Saturday, March 21, 2009

March Maddness and Dump Trucks

As we all know, its March Maddness time and that is always fun. We decided to celebrate it by taking Kanyon to watch his daddy play basketball. Kory was playing in a tournament and my friend Lana was going to be there and I haven't seen her in forever so I really wanted to go. We are SOOOO close to the end of house arrest so we just decided to go ahead and bring Kanyon. This is Kory's last game/tournament so we didn't want Kanyon to have to wait ANOTHER year to finally get to watch his daddy play. We didn't know how he would do. Remember his first bball game to go watch?? ....
He did this the whole time:
But last night, he did AWESOME! He even clapped for our team some. The guy running the clock could NOT figure out the buzzer, so every time it buzzed, he couldn't get it turned off and klp didn't seem to be bothered. We had a great time visiting with Lana and her family and Kanyon loved getting to watch his daddy play basketball!! I think this day ranks right up there with the first ride with daddy in the tractor last summer.

Of course the real March Maddness is the NCAA tourney. We don't have cable but get several channels....CBS is not one of them so this is a tough time at our house. This is how we had to watch the games. It only comes in clear if someone is holding part of the rabbit ears. We tried to bring a bar stool over so whoever was holding it could sit and it didn't work!! UGHH!! The DTV switch is gonna kill us because we have the converter box and we get like NO channels....does anyone know about the antennas we should buy???!!!


OK on to something totally different. The big bday is less than a week away and the party is a week from today. I thought I'd show you our invitations. Its basically just a family party, so I decided to make the invitations since I wouldn't have to make that many. I like to kind of pick a theme just to give me something to do for the cake and invites. This year I went with dump trucks. I will admit that Mrs. Phillips (my teacher personality) had to come out a little to pull this off, but it was fun. I miss Mrs. Phillips sometimes! :)
I found a few pictures of dump trucks from my clip art on my computer. I kind of put different parts of them that I liked together and made the dump truck I liked. I wanted it to be boxier than these, but I liked certain parts of the pictures, so I kind of put them together and drew it out the way I liked it.

I traced over my pencil drawing with Sharpie and then cut the truck up into parts to make a template/pattern kinda thingy. I then traced each part on to a piece of paper. Each part had its own piece of paper because each part was a different color. I bought the colored card stock that I needed and I ran each different page with the patterns through a copy machine so that it would copy onto whatever color paper I needed it to be.
Here are the pattern pages that I ran through the copier. The top left I ran through on yellow, the top right on red, wheels on black, windows on blue....I didn't mean to make the lines on the dump part 2 different thickness...I meant for them to all be thin, but I accidentally used my big marker....no way I was going to re-do it just because of that.



Then my wonderful husband helped me cut them all out once they were coped.(even he got to go back to my teacher days when he would help me cut or glue stuff) Then it was just a matter of getting things glued on and putting them together. The worst part was the wheels because I had to cut out the circles, then I wanted them to have texture, so I used black shelf paper so I had to cut circles out of that too then glue them on top of the black paper tires. I used coarse sand paper and glued it on the back of the dump.

Everything is glued except the dump part I used a brad (found these cute colored ones at Hobby Lobby) in the bottom right corner so that the dump part would move.
So, you move it and see the invitation part. I really could've done better on this part, but I kind of ran out of ideas...this could totally be better, but it was fine.
All in all it was fun. I didn't factor the wheels/sand paper into the deal when I measured for an envelope. I bought the big greeting card ones and they were a little too tall so on the ones I mailed to our MT fam I had to fold the wheels a little which really bothered me, but I had to get over it. I kept the templates if anyone else needs a dump truck invitation!
I'm now working on how I'm going to do the cake...I think my mom and I have a good plan, but we'll see how it goes.

24 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Jaime, Cute invitations!! i can't believe he is almost 2 yrs old! I am glad you got to go to the tournament. Sorry I missed ya when we were in town. Miss ya!

Life as a Spencer! said...

So cute Jaymie!

Allison said...

Hi Jaymie, I love checking in on your sweet Kanyon thru your blog. What a precious miracle he is!

I LOVED your invitation! It is so creative and so cute!

I wanted to throw this out there because I have seen a dump truck party before and it was soo cute! I've seen the cake done 2 ways. Both were with an actual big dump truck toy and in the back they filled it with 'dirt cake'. (with cake, crumbled oreos, gummy worms...etc). It was so cute. Then I have seen it where they used a big dump truck and used it where it was trying to scoop up the dirt (cake) that was spread across the table. Both were super cute center pieces for the party!

Just thought I'd share!! Have fun party planning!

~Allison

Anonymous said...

Oh, Jaymie.....you are amazing.....for lots of reasons! But, I'm loving those dump trucks......can't wait to see the cake! Kanyon is so adorable.....we are hoping there's a summer trip to Montana in the works! Hugs to each of you and a special one to the birthday boy.....love, Marilyn

annalee said...

what a great party theme! and the invitations turned out so cute for your so cute guy. way to go creative friend!

