Welcome To Our Pizza Parlor!

If you've seen my post about our cupcakery then you'll love to see how we've transformed our Sweet Sisters Bakery into our Italian Pizza Kitchen!

Like so many of my posts, I have the best intention of taking lots of pictures and then posting it that week. This one, like so many others just got lost in the business of life. However, I thought I'd take the time to show you what we did even though it's a bit late.

Last Summer we made our Summer Bucket List. If you haven't sat down with your kids ever to make one, I highly recommend it! It was fun just have the discussion and seeing how we could incorporate some fun time with friends, as well as family time. One of the ideas Kara came up with was to make pizza. I thought it was a great idea. Sure. I'll buy a couple english muffins, some cheese, some sauce and bam! Done! Until, we started talking about how maybe we could invite some friends over. And then it progressed into well maybe it would be fun if the kids could make pretend pizzas and serve each other and learn the different toppings and how a pizza is made and then they can make the real thing. How do these things always progress so far?....

Well, here's pictures of the kids making there english muffin pizzas at the party and keep reading to see how I was able to transform our cupcakery into the pizza place.

  

 

Anyways, so our pizza making day became a pizza party with our closest friends the Markley's and I was set on the task of somehow converting our cupcakery in to a pizza parlor.

I went for quickness, rather than quality on this one. The cupcakery took quite a bit of time and I didn't have enough time for that with our Summer schedule being kind of full.  So, I decided to use some plain cardboard as our crust and painted a red circle on one side (if they want sauce) and left the other side blank (if they didn't want sauce).

Next for the toppings I simply cup up the different shapes out of felt. You could always double up for durability but with the fact that this wasn't a permanent switch I just used the regular thin sheets of felt and it's held up fine.

The toppings we included were: green peppers, onion rings, black olives, pineapple, mushrooms (or you can call them marshmallows like my girls if you want) and red tomato slices (or for our non- vegetarian friends you could use them as pepperoni). I also added a old spice container and labeled it Pizza Seasoning.

I used some ivory or cream colored yarn as the cheese and just cut it up into reasonably sized pieces.

For the fun part, I asked a friend who works for Papa Johns if he could get me a couple empty boxes and he gladly did. We have two sizes (the cardboard crusts match the two different sized boxes).

That's pretty much the details so let me just show you some more pictures so you can get the full picture.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and here's a close up of the sign I made for our Italian Pizza Kitchen!

 

I hope you've enjoyed our bakery transformation. Let me know if you have another idea of what we should transform our bakery into.

Happy Pizza Making and God Bless!
Heather Joy

P.S. I recently made some bakery menu's to go along with our cupcakery but I have plans to make a menu for our pizza kitchen as well. I'll post a link when that happens.

How To Plan A Water Day

At my daughters request we planned a Water Day for our Band of Mother's group at our church. So, I thought I'd share a little of what we did.

Our Band of Mother's group at church is for mother's with young ones.  We have a large demographics in our small church of stay at home mom's so this group was formed as a way for our kids and us to build relationships together.  Can I just say,  I love our group of mom's at our church?!  Because I do!

Anyways, onto the water day!

I like to keep things simple, so I used what I had and tried to provide as many activities as we could without spending any money and only using things we had on hand or mom's could easily volunteer to bring. 

STEP 1: PLAN THE DAY
When you are hosting a party it's best to have an agenda of what you will do.  This will help all moms know what to expect and can help keep things for going crazy by not having a plan.  Does anyone else notice that?  When I don't have a plan for something it almost always goes the way I didn't want it to go. Also, HAVE A DEPARTURE TIME! Mom's have a way of chatting forever (I'm guilty of it too for sure) But unless you want all the mom's to stay as long as they can until all their children are screaming of a melt down because it's WAY past nap time, HAVE A DEPARTURE TIME SET!

The agenda for us:
-Water play outside
-Lunch
-Popsicle treat
-Movie (while mom's take turns changing kids in bathroom & help clean up)
-Departure time at 2:00pm

STEP 2: CREATE A FACEBOOK EVENT
-Invite the moms, especially ones you know will help contribute something
-Post agenda for the event
-Brainstorm ideas for what activities mom's have or can easily make.
-Post your requested items for lunch and/or water activities (Read Step 3)

I even made sure to reiterate when the end time is on my event details because 2:30pm is nap time for my girls, so I made sure to say we'll be sure to wrap things up and get kids sent home before our nap time starts at 2:30pm.


STEP 3: ASK FOR HELP
Don't be afraid to ask for help.  If you are hosting, most of the work for you is just getting a presentable house and opening your home to others.  Now, ask other mom's to pitch in a little to take the pressure off of you.  You'd be surprised.  Most mom's would mind pitching in one or two things if it means a whole morning of fun for their kids. 

It's best to send the kids home fed, so they can get down for nap and keep to somewhat of a regular routine for the mom's.asked each mom to bring something. 

ASK FOR:

-Activites for water play
-Lunch Items
For instance, I asked for: 
-loaf of whole wheat bread, peanut butter, jelly, juice boxes, popsicles, salad or pasta salad (for us mom's), some extra sides like fruits, vegetables, popcorn or chips to go with lunch and some shaving cream.

STEP 4: PLAN THE ACTIVITIES:

Here are our activities:

1. Bubbles -I LOVE the no spill containers.
2. Water Sprayers -Be sure to keep these away from the kiddie pools if you have babies in there.
3. Shaving Cream Table Washing -They can wash the tables, draw on them, practice writing their name, or just lather themselves up with it!
4. Paint The Fence -Have a bucket with paint brushes and rollers available.

5.  Rollercoaster -We have a Step2 Rollercoaster that we usually keep indoors, but we put it outside for this event.
6.  Sponge Balls -Another mom donated these for our event.  If you haven't seen a tutorial on pinterest yet, check out my board and you'll find an awesome tutorial to just cut and rubber band sponges together to make some awesome soft balls for throwing and having fights or...(see next)
7.  Target Practice -We used the sponge balls for this but you could also use whatever water balls you have.  Draw a target with chalk on your fence and let the kids at it!
8.  Slip 'N Slide -What party is fun without a slip and slide?!  Most of our kids were a bit young, but it was still fun for a few.

9.  Slide & Tarp -Just place a tarp under one of your regular slides.  Just be sure to keep it wet so it slips a bit or have a hose going down it.
10.  Wiggle Sprinkler -This was one of those things we turned on for a few minutes randomly to get their attention and they loved it!
11.  Sprinkler System -My awesome husband changed our timer for just one side of our sprinkler system and it would go off every 15 minutes for just 3 minutes.  So, whenever the sprinklers went off you'd see all the kids race there to get wet.
12.  Chalk Drawings -Throw up some chalk drawn frames on the fence and see what your kids will draw inside.  Of course they will just draw all over anyways.  :)

Not really events, but we took a break and had lunch, then had some popsicles before we came inside.
13. Movie Time -This was a great time for the mom's to take turns using the bathroom to change kids out of their wet clothes, while everyone else was happily distracted.
14. Group shot attempt -Last but not least, you have to get a wonderful group shot of your kiddos!  We had a few mom who couldn't make it, but it was lots of fun for all who did!

STEP 5: PREP THE HOUSE & ACTIVITIES:

Get the house all ready to go.  Like most mom's I put away toys that might get easily broken by children or easily injured.  I hide lots of our large mobile items like our car, scooter and tricycle. (yes, we have a large floor plan, so these stay inside most of the time).

**A tid bit I picked up today when getting ready for this party that I HAVE to share with you was to place that shelving cling gripper under a towel by my back door.  Most people put towels to help catch all the grass but the kids end up slipping on them or they get so bunched up them don't really do much good.  Well, not if you put some of that gripper underneath! This worked like a charm.  Although, I think I would have liked to have a slightly larger piece next time.

I also was going to set up a washing station by my back door.  A bucket with water (just imagine there's water in there) and some rags to dry and/or wipe the grass off.  But honestly, the towel with the gripper worked so well I hardly had any grass in my house at the end even though I forgot to fill this up or tell anyone what it was for...ha!

STEP 6: HOST THE BEST WATER DAY PARTY EVER!

Have fun and go with the flow!  All your hard work and planning will be so worth it when you see all the smiles and joy on your children's faces!  Now pat yourself on the back for a job well done!!



I was definitely tired out by the end of the day by moving everything around for set up and then cleaning up afterwards, but no money was spent!  And I am amazingly blessed with how awesome our group is because it's an unwritten rule that we leave the house as clean, if not cleaner than before we come.  They helped put everything away!  (minus a few dishes in the sink) But honest! It was awesome to be able to have everything hosed off and cleaned up and put back in place.  It makes you want to host another Water Day...okay, well maybe I need to recoup a little after this one....maybe in a month or two. :)



Happy Summer and God Bless!

Heather Joy