Bridal Shower

Two Saturdays ago, was my sister Casey's bridal shower. Her really good friend, Tanya, who now lives in Georgia, was out here visiting her family and they decided to have the shower before Tanya went home. Tanya is pregnant with her first child and probably one of the cutest pregnant ladies I've ever seen! Her due date? May 14--the same day as both Casey and Tanya's birthdays. Wouldn't that be crazy!! And because Casey is getting married on the 17th, Tanya won't be out for the wedding :( So it was really great that she was able to help do this for Casey. They have been close friends forever.

We had the shower at my mom's good friend Marena's house. She and her husband were leaving the following day to go to Jerusalem for 2 weeks, and she was still sweet enough to offer to have it at her house. No way would I have been able to do that! And there was huge crowd there, so a big thanks to Marena!

Tanya and her mom, Dessa, did all the food. It was amazing!! Meatballs, bruschetta, baked raviolis, cucumber and tomato salad, chocolate covered strawberries. . . .everything was so delicious!! Oh what it would be like to enjoy cooking! I have my doubts that I will ever reach that point. Although there seems to be an apron craze going on right now--everyone claiming that wearing an apron makes housework and cooking more fun. Maybe I need to go put mine on. I digress.

I was planning on just taking a back seat and enjoying the shower. Looking back, I had a really bad attitude about the whole thing, and I apologize to everyone for that. I guess I kinda felt like, "Hey! She's my one and only sister. I want to be the one to give her a shower!" How selfish is that? I'm not proud of it, but it was true none-the-less. So when Casey asked me to help out with decorations and games, I got really excited.



Casey and I have a love for old Audrey Hepburn movies. But I think Casey's love has turned into an obsession. :) It has even spilled over into her wedding planning--Tiffany Blue and Chocