The Birthday! Finally!

Hello there! 

So I have made yet another promise, that I have broken, which is why I vow to make no more promises; I'm only breaking them, on a more important topic, my sister's finally occurred, and I finally have all of the photos! I will post a picture and tell you of all the agonizing things we had to do to complete it and finish it.

Balloon! They covered the entire floor of our saloon, and they looked magnificent, but they took  such an effort to be blown up it was unbelievable! Never again (another promise I'm going to break :t)!

 Most of the things you see in these photos were made by mother and my sister. They put a thread through all of the foam and cotton balls and my mom got a ladder and started to hang them on the ceiling. The snowflakes my sister and I did (she made most of them) and I did the big 3D paper snowflake you can see in the photo upper left side. Then there's the blue and silver banner-like things which we hung up beside the windows and on the two chandeliers. The photo on the upper right corner is a photo of the door's entrance, where I personally hung up the threads while standing on an almost shaky table. It was very scary to get down off of the table, but worth it because after that came these...

On the desk, we put luminaries made of paper that my friends and I did, and in between them we placed the party favors. The party favors were a plastic bag containing edible 'snowman parts' (marshmallows, pretzel sticks, gummy drops and gummy teeth, for they were inspired by Olaf), then we wrapped the bags with a thin blue paper (don't know it's name) and placed a white string around. To end it all, we placed a label that read 'Snowman Parts'. They looked (and tasted) amazing!

When the guests came, we had them play a game called Pin the Nose on the Olaf (and his Buttons too). I drew Olaf on a white cardboard and glued him onto a red cardboard. Then I cut out a nose from orange foam and buttons from black cardboard. The kids were later blindfolded and they had to pin the pieces on to the snowman correctly. Nobody did it right, On most occasions the nose was in between Olaf's eyes and he was eating buttons as well, but they had a lot of fun! 

 Last, but not least is the food! The cake was pre-ordered from the Cakery, so were the cookie shown in the picture on the right. We also made blue jello and blue cupcakes and we placed marshmallows in really giant glasses, while other marshmallows were dipped in white chocolate, and then in sprinkles and served. My personal favorites were the chocolate balls dipped in coconut. Unlike the traditional ones, there wasn't any crackers involved. We just mushed chocolate cake and then poured chocolate syrup on it, rolled them into sphere-like figures and dipped them in coconut. We later placed them, and the white chocolate-dipped marshmallows, in the fridge overnight. There savory foods, but the photo was incredibly blurry. They consisted of chicken nuggets, a salad (tabouleh), and an assortment of sandwiches.

All of the girls invited came dressed up as movie characters. They didn't want their pictures posted, but I would gladly tell you what they wore. The birthday girl (my sister) wore a hand-made Olaf costume, which turned out to be more of an Elsa costume, but either way it looked fabulous! One of my cousins wore Jessie from Toy Story 2, while my other cousin dressed up as Tiana, from the Princess Frog. One of my sister's friends wore Penelope von Schweetz, from Wreck-it-Ralph, while another dressed up as a ballerina. Then there was Sam Sparks, from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Minnie Mouse and Snow White and an evil witch. I was dressed up as Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, not posting my picture either.

It was an overall fun party, and my sister definitely enjoyed it. Don't forget to comment below on what you think and share it with all your friends.

See you soon...

-Yara :)

P.S.: So I was trying very hard to disconnect myself from the internet these past three days, while the blog and VOIP programs were the exception. As you may have expected I failed miserably, it was like relapsing back to my internet addiction. However, I have had a lot of time to focus on creating, and one thing I have worked on is my handwriting. I used to write in very tiny cursive, so sometimes teachers can't read it properly so I got out a handwriting tracing book and I started practicing all over again. Now I am writing bigger letters and with more spacing, which is great. So for my current goal, I have accomplished a fifth of it, I still have to improve on my writing style, my handwriting in Arabic and in English in print. I also want to start learning how to write calligraphy-like handwriting, which is part of the plan. Anyways, very long P.S., see you later!

EDIT: A lot of these ideas were not my own, so here are the links to the original websites:
http://www.playpartypin.com/2014/01/disneys-frozen-party-game-for-kids.html

http://spoonful.com/disney/too-cool-frozen-inspired-crafts-recipes#carousel-id=photo-carousel&carousel-item=2

http://www.karaspartyideas.com/2013/12/disneys-frozen-party.html

http://www.baby.co.uk/life_and_home/45-disney-frozen-party-ideas/

http://eventstocelebrate.net/2013/12/disneys-frozen-birthday-party-ideas/

http://bubblynaturecreations.com/2013/12/disney-frozen-party.html

http://www.sisterssuitcaseblog.com/2013/12/disney-frozen-party-ideas.html

Full of great ideas if you want to throw a Frozen-themed birthday party.

Focus by Leo Babauta-REVIEW

Hi there! 

So today I woke up super early in the morning,put on some relaxing music and opened my curtains (to see the sunrise). I then sat up straight in my bed, took out my computer and started writing this. This is defnitely a change, but it is giving me enough time alone to think only about writing a blog post for you guys. This activity is giving me the means to Focus on creating this post, which is going to be about the free version of Leo Babauta's book: Focus.

The book isn't a ficitonal story, it could be labeled as a self-help book actually. The book's main theme is to help the reader push aside distractions to focus on creating, relaxing or spending more time on things you enjoy. The book starts off by telling us, the readers, about the major role distraction has taken in our life. Today in the Age of Information, distractions pour in from every pore they can fit through. Since the book aims to help us focus, the author suggests diconnection from the addictive technology we use every day, he says that most people stay so connected online that they're afraid if they disconnect, they'll miss out on something important.

He then starts to introduce small steps to take to avoid any distractions in the time of creation. He suggests decluttering, turning off the internet when working, removing all papers hanging on the walls, putting away files and documents that you aren't working on right now, and etc...He also states the diadvantages of always staying connected virtually. 

Mainly the book revolves around focusing at the task in hand and pouring yourself into it, without the possibility of any type of distraction. It's truly a wonderful book and it is beautifully written and full of outstanding quotes. I suggest you download it yourself, it has brought many of my bad habits to my attentions, and I am working on a few of the book's methods to improve my lifestyle and create more often. 

That is the end of the review, however you avid readers will remember that I a) promised to finish this book by Thursday, and I finished it yesterday,and b) promised to post pictures and write a post about my sister's Frozen-themed birthday party on Friday. You may have realized that I broke those promises, however I very much intend to write the birthday post today or tomorrow, as soon as I collect all the pictures and acquire the permission from her friends to post those pictures on the blog.

Tomorrow marks the end of the first two weeks on focusing on only one of my goals, these two weeks were about reading one book every two weeks, and I am determined to continue that. The next two weeks will focus on me trying to improve my writing (goal no. 14). 

Hope you realy liked this post, and if you have anything you want to tell me, post it down below in the comments or message me on Facebook linking my name. Hoping to hear from you!