October by Clara's older cousin Emanuel on his first birthday and she's been eying it ever since.
- This is the birthday fabric that we designed on Spoonflower for Clara's 52 week photo. We also plan to use that as a backdrop for a little photo station where everyone at the party can stand and hold those white pieces of paper with colored borders while they pose for a pic. We plan to take each photo and add the person's name on the blank piece of paper in Photoshop and make a little album for Clara so she can start to learn and see names like "Granny" and "Nona" (her two grandmas) and look back to see everyone who came to celebrate her.
- Here are the fun patterned napkins and plates that we got from Party City on sale. Since our party's "theme" is based vaguely on Clara's weekly photos (which inspired her invitation) we thought the patterned napkins and plates looked like a background we would have chosen for one of her weekly shoots.
- Those are giant punch balloons that we grabbed from Target (I thought they'd look fun hanging from the trees on the patio if it doesn't rain on my
- These are the two banners I've made (one a long time ago with paper, and one recently with my stubborn sewing machine) full of fun patterns and colors that also remind us of backdrops for those weekly pics.
- Here we have piles of pink, blue, and green balloons from Target that I'd love to blow up and make into huge balloon garlands to be swagged around outside (or inside if it rains).
- Those are two tablecloths in pink and blue. Just to cover things like odd outdoor tables that don't match and to add more pops o' color.
- This is a festive table runner that I made with some of Clara's weekly fabrics (just like her quilt, but it was way faster and easier- I'll post the detailed instructions for ya soon).
- Then we have some sidewalk chalk to entertain the kiddos out on the patio. And next to that are little containers of bubbles shaped like ice cream cones (from Target) that will serve as favors for our wee guests (I want to personalize them with each of their names).
I still have to make her smash cake and arrange for the rest of the food, but that shouldn't be too hard (famous last words?). Oh and we're going to make a little time capsule that guests can add stuff to for her to open when she's 18. That should end up being hilarious. I hope.
Operation Start Blowing Up All Those Balloons is about to commence.
We also mentioned that we wanted to DIY a piñata a while back, but the jury is still out on whether it's going to work. So far I made paper maché (mixing approximately two parts water to one part flour)…
… and blew up one of those punch balloons from Target that wasn't in our color scheme (the orange one)…
… and cut a bunch of newspaper strips…
… which I paper machéd to the big balloon…
… which I then let dry a bit overnight and then hung outside this morning to hopefully speed up the drying process (since it was still soggy and looking a bit – uh – questionable). Might be a wop-wop project. We'll have to see.
I still have to let it dry, pop the balloon, fill it with little toys or candy, and add ruffled tissue paper all over it so it doesn't look like a big goiter (we actually want to make it a pull string piñata since that works well for smaller kids but we'll have to see how it goes and post details if we get 'er done).
But more nerveracking than my homemade piñata's fledgling looks is the forecast. Boo. What's the deal with the whole scattered t-storms thing?
Please for the love of balloons in trees and bubble yielding ice cream cones, let it be clear and sunny-ish for just two early afternoon hours. Then it can rain cats and dogs all night.
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292 Comments
SO cute!! I can't wait to see how it all comes together. It's adorable so far :-)
Much love,
Future Mama
Yeah!!! You're making the time capsule. I'm the one who emailed you about mine a few months back. Crossing my fingers it doesn't rain on you tomorrow.
Can you further elaborate on the time capsule idea? I tried to do an archive search but it wasn't very fruitful.
oh so cute!!!!!! I LOVE the bright colors of everything, and it's totally awesome that its a fun, bright birthday without being overrun by a particular cartoon/tv character (but that's fine too). Can't wait to see it all in action! I'm sure it's going to be a great party!
Happy Birthday Clara. We share a birthday. It is the 9th anniversary of my 30th birthday though. You enjoy your first. What a wonderful party your family has planned for you.
I am praying to my Mom in heaven, Baby Brenda, the Patron Saint of wedding and outdoor party weather to keep the rain away for you. Downpour rain was in the forecast for my wedding day but not a drop fell until we had finished our
pre-ceremony outdoor pictures and we were in church! Hoping for the same luck for you guys tomorrow!
Love the bright colors! Can't wait to see pictures next week!!
what food are you serving good?
Can't wait to see pictures from the party- love your ideas.
Happy 1st Birthday, Clara!
My 8 year old daughter made those poms in the same colors and they are hanging from her bedroom ceiling! Your blog is my absolute favorite!!!
Another shout out for Martha, but this time for the striped kitchen towel peeking out in the paper mache photo! We have the same ones (along with more terry cloth type hand towels in the coordinating taupe color) and absolutely love them. Definitely an item I'd recommend snagging if you see them on sale at Macys!
You can try putting the paper mâché in your freezer for short increments. Moisture will evaporate as it freezes. Just take it out every so often so it doesn't actually freeze.
All of your supplies are so cheerful and fun! I can't wait to hear all about the party!
I'll be crossing my fingers that you're rain free tomorrow!
Oh man, you guys should totally make the Martha rainbow birthday cake, but with just the party colors –
i am really looking forward to seeing the after pics… do we have to wait till monday?! ah!
