Hens Don't Crow

I'm always amazed how often I turn out to be wrong about something.

I mean, I know we're all wrong from time to time. It happens to the best of us. But I typically take wrong to the extreme. 

Let me give you a for instance. See this bird?

It's name is Miss Janet. 

See? Next level wrong. But I digress. 

The other day, Justin, Buggy Boy and I went out to the coop to visit the chickens and bring them some leftover watermelon. As we looked at them, we began saying out loud what we've been thinking for a couple of weeks now.

Those hens look an awful lot like roosters. 

BUT, we assured ourselves, roosters crow. And these chickens don't crow. Never. Not once. (I know you can already tell where this is going.)

Cut to literally five minutes later when we were heading back from the garden and we heard it. The crow to end all crows. 

Aaaand now we have roosters. 

Two of them. 

Unfortunately, we want nothing to do with roosters. We're only in it for the eggs, and we happen to have a toddler whose grabbiness rivals that of a drunken frat boy. The last thing I need to worry about is him coming eye to eye with a potentially aggressive rooster to practice using his "gentle hands." 

Full disclosure: they're never gentle.  

Luckily for us (and for the roosters), a friend of a friend has a farm a few miles down the road and takes in orphaned hens-turned-roosters. Apparently this happens a lot. Go figure.

So now Miss Janet and his friend Dion are living out the remainder of their non-egg producing lives running around happily on a big farm with lots of other unwanted animals. 

At least that's where Justin told me he took them. 

That's probably true, right?

20 Minute, $0 Party Decorations

You guys, my sweet boy turned two this week. I can't even believe it!

He is constantly growing and learning, and I can't believe how much he's changed in the last year... And he's not the only thing.

Fellow parents can attest, there's a pretty huge difference between the first birthday party and literally every single birthday thereafter. 

For Buggy's first birthday, we invited over 40 people, and I decorated the entire first floor of our house. Every room was resplendent with all things Buggy. 

Every. Single. Room. 

I decorated an entire wall sized chalkboard as an homage to Buggy's first year, hand drawing 12 chalk picture frames, one for each of his monthly pictures. Because yes, I also took the obligatory cutesy monthly pictures during his first year. 

I had matching plates, napkins, cups, and silverware. Paper fans and a chalkboard garland spelling out Happy 1st Birthday graced my mantel. 

We made a brunch buffet that took up our entire kitchen and spilled over onto the hutch in the eat-in. It came complete with caprese salad and fruit skewers jabbed into styrofoam filled vintage soda crates, three kinds of mini quiche, and enough hand crafted mini-doughnuts and cupcakes to feed a small army. (As you can image, we waaaay over-ordered and the vast majority of those doughnuts died a slow death in the lounge at work.)

But, because I certainly wouldn't feed my perfectly un-sugared one year old just any old cupcake, my dad made him his own mini carrot cake from scratch. 

Poor Buggy was a trooper as he sat there in his highchair and watched 40+ strangers stare, sing and clap at him while he poked at his cake a couple times and then asked to get down. It was just as magical and memorable as I'd always hoped it would be for him. 

Cut to two weeks later when the house was still a mess and generally Buggy themed, and I was feeding my now very well sugared one year and two week old bites of my frozen buttercream cupcake frosting stash every time he caught me standing with my face hidden in the freezer. 

For his second birthday, however, I did things a little differently.  

Rather than throw a huge expensive party for our friends and family, we decided to do something the Bug might actually enjoy. So we packed it up and headed to the transportation museum for the day. The kid had the time of his life. 

Afterward, we had my parents over for a casual dinner of all Buggy's favorite foods. 

And I slapped some decorations together in the 20 minutes between when we got home and they came over. 

The one thing I did want was for Buggy to have fun. So I figured what's more fun (and cheap) than decorating with his favorite things: toy trucks and tractors. 

I pulled out the cheap black tablecloth I only use at Halloween, some black chargers and my everyday white dishes. 

I used strips of white correction tape to create a road down the middle of the table, and lined it with Buggy's collection of small Tonka trucks. 

I topped each place setting off with a wooden truck. I had some leftover photo paper, so I printed a picture of each guest with Buggy and tucked them into the wheels. 

        

Apparently at our house no party is complete without chalkboard art, so I thew this one together quickly, and then set up the gifts underneath with every construction truck I could find. 

I placed a few other random trucks throughout the room and called it a day. 

Buggy Boy loved playing with his trucks through dinner. And the best part about these decorations is I could pretty much take my arm and sweep them all back onto the floor and the house looks exactly as it did before I started. Win!

The only thing missing from this party is two week old frozen buttercream. C'est la vie!