Joe's Birthday Bash

Finally, here is how Joe's 5th birthday turned out. It was very Star Wars, and very non-girl.  I had a lot of fun putting this one together too, and many thanks to all the other moms who posted awesome ideas on Pinterest. :)

Kody has some mad skills with the cardboard cut-out art. 

 I bought army men at the $1 store and renamed them "Han Solo" for the sake of keeping it legit, and froze them in "carbonite"  (aka water with blue food coloring). The boys then each got a spoon on the back patio and the first kiddo to chip away all 5 won the grand prize: one of those foam animals you soak in water and watch grow (from the dollar store also).   :)

 Cans of silly string for the grand finale: Shooting Darth Vader. 

I found all kinds of cool printables online and cut out TONS of them and covered my sliding glass doors. We set up a nerf gun table with darts where they boys played target practice. The goal was to only hit the storm troopers on the sliding door, avoiding the good guys. As you can imagine, combining 7 boys with nerf guns was a big hit.

 Dessert: Princess Leia cupcakes, Yoda cupcakes and Death Star cupcakes (which was just a blob of frosting with an oreo because I really didn't have the creativity to pull that one off--but the Princess Leia ones turned out super cute!).

*I really dug the play on oreos as Princess Leia's hair here

Joe showing off his skills

 Chipping away at the carbonite

Jedi training with inflatable light sabers

Getting ready to silly string the poster of Darth Vader....

All in all, it was a great day. I can't believe they are FIVE. 

They enjoyed having their own parties with their own style, and they each got these cool new dress ups that have been getting a lot of mileage. 

Putting together 2 birthday parties left me wiped out though. I told all the kids I was taking the next year off. :) 

Playing catch up..

Well, I said I would stay on top of this blog and since I am nearing the one year mark in updates I figured I should probably throw something up here.

Well, school ended last year and our summer was filled with lots of stuff: My youngest sister was married, we spent time in So. Cal., we took the kids camping again, Kody lived on an airplane for the month of August I think (he was working like crazy & that month is all a blur to me), and then--as soon as I was about to catch my breath--school started again. Bleh. I'll get to that one later. In other, more notable news, the twins turned 5. CRAZY. For the first time ever they asked for different parties and since I figured I might kind of owe them at least a couple of those throughout their childhood, the big 5th birthday seemed like a good way to knock one (or two) of those out. Delaney asked for a Fairy Princess party, complete with fairy makeovers. It was a blast, and I think I may have had the most fun transforming my dining room and living room into a fairy beauty parlor complete with manicures, up-do's and fairy dusting. Delaney had about 12 little girls over, all decked out in their favorite dress-up, to get prettied up and eat frilly foods--it was so cute! 

The birthday girl, at the entryway to her salon (thank goodness for hand-me-down items from my sister Katelyn's wedding--all the fabrics & accents were happily recycled as fairy decor).  

 This lace is actually two very cheap veils that were purchased online as options for my sister, which ended up being true to their value (cheap), therefore not used at the wedding,  and became a cute canopy for the eating area. :)

My sweet girl.

 For some reason about a week before the party I decided to clean out my fabric bag (don't let that"fabric bag" comment fool you--I am not some sewing prodigy you never knew about---I've made baby items and pillowcases and some quilts with assistance...that is all). In cleaning out the fabric bag I came across some cute stuff I forgot about and thought: "I should learn how to make these into skirts for the girls." Which then led to: "I should just make skirts for all the girls at Delaney's party as a party favor."  Thankfully, one of my friends in the neighborhood was also teaching herself how to do this same task and she helped me tackle it and I was able to knock it all out within a day with some babysitting assistance from my parents. I can't say much for the quality of these skirts, but they looked cute all hung up and Delaney was super excited about it, so it was totally worth it.

 Fairy dusting. You'll notice my "fancy" dress, as Delaney called it. If you ever wonder what to do with old bridesmaids dresses I finally figured it out: You wear them to your five-year old daughter's fairy party.

 Some of the fairies. We had the best day, and I highly recommend at least one super girly birthday party while your daughter(s) are young--it will melt your heart. :)

New pictures!

Happy Holidays every one!!

Halloween

playing a little catch up here....

Halloween was lots of fun. The best part of the evening was running into Santa passing out candy. The kids were TOTALLY confused--and the adults got a good laugh out of it.

Rapunzel, Iron Man & Alice all scored big on candy (yay). :)

Maggie turns six!

Maggie had a birthday on Friday! We had a fun family gathering centered around all things Hello Kitty. It was cute and girly, and Maggie was super excited to have many of her cousins and all of the grandparents in town for the occasion.

A good friend made her the cutest Hello Kitty cake--seriously, so cute. Like, I have made my kids' cakes in the past, but this was so nice to have a willing participant take on that task!

The next day, we took a trip up to the Apple Hill Orchards and had a birthday breakfast of donuts and coffee--it was bliss. The weather was wonderful and the kids had a lot of fun.

Not sure what Delaney's problem was here, but from left to right it's Delaney, Maggie, Hailey & Ali--love these girls!

Apple Hill has all kinds of activities and special vendors that come up on the weekends and the pony rides are one of them. Needless to say, it was a big hit with all the kids. AND, it was especially wonderful to see them all come off of the donut sugar high at someone else's orchard rather than at my house!

The girls and the cowboy

Well, school has started and we're back on a regular schedule. The kids are doing just fine and I thought I would upload a little of what it's been like around here.

Maggie started a gymnastics class a month ago--she LOVES it and does a cartwheel every 10 seconds. Watch yourself because she's oblivious to the people around her while in motion. :)

At the gym

Delaney still thrives on all things girly. I had to post this picture because she is wearing the flower girl dress from....my wedding! Both she and Maggie have had turns to wear it and it always makes me smile when I get to pull it out for church.

No, this is not Clint Eastwood---it's my son, Joe. He is still into all things cowboy and Kody found these ponchos for him to dress up with in addition to the 47 other cowboy articles in his room. The mustache is a new trend.

It's kind of funny to watch your kids go through different stages. I'm just waiting for the Star Wars thing to kick in and then it will be a sad day when the cowboy clothes get packed away. :(

Back to school, back to school....

Cute little girl on her first day...

feeling a little more excited about school this year. Total bummer for me though. I watch the clock like crazy. Then I get a little wacko and consider driving to the school to make sure she's ok at recess--I know, psycho. Confession: I did it a few times last year. I can honestly say I was NOT the only parent doing it though!

Maggie seems to enjoy her new class and teacher so here's to a GREAT new year filled with all kinds of firsts (like going to school for 5 hours instead of 3.5---ugh).

I miss her, that is all.

Camping Trip 2011

I only have about 437 photos from our camping trip last week--but the cyber forces are being finicky and I was only able to upload these 5 photos without receiving error notices. Soooooooo, in a nutshell it was a great trip that ended with a total fish catch at 8, dozens of mosquito bites (especially on poor Delaney; they ate on that girl as if she were an all day buffet!), 9+ loads of laundry and even more great memories. It's always a lot of work, but a lot of fun and they kids have the BEST time. I am going to attempt to upload the other photos on facebook, so take a stroll over there later to see more. :)

Maggie and Papa fishing

Me and the kiddos--Joe, Maggie and Charlie

Check out Maggie's air!

A stroll around the pond with Daddy and Uncle Dave

The Rav---she continues to serve us well, even on long trips when our elbows are practically wedged in our neighbor's ribs.