Let the EXTRAVAGANZA begin!!! Will be thinking good thoughts for the weather and the fun get-together. Enjoy every minute of it. CLARA is only "1" once!!!
Another Milestone to check off…….got it!!!
Have fun with family and friends.
Will be thinking of you.
(I am the one who made the gall bladder post earlier this week. Not that you care….but I am just about 100% back. FEELIN HUMAN AGAIN!)
Everything for the party looks great. I'll be a hoping for a sunny day for you all! :)
I forgot to say….Happy Birthday Precious Little Girl.
How lucky she is to have great parents like the both of you.
The pinata goiter cracked me up – hope it dries in time for the party! We're in No. VA and the forecast here is rain/t-storms for the next week. What the…?! Really hoping the weatherman is wrong – both for Clara's party and for the sanity of Virginians throughout the state! (And we're also going to a first birthday party tomorrow – though I think this party is more about the adults sitting around drinking beer – which we can do rain or shine!)
Happy Birthday to Clara and congrats on your first year of parenthood completed!
You must be the pom pom whisperer! I've tried that tutorial twice and I can't get the tissue paper to fluff up out of the folds the way it's supposed to. I pull gently and they don't come out. I pull harder and they wrinkle and rip. Instead of a round O shape I get more of a pathetic I shape and you can still see the flat middle part. I generally try to avoid luscious fullness around my middle section, but when it comes to pom poms I can't get a full middle section no matter how hard I try. I'd love any suggestions because I'm throwing a bridal shower next Saturday and had my heart set on hanging these beautiful cheap decorations that I can't seem to make.
I find that good quality tissue paper helps with this problem. I've made these many times, using cheap-o paper from the dollar store and more expensive paper from craft stores, and the difference was quite noticeable. I also use 12 sheets per pom pom to give it more fullness. Hope that helps!
Put a fan on that balloon!!! Hope it dries nicely! And sending no rain jazz hands to you Sherry and John! I'm going to need the favor returned for next Saturday as my family is hosting a 40 person outdoor bridal shower for my cousin!
Have a great time tomorrow and Happy Birthday Clara!!!
May 14 is a great day for a birthday! My oldest niece turns 5 tomorrow so I'll be hoping for blue skies for you and here in Iowa too! Hope the weather holds out, but even if it doesn't I know you guys will make the best of it.
(However, I'm crossing my fingers for an overcast and semi-chilly Sunday morning, perfect weather to run 13.1 miles!!)
Oh, and maybe you can take the hair dryer to the paper mache? (of course with all of the spare time you have to blow dry a balloon ;)
Birthday parties are so fun and provide some of the best/funniest memories. On my niece's first birthday she absolutly refused to touch her smash cake because she's really finicky about her hands being dirty (actually, she's just really finicky in general. She FOLDS her napkins before throwing them away). My SIL put her hand in the cake and the loudest scream-cry I've ever witnessed ensued. We just attended her 4th birthday party last weekend at Chuck E. Cheese (I'm never going back there again. NEVER.) and she was traumatized by the man in the mouse costume. The mascot did this 30 minute schpeel he's required to do for all parties, and she just cried hysterically the whole way through. I'll never understand why he didn't just say "Happy Birthday" and leave.
We used to make paper mache with tissue paper (a few layers are required). It seemed to dry alot faster than the newspaper. It might be too late, though!
All the decorations look great and I'm definately stealing your idea of the group pics with the blank paper to add text to later!! Great idea!
My favorite blog and my daughter turns 6 tomorrow too. I hope you have a great party!
I recall doing paper mache with equal parts flour and water. Well, at any rate, I am commenting to recommend that you use your hair dryer to dry it. Worked like a charm for the masks I made.
Happy 1st birthday to Clara!!
I hope your party goes off without a hitch. The colors are so bright and fun, and whenever we have kids, I'm going to probably steal your weekly photo idea…so sorry/thanks! :)
I'm up here in Ohio doing the rain dance for you…
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Archive for the 'Baseball-Reference.com' Category
Extensive Uniform Additions — Baseball-Reference.com
We've added a lot of new data outputs to go along with our uniform data.
Franchise Summaries - for each franchise we show every player to wear a number for that franchise. Here are the Red Sox and links to every other franchise.
Yearly Summaries for the League - for each season since 1929, we show the players to wear the number for that season. Here is the 2012 season. It's under the "Other" tab on the yearly league pages.
All-time and Year-by-Year by Number - In our Frivolities section we added tools to search for every player to wear a number and clicking on a year there will show you a particular season/number combination with stats. Here is everyone to wear 00.
All Retired Numbers - also in frivolities, we show every MLB retired number.
Example Color Schemes - also in frivolities, we show every MLB uni color scheme since 1929.
1 Comment | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, Features, Trivia, Uncategorized
Subscribe to the Play Index!
With Spring Training just around the corner, be sure to make the Baseball-Reference Play Index a part of your baseball experience for the 2013 season!
What's the Play Index? It's a set of research tools that allow you to create customizable queries on our database, save the results, and share them with others. Using the PI, you can:
- Search full-season or multi-year totals to find your own custom leaderboards - Look at the entire history of baseball from 1871-2012 with every year, team, and position available, or filter the results in a vast number of ways: by specific years, by age, by first six seasons or last ten seasons, by American League only, by Cubs only, by switch-hitters, by catchers, by outfielder or infielder, by year of debut, but active or retired, by Hall of Famer, by height and weight, by living or deceased, or by a range of common statistical categories. Then sort the results by any common statistic, by the teams with the most players matching that category, by players with the most seasons matching that category, or by most recent, youngest, oldest, final year, or year of debut, and others.
- Search player game totals - Filtering on any of a dozen or more choices, search for games on a single player level, or on any batter from 1916-2012, or on any pitcher. The same can be done for Team Batting or Team Pitching Totals.
- Search player games looking for the most consecutive games matching a particular set of criteria - This can be done either on a single player level or on any batter in the last 97 years or on any pitcher. The same can be done for Team Batting or Team Pitching Streaks.
- Search the records of a specific player - Output a detailed summary and play-by-play list of all events of a specific type from a single year or an entire career. For example, you can see all of Harmon Killebrew's triples or even his outs to the second baseman.
- Search Batter vs. Pitcher Matchups - This tool presents a complete sortable list of batter or pitcher with totals for every opponent they faced by career or by year. Clicking on the player's name will lead you to a detailed output of their head-to-head plate appearances.
- ...And more!
Personal Subscriptions to the Play Index still cost just $36 for a year, $6 for a month, or $2 for 24 hours. Subscriptions may only be used by a single user, and there are discounts for users sponsoring at least $35 in pages.
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So go ahead, give the Play Index a try -- we're confident that once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
6 Comments | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, expire21d, Play Index
Outs on Bases by Base
2012 Major League Baseball Baserunning/Misc.
To the baserunning pages for teams, players, leagues (currently rebuilding non-league pages), I've added columns for OOB1, OOB2, OOB3, OOBHm or rather outs on base at 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Home.
See the screenshot below for the location of this data. It's available in the league nav bar which is on any of league yearly pages just below the top ad.
Comments Off | Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Uncategorized
Leaders For Double Plays Turned by Position
Career Leaders & Records for Double Plays Turned as 2B - Baseball-Reference.com.
For some strange reason we didn't have DP leaders on the site. That's been rectified. Leaders Index.
1 Comment | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com
2012 League-wide Starter & Pitching Staff Grids – Baseball-Reference.com
2012 Team-by-Team Starters and Pitching Staffs
For each season in MLB history we've added grids of each starter for each major league team. These are linked from the other tab in the year-league nav bar. See the screenshot below.
The players are chosen largely by games played. If you mouse over the names you'll see all of the players at that position for the team. We also include the player's WAR totals in the outputs. You can also click on the header to sort by WAR for that position.
1 Comment | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Uncategorized
Player Fielding Gamelogs
Bill Mazeroski Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com.
It's been a long-time coming, but I added player fielding gamelogs yesterday. Nothing too fancy, but basic fielding stats game-by-game for each player since 1916. Here is Mazeroski's 1960 game log and Cobb for 1916. We have the overall gamelog (irrespective of position) followed by position specific logs.
You can get to the gamelogs by clicking the gamelog selection over the top of the standard fielding stats on the player pages. See the screen shot below.
2 Comments | Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Features
Hockey-Reference Play Index
With the NHL starting back up after the lockout, here's a reminder that we offer our familiar Play Index tools for hockey, too:
Player Game Finder
Search through NHL regular season and playoff game logs spanning from 1987-88 to today for games that match your criteria.
Player Season Finder
Search through NHL regular season statistics spanning from 1917-18 to today for single seasons or combined seasons that match your criteria.
Player Playoff Finder
Search through NHL playoff statistics spanning from 1918 to today for single years or combined years that match your criteria.
2 Comments | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, Olympics at S-R, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com
PI Season Finders with "Rough" Rookie Status Option
Batting Season Finder -- - Baseball-Reference.com
I've added search options to the pitching and batting season finders which apply the at bat and innings pitched minimums for rookie status. This leaves out the "less than 45 days service time prior to Sept. 1" requirement which I simply can not compute at this time (nor do I ever expect to).
I've retroactively applied these standards back to the 1871 seasons, so some simple searches are now possible.
2 Comments | Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com
Play Index Inning Scoring & Lead Change Tool
2012 Team Scoring and Leads Summary - Baseball-Reference.com
This tool has been around for awhile, but I just updated the look to use tables rather than pre-formatted text (I think there is only one tool left that is pre-formatted) which adds the embed, share and sorting tools into the mix.
4 Comments | Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com
Event Finders Now with Batted Ball Type
Event Finders with Batted Ball Types
Did you know that the Pirates gave up the most ground ball bunt singles last year (30) and the Rangers and Brewers the fewest (10)? Or that Matt Cain gave up 10 all by himself.
You can now find information like that on the Play Index Event Finders as we've added the type of batted ball in our DB to the event finder outputs.
Comments Off | Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Play Index