Just another Alien Queen after a long day at work.

Some days after work, I feel like this Alien Queen:

Confused?  Maybe this will help you understand:

 

**sigh**

How many years before retirement?

Who knew...

there were SO many Lego nerds fans in Birmingham?

A friend told me Friday night that she had seen an advertisement for a Lego Convention at the Civic Center in Birmingham and thought we (Jameson) would be interested.

We didn't have any plans, and decided at the last minute to go.  Having learned our lesson the hard way, we didn't say ONE WORD to Jameson about what we were going to do.  That way, if things didn't work out, he wouldn't be disappointed.

We got to the Civic Center, and realized about 10 minutes into our hike, that we parked on the wrong side.  That's OK though, we needed the exercise.  HAHA!

We walk through the door, and Jameson FREAKED OUT!  He was so excited, he couldn't contain himself!  Unfortunately for us, the first thing he spotted was an after-market dealer that he LOVES.  I say unfortunately, because #1: EVERYBODY was excited to see Brickarms there, so the crowd around the tables was HUGE and #2: All of their items were about double the price they sell for online.

After a while of not moving an inch in the crowd, we convinced Jameson to look around at the rest of the displays.

The problem was, it was SO crowded, you could hardly see anything!

Once we got away from the vendors, we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the incredible displays.  It is completely crazy at the things these people have been able to build.

Replica of the Twin Towers

I loved the display, below.  It's a rock concert full of fans.

The Historic Alabama Theater.

These two were our absolute favorites of the event.  Below is a mobile substation.  This is the type of equipment that Marty works with on a daily basis.  It was incredible to see how exact this copy was!

And this is a replica of the Alabama Power Building in Birmingham, complete with the gold figure on the top.  After the event, we drove by the actual building and Jameson couldn't believe how close the model was to the original!

He was irritated that I I stopped his looking to take a picture.  HAHA!

The afternoon got a little stressful and overwhelming for me and Jameson with the huge crowds, but we had a fantastic time.  Jameson also came home with a TON of new ideas for future projects.

He also managed to come home with a ton of stuff from that darn Brickarms table.

But really, who knew how many Lego fans there were in the Birmingham area?

Mama's Mumblings

Welcome to the first Mama's Mumblings of 2012!

Can you believe that it is already 2012?  I remember when I was a kid, thinking ahead to the year 2000, and thinking about how OLD I would be then.  And now, it's 2012.  My body may be old in years, but inside, I'm still only 18!  HAHA!

Does anybody else feel that way?

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I met a super fabulous blog reader over the weekend!  Laralee contacted me a few months ago about some ideas for her son's Lego birthday party.  We've been e-mailing back and forth since then, and finally had a chance to meet on Saturday!  **Hi Laralee!!!**  I made a few Lego cupcake toppers for her precious son, Lane's 6th birthday.

I love doing different projects for others.  I learn something new every single time I make something.  For this project, I learned how to do the curved words with the Silhouette software!

Meeting Laralee was so much fun and her son was just adorable!  It's too bad we didn't get to spend more time running our mouths.  But I think her husband was getting tired of waiting for us to stop talking!  HAHA!  I'm sure we will see more of each other in the future!

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While I was off meeting Laralee, my husband (and Jameson) was busy putting up all the Christmas stuff back into the attic.  This is no small feat, to say the least.  While they were out in the garage doing this, they decided to clean up, too.  While they were cleaning, my husband found a true blast from the past.  I can't wait to share his find with you.  As a hint, let me just say "Senior portraits" and "Mullets RULE!".

EEEEEEEK!

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My kitchen curtain fabric came in.  It's a little different color than I was expecting (the red is more rust colored than I expected), but with the right contrasting fabric, I think I can make it work!

 (Sorry for the poor quality. I was trying to take these at night)

I was thrilled that I was able to find some trim that matched perfectly on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby!

 

(This is a better representation of the true fabric color)

The good news is that I found this perfect colored trim.....the bad news is we figured I need 15 YARDS of it to make it work.  It looks like I'm going to have to hit every Hobby Lobby in the South to find enough!

I initially planned on using the exact same style of curtain that I had before:

This is a Victory Swag pattern.

But I found this on Pinterest the other day, and thought it may work well, too:

(From here)

The above looks like a large (lined) rectangle of fabric just clipped to make it swag.  This would be much easier to make, in my opinion.  But I do love my current Victory Swag.  LOL

I've also found a great coordinating fabric, but will have to wait until next payday to get that.  HAHA!

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A HUGE Thank You to all of you who voted for me for the Top 25 Southern Mama Blogs a few weeks ago.  I didn't win, but I did finish 6th!

I feel extremely honored that somebody out there even nominated me, much less voted for me....especially considering some of the other blogs that were on the list!

Thank you ALL again!  I have the best bloggie buddies ever!!

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Well, I feel a little down tonight.  I go back to work after getting to stay at home with my family for the past 12 days.  Don't get me wrong, I am extremely blessed to have the job that I have, working for the people I do, but in a perfect world, I would be a stay-at-home mom.  I may be weird, but I love the routine of my day when I'm not working.  I love knowing that on Wednesdays, I do laundry, and on Fridays, I do my grocery shopping.  I know that at 2:00 every day I will be in car-rider line, and will be helping with homework by 3:10.  I never thought I would not want to be a working mom, but the older I get, the more I crave family time.  But for now, I will just try to enjoy every second that I do have with them!

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I hope you all have a fantastic and wonderful week!!

Lego Men were almost the death of me!

You see these little guys:

I got more comments on these than anything else at Jameson's birthday party.  Everything from "Did you make these?", "You mean, you can actually EAT them?", "What are they made of?", "Why is it called white chocolate if it's red, blue, and yellow?", and my favorite 'Why don't they have faces?"  Lots and lots of questions about these little suckers.

Several months ago, I found these molds online.  Little did I know how much drama they would cause!

Photos from Amazon.com

I ordered both sets and thought it would be cute to try to make some little white chocolate Lego men and Lego blocks for Jameson's party.  The PLAN was to make a few of the minifigs and use the Lego block mold to make the majority, because the blocks are just one solid color (read: easier to do).  Well, after unmolding the first batch, I realized it wouldn't work.  The block mold just wouldn't work for white chocolate.  No matter how much I banged the mold and  thinned the chocolate, I just couldn't seem to get all the holes to fill in solid.  I had one hot mess! 

 

Fortunately (I think), the little Lego men looked fantastic!  So, the decision was made to use the rest of my white chocolate to make little Lego men.

They were SUCH A PAIN!  I wanted them to look "real" (well, as real as Lego men can look...haha), so I had to do each color separately.  The pants and the shirt weren't too bad, but the head and those itty-bitty hands were so hard.  There is no way I could ever be a baker, candy maker, or cake designer like Bakerella.  I would loose my ever-loving mind!  HAHA!

I only had 16 molds, and I needed to make at least 72 men to put on top of the cupcakes....so that's a lot of tedious mold-making going on!  HAHA!

Well, dumb me decided to store all of the newly molded Lego men in a zip-lock bag.  What I didn't think about was that the pieces would start rubbing together and smearing the colors.  So, I dumped them all out and started individually washing each one, trying to get them to cleaned off.  Being the impatient person I am, I got tired of washing them one at a time, and decided to dump a bunch of them in a bowl of water. Chaos followed:

I think the water may have been a little too warm.

UGGGGHHHHHH!

So, I kicked it in to high gear, and started making more of those little suckers!  I may have channeled my frustrations into my work a little too well, as I soon noticed I was squeezing the bag so hard, my chocolate was shooting out the TOP of the bag......and landing on my poor, innocent Lego men laying below:

(This is just one of the casualties...Jameson ate the others.)

Eventually, after working ALL DAY LONG, I had enough Lego men for the cupcakes.  They weren't perfect, but I think they turned out pretty cute.

(This is my super-special, jersey shirt-wearing, Lego man)

 (After I finished with all of the Lego men, I did manage to make a couple good Lego blocks)

If anyone would like me to make these for an upcoming party, just let me know.  I will be glad to do them for you, for the price of $1,000 per dozen.  :o)

I hope you all are having a fantastic week!

Happy Birthday to my {no longer} little man!

Today my {not so little} man turns NINE!

I don't remember giving him permission to grow up.  I really need to have a talk with him...soon!

Jameson decided on a Lego-themed birthday party, and he also decided to have his party at his favorite place, Party Central. Since his birthday is on Monday, this year, we decided to have the party on Sunday afternoon. The great thing about Party Central is they do all the decorating, serving, and clean-up for you.  All you have to do is bring your camera and a cake.

The bad thing about Party Central is they do all the decorating.  It doesn't leave any room for Mama to get her craft on.  HAHA!  Even though I was itching to bust into some Lego crafts, Jameson was completely satisfied with minimal decorating and little fuss. And after all the drama with the car last week, that was completely fine with me!  LOL

I did manage to make a couple of things.

First, I made the invitations.  I took the picture and put everything together using my Silhouette software.  I had a lot of fun doing it! 

 

I saw the idea on Pinterest and Jameson loved them.

Goody bags:

Again, I saw this idea on Pinterest.

I even decided to do some cups:

This was actually my own idea, surprise, surprise.  haha!

And I made these super-cute, and pain in the booty, white chocolate Lego minifigures:

These little suckers deserve their own post....I will be working on that!  LOL

After Church, we let Jameson pick where he wanted to go eat.  Of course, he picked the most expensive place ever his favorite place to eat...Fuji.

Then, later in the afternoon, we headed to Party Central to get our groove on!

**warning: lots of pictures ahead!**

Chelsea and her buddy, Megan.

Cupcakes

The birthday boy!

My mother-in-law

My niece, Sierra, and my sister-in-law, Kathy.

Jameson and one of his BFF's, Colby.

Sis-in-law-Candie,  Chelsea, niece-Laura, and great niece-Kacie

The whole gang!

Jameson backing up from his sparkler "candle".

This little girl was from some other party.  She just decided to come on in and have herself a snack.  I told her Mama (when I finally found her) that she could stay, but her mother was not so happy with her little girl.

 

Epic light saber battle.

Spencer, Jerry Ray, and Jameson

Spencer, Jerry Ray, Jameson, and Victoria.

This was the best part of Chelsea's day...Starbucks with her daddy!

We had a really great time, but are completely worn out!  Jameson is just dying because he can't play with ALL of his toys before his bedtime tonight.

Happy Birthday to my precious little man!  I hope it is the best day ever!

I love you more than anything in this world!