Christmas is 2 months away! Just thinking about it makes me reflect on some of my all time favorite Christmas celebrations. Coincidentally they all took place in small and unusual circumstances. I remember spending our first Christmas as newly weds at a hotel because we were visiting my parents who were not in their new house yet.

I remember another Christmas in a hotel when we spent the holidays helping out after hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans.

 Our last Christmas in our Texas home was really special too. We had to keep everything simple because of our house being on the market, but we still managed to pull out the little Christmas tree that we’ve had forever, which adorns a silly little aluminum foil star. We opened a few presents with the kids before heading off to church and that was that.

 All three of these Christmases were beautiful and I will never ever forget them, but my favorite Christmas was spent in a hospital.

Yesterday I showed part 1 of Ezie’s birthday party and today I am going to share 10 party details that made this event in our little home so special!

1. I already posted the invitations

2. And the party favors for the kids

3. This banner was really special because it was made by my sister in law and sent all the way from Texas to Ohio just for us!

5. I found this camping cake idea online and put my own spin on it.

7. The kids room was transfomed into a “Fort Building Station” Most of the printables I used are form here.

8. The mason jars had thank you notes and photos of the birthday boy for the guest’s party favors.

I love throwing parties for my kids, and this month we had a big birthday, but I wasn’t sure how to do it with such limited space. I knew I wanted Ezie’s theme to be One Happy Camper. I had been dreaming it up for a while. That’s what I do when I can’t sleep. I just plan parties in my head. However my idea of actually going camping was making me nervous because the last three weather related activities I planned got rained out.

If you are planning an event and have a small home you pretty much have two options. You can keep your guest list relatively small or you can take your party elsewhere. For Ezie’s birthday we did both.

I only invited my immediate family. My parents and both of my brother’s families. There are 13 of us altogether.

This minimal guest list allowed me to get more creative with the invitations.

I had the birthday boy put orange and yellow hand prints on blank cards and glued painted popsicle sticks to look like a camp fire. It was really sweet, but it would have been difficult to pull off if we had to make any more.

The party began with dinner at a local restaurant. While we were there I gave the kids their party favors to keep our campers happy during meal time.

The party bags had a camping scene with the recipients picture inside a tent and were each full of camp themed goodies. (scroll to the end for exact dimensions and more details)

Watching the kids light up as they saw their pictures and pulled out their prizes made my heart overflow with joy! I was thrilled with how it all turned out.

After the restaurant we headed back to the apartment for cake, presents, and a little fort building. I will share about that half tomorrow.

For now here is a “how to” for my camping party favor bags.

 You will need:
1 Brown paper lunch bag for each guest
yellow/white paper or a small print out of a sun or moon
green paper (half an 8×11 sheet for each guest)
blue paper (half an 8 x11 sheet for each guest)
a small photo of each ‘camper’
camping party favors *I’ve got plenty of ideas to choose from

Most paper bags are going to be about 5.5″ X 11″. I just cut sporadically and guesstimated on all of these (and it shows). For those that are more precise here are some measurments that I took from one of the bags I pulled apart.

The sky is going to be 5.5 x 7.25 inches
The grass is 5.5 X 4.5 inches
The tent is about 4 inches high and 4.25 inches wide.

To make the tent begin by cutting a 4 inch wide (approximately 8 inches long) strip of paper. Then fold each side diagnolly to make a triangle (it will have points hanging down that you will cut off).
.

You will end up cutting the each flap two times. Sorry, the only picture I have is this crumpled up one that I pulled off of one of the kids bags. Hopefully I will have a chance to update this later.

I printed the sun and moon out on white paper, but you could make one yourself. Mine were 2×2 inches.

The photo inside is 2 inches high as well.

I think it goes without saying, but glue all the pieces on your bag to make a camping scene. I ran out of blue paper which is why half of my campers are in the dark.

I liked both version. I might have used a dark navy for the night sky if I had planned it ahead.

Equally as fun was the contents inside.

 Here are some ideas along with where you can find them

Clif Kids fruit rope (Kroger organice setion )
Honey Maid s’mores Grahamfuls (Kroger cookie section)
Compass (8 pack at the Dollar Tree)
Magnifying glass (Party City 33 cents each )
Mini Camera that shows pictures when you click the shutter (Party City 48 cents each)

I also thought about doing Pop Rocks, but couldn’t find any and later on  I saw these Keebler snacks and thought they were adorable.

If you had a lot of guests and you wanted to keep it simple you could just send the kids home with some Bug Bites!

I think that’s it for my ONE Happy Camper party favor set. More camping party ideas coming tomorrow!

When we lived in 1,800 square feet and had only one child we were already feeling cramped. Imagine that? We were stuffed with stuff. I found this video (which was a messy mom video series I did EXACTLY 5 years ago called Mystery of the Missing Shoe). I had just emptied out Z’s closet which was chock full of every baby item from boppy to bumbo.

One way to create extra storage and make use of the space that you have is by hanging things.

For more of this series click HERE.

We’ve all heard the saying “Less is More” even if it was in the Charmin Ultra commercial. But does anyone know where it came from? 

I really admire his work. What’s ironic to me though is how the man who was famous for saying “less more” had a name that was longer than the quote he itself (25 letters vs 12). Maybe Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s was so tired of saying his name that he finally decided to make a declaration that less is more. Who knows? 

Check out my index page for the rest of this series.

Yesterday I talked about bedroom sharing and today I want to touch on bathroom sharing. As you can imagine our 800 square foot apartment only has one bathroom, which also seconds as an indoor pool.

The baby doesn’t use the toilet, but he does bathe so that makes 4.5 peeps sharing one bathroom. Most of my childhood was spent in a home where the 6 of us shared one bathroom and I never thought anything of it. My mom grew up in a family of 8 and they shared one bathroom. My mother in law grew up in a family of 8 as well and they didn’t even have a bathroom. They used an out house and warm water from the kitchen was used to fill a wash tub for bath time. Statistics form the U.S. Census bureau show that the average home had one bathroom all the way from the 1960’s to as late as 1991. Then it increased to one and a half bathrooms. The 2011 Survey showed that for the first time ever the median residence was found to have 2 or more bathrooms and that is still the average today. 

I have nothing against having multiple bathrooms, but it’s not the necessity that most Americans see it as. These days so many of our modern day conveniences solve one problem while creating another. 

Cars and elevators mean we have to make more of a conscious effort to exercise our bodies via gym memberships and exercise equipment.  

Social networking and cell phones present a new struggle in being focused on the people that are in front of us live and in the flesh. 

Families used to have to share a TV, a phone, and a bathroom, and now we have to go to counseling to figure out why our families are so disconnected.

 Of course families in the 1950’s had problems too. I am not saying the good old days were perfect, but there are some aspects of simpler times that we can certainly learn from and apply to our lives today. That or we might as well watch our society go down the toilet! Just kidding. 

How many bathrooms did you have in you childhood home? How many do you have now? I’d love to hear more perspectives. 

This month I am talking about finding lots of hope in a little home. Click HERE to find links to what I have written so far and a schedule for what’s to come.

Today I am talking about the kids room. My kids share a room and a futon for now. 
I’ve never had the privilege of sharing a room with a sibling because I was the only girl in my family, but my friends that did have roommates seemed to have a special bond that I always admired. Since I don’t have any personal experience on the matter I thought I would ask someone who does.

My friend Kathryn has four sisters and one brother and all of the girls shared a room! That’s right, 5 girls in one space. Their dad constructed a special bed Kathryn called the pyramid, which holds 5 twin mattresses on 3 tiers.

 I asked Katherine a couple questions about what it was like squeezing into a small space like that and she said “There were aspects that I loved about sharing a room, like sharing clothes with 2 of my sisters, and all the late-night talks: mostly silly, but the occasional heart-to-heart.”
When I asked her what advice she would give to other room sharers or in my case their parents, she emphasized having something of your own. “It’s nice to have SOME personal space” says Katherine “even if it’s just your mattress (or mattress half – did that too!) or a shelf in the closet that no one else in the room is allowed to access without permission. Being able to personalize my bed space was nice: picking out my bedding and writing on my bunk ceiling.” And parents be warned Katherine says “Talking/playing after bedtime WILL happen…but that’s the best perk of sharing a room”

 She also mentioned that sharing a room has helped in building a strong marriage.