Sydni said...

I was just thinking this morning how your house arrest is soooo close to being OVER!!! How fabulous that Kanyon got to go to his daddy's game! You already know exactly how I feel about the invitations - completely blown away. Completely.

Jessica said...

very cute Mrs. Phillips!!!

Jenna said...

Love that Kanyon got to go to a basketball game...sweet picture! And I'm so sorry you're not getting good reception for the tournament. We have a converter box too...and had to get a new antenna... Here's the one we got at Walmart:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5000836

And we can watch the tournament now... Let's go Duke!

The invitations are too precious. You've motivated me to start thinking about Reese's party...which is less than a week away too...oops! Love you!

Anonymous said...

Hi there!

Your little man is getting more handsome by the day! Our youngest will be three on 3/27 and we've been following your blog ever since your precious children were born. I have been so inspired by your writings and the joy and perseverance you shower throughout them.

This is gonna be really weird but I just wanted to send a suggestion to consider moving your tv to a lower position, now that Kanyon is mobile. There was a young girl here locally who was severely injured a few years ago when their tv fell on her head. I know the odds of it happening are miniscule and I know it's weird to have mrs. stranger nyah-nyah you about your living room furniture. Please accept my apologies for any offense - I certainly don't mean any. I know I am super-sensitive to it because the girl was about the same age as one of our kids when it happened. I've thought to write before but have put it out of my mind because I know how rude it could seem. But every time I decide to mind my own business another picture with the tv in it pops up and I hear this quiet nudging from the Lord to go ahead and mention it just in case it helps any.

So there, it's mentioned. That's the last I'll say about that! :o) You have a beautiful family and your strength in all the hard days you've experienced, and your peace in all the good ones, have made a definite impact on my life. Your ingenuity, on so many levels, is amazing. LOVE the dumptrucks! Blessings to you!

~ Brandynn

pruittsplace said...

hey fool... where's my shout out...? i even got the wisconsin game right! and your couch stinky! and shared my chilli with you two...
wow... no love at all.
ha! it was good to see ya'll! wished i could have seen lots more people, too, but alas, we were busy going 1-2 in a legitimate basketball tournament. ha!
kan-man is looking good!
remember... at mcalisters, order the potroast potatoe - no carrots (sp?), with extra gravy on the side (ask for the gravy after they bring you the meal, that way you don't get charged for it!!!).
now get yer buts out to a-town for a visit some time. it's soooooooo exciting around here, and soooooooo much to do!

erin f. said...

Wow! I am already feeling sorry for my kid in the "mom doing fun birthdays and making them cool things" department. I am very much lacking in creativity, and very much lacking in ability to ever pull off something so cute!

What day is Kanyon's birthday exactly?

sharon said...

mrs. phillips! those are soooo cute! i may have to contract you to work for redbud. :) hope y'all have a fun party!

Leah (Galloway) Flores said...

Okay, you have way too much time on your hands. I don't see how though. We have Libby's 4th b-day party next Sunday. We're having at a gymnastics gym and they provided me the invitations. Thank goodness. I think only elementary teachers are creative and cute w/ stuff like this. This High School teacher takes the short cut on things. Your invitations are adorable. Kanyon is lucky to have a wonderful mommy. One of these days we'll finally get together and I can meet that lucky boy!

Bevin said...

The invitations are adorable! I can't believe he will be 2 this week!! Hope he has a great 2nd bday party!!

High Heels and Huntin' Boots said...

I LOVE the invitations! You are so creative! Hope Kan Man has a great birthday party!

Kelli said...

Extreme on the cuteness chart! You are very talented! I have two boys (5 and 2) and will file this info for future use! Hope Kanyon has a wonderful birthday! P.S. I'm a blog stalker since your homecoming...friend of the Spencer's from Hville :)

Charlotte said...

Wow. You are creative. :)

Chelsa said...

very very cute!!

Unknown said...

This is great! Grand Kanyon now has his own dump truck line!!!! I cannot believe he is two years old. In the last few nights I have had trouble sleeping and have gone back and read all about Sam and Jack's journeys and I always end up back to the beginning of your twins lives. It seems like so long ago, yet, not really at all! He is such a cutie and we will all be singing Happy Birthday, Kanyon in Fort Worth!
Hugs!

Leah said...

The invites are super cute! I have been thinking about you guys! Love you all!!!

kt said...

Love the invitations! Happy Happy birthday baby Kanyon. Can we still call him baby Kanyon even when he's 2? We have a gift for him (on Sunday). Karen

Anonymous said...

DUDE, Seriously. It looks like you have internet access (with the blog and all), so may I suggest mmod.ncaa.com

You can watch all of the games online for free, which should save your arms.

Hope that helps!

SCOTT B.

Audra Caldwell said...

way to cute!!! Love the idea. I can't believe he is already two... Wish we were there to see him grow, at least we have the blog to follow. Think of you and your family often... enjoy this milestone in your/Kanyon's life. :)

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