so my handsome little man is turning 4 in a couple of days!!! FOUR! i've been blessed with his awesome personality and fabulous charm filling my days with smiles and laughter. FOUR. he'll be moving away to college soon.

yeah, well maybe that's forever away, but still. he's growing up sooo freakin' fast!

to prepare for his birthday this weekend, we put together some goodie bags for his birthday party guests. maybe it's just me, but i CANNOT STAND cohen's ridiculous collection of tiny, useless toys. you know the ones you get with happy meals, and stuff stockings with, and keep small children calm while checking out at the grocery store (although, i nipped that in the bud pretty damn quickly), and, um, goodie bags.

i wanted to do something a little more creative with the goodie bags this year and was happy to find so many great ideas at the little dollar section of target. they always have great stuff for kiddos! since school is starting in just a couple of weeks, they had tons of school supplies, workbooks for writing and math, story books, lunch boxes, pencil pouches, and arts and crafts! i went a bit nuts. in about 8 minutes i had a cart full of $1 finds. i grabbed 12 buckets, hoping it would be enough. my plan was to fill them with 12 bags of colorful pom poms, 12 bags of glitter pom poms, 12 bags of googly eyes, 12 bags of pipe cleaners, and 12 bags of stick on jewels.

as soon as i checked out at target, i freaked out a little, or completely came to my senses (however you'd like to think about it) and headed straight to walmart where they carry all of this stuff in bulk. $16 later, and i had everything i needed to divvy everything up for each kiddo, with supplies left over to add to cohen's art supplies.

 $90 worth of supplies, which have already been returned=)

my helper bee

these are the individual bags of supplies i originally purchased before going the cheaper route

stuffed the bags. . .

tied them up. . . 

and irie, the helper bee, promptly untied and unstuffed them

i had actually planned to print out little cards with instructions for each bag, but due to the urgency of needing to get the project off the floor, i kinda forgot about that idea. the instructions would have ultimately been for the parents anyway. kids imaginations come up with far better things when left to do with it as they please. unless that involves a ladder and a pair of scissors.

can't wait for sunday to celebrate the monster's birthday!!! i'll post pictures of what he creates with his goodie bag! i'm sure it'll be far better than some tiny plastic toy, and i'll probably end up paying him at least $20 for it.