Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Parties

You know I love a good party.
May and June are always packed full of them.

We just attended a darling Star Wars Birthday party for Fin and Tucks' cousin Kayson. When Fin woke up this morning she was still talking about it. It was such a clever party complete with a Certificate of Jedi Training. Her fave (besides the goody bag) was the lightsaber made out of 1/2 a pool noodle and duct tape. The food was great too! "Wookie"-wieners and "chewie"-bacca chocolate brownies.


Last Friday my friend and I threw a mother-daughter Super Hero Party for our Achievement Day girls. I dressed as Incredi-girl, which should have stood for incredibly bad speller. Can you see the mistake!?



We sent out these invitations and asked the mothers and daughters to make each other capes describing the others Super Hero powers. We served this delicious food (scroll down to cafe rio pork salad), and had a secret mission for them to complete at the end of the night. A dinner party for 40 is lot of work, but well worth the end result. One of my favorite pieces of decoration were the place mats. I didn't end up getting a great shot of them, or anything else for that matter. Too much work, too little time.

The Crowd of Super Heroes decorating their masks
We also had them write a letter to each other and we glued it to the back of the place mats.



The Food
It really was so super delicious try out the recipe. The link is above.


The Place mats

Keely colored in 40 Wonder Woman pages from a coloring book and I cut out everyone's face and glued it onto the body. I must say some were hilarious!


The Secret Mission
There were six tasks to complete based on the Wonder Woman comic. One required them to have NO FEAR as they reached into a bucket of goop to pull out their next clue.


Nothing Can Defeat You

When life gives you Lemons you must learn to make Lemonade


Some of the other Tasks were:

Wonder Woman helps those in need. Sanitize one Nursery toy each.
To be a Super Hero you must have a great costume. They earned bracelets of victory and used her tiara like a boomerang to knock over a pyramid of cans.
The Golden Lasso of Truth: You must decipher the Lie. (Keely had 3 truths and a lie of her own)
Mine were:
A. Used to own and train purebred horses.
B. Once rode a camel through the desert to the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
C. Has come face to face with a Grizzly Bear
D. Is married to her 5th grade boyfriend.




On a totally different topic
...here is a random picture of the garage of my dream house for ali.


Sunday, June 7, 2009

Tucks 1st Day

It was Tuckers first day of Nursery today. This means I can finally return to class after a 3 year interruption. It means no more aimless wandering of the halls wondering if it would be better to stay home and put my child to nap while I read the Ensign. Does this mean a lighter diaper bag, less distractions, more time to ponder and reflect? Or does this mean a possible calling into the Nursery because my child has MAJOR separation anxiety?! Time will shortly tell.


GETTING READY

The morning got off to a rocky start. He spilled his bowl of cold cereal all over his Sunday pants and had to got to church all wet.


THE POUT

I'm sure that having his big sister in class to show him the ropes helped to ease his first day jitters.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The days are long...

One of my favorite people moved away and now I am sad.


When I get desperately sad I will I drown my sorrows with spoonfuls of this most delicious cake. It is completely impossible not to be elated while savoring a piece of chris' outrageous chocolate cake.

I wondered how long it was going to take Finely to notice they were gone. Last night (the day after our friends moved) she asked, "I want to play with Owen at the park". I explained that they moved to a new house in Utah. She replied, " I want to go to Tah too!"

Friday, May 29, 2009

Six years

Number 6 by ArtByChrysti.


Six years.

4 jobs (between the two of us)
2 exciting moves to the greatest places in the country
1 loyal dog
2 fantastic kids
3 working cars (1/2 a million miles between them)
a handful of great vacations
6 Mustache Mays
incredible memories
lifelong friendships

Six years of marriage and so much more.

I love you- and I LOVED our night out on the town.
In case you forget this is how the night went down.

I picked you up from work at 6:30
your office: second floor 1st window



You gifted me this sweet lil' thing... instant love
nikon coolpix
and I snapped a picture of you to capture Mustache May



We dined at my favorite spot in town Piazza Italia
you had the lasagna
I had the linguine and clams



Then dessert yum



and we drove home down 23rd, the long way with no complaints
tonight was my favorite night of the month



Back home to our reality





Happy Anniversary

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Pink Princess Tea Party

This was the party inspiration LOVE this!



T
he day started like any other birthday with good morning streamers and a special just-for-you breakfast. Her breakfast of choice: "Lifesaver" (Life) cereal and fresh strawberries. She opened a few gifts and Skyped with her grandparents.

Then it was down to business. For the past week she had anxiously been anticipating the day she could go and pick up her Cinderella birthday cake she had picked out from the grocery store. It was exactly what she had hoped for. We grabbed a bunch of pink helium balloons and headed home to finish setting up for her party.



The Pink Princess Tea Party Crew

these are some of Fin's very favorites



Planning all of the details
This little princess was very involved in planing her party. For dessert she requested lemon cupcakes with pink frosting. She wanted to play 2 games, find the candy (ring pops hidden in "golden dragon eggs", and holly holly hassle step into my castle (the princess version of "red light, green light"). She wanted crowns and wands, candy necklaces and lots and lots of candy. Sugary bliss.



Thank you's
for the princesses: candy necklaces- licorice rope and gummy lifesavers
for the knights: plastic knight figurines and chocolate coins



No girls allowed

Because she has just as many boy friends as she does girls we had to modify the Pink Princess party a little. The boys were definitely territorial when it came to allowing the girls into their "castle". They kept chanting "No Girls Allowed! No Girls allowed!"




The Goings On
While the girls decorated their crowns the boys had a sword fight and obstacle race in the front yard. We played a couple of games as a group and then ate some lunch.



Presents and Cupcakes
After lunch we opened presents and ate more sugar and that was that.



The After Party
Tucker couldn't have been a worse host if he tried. He lost it within the first 5 minutes of the party so he was banished and missed the entire thing. We held an after party so he wouldn't feel left out.


Later that night...
We had one final celebration after her dad got home from work.
It included:


One: super cool bike


One: giant slice of Cinderella cake at 10:06pm



One: long anticipated balloon launch

and we called it a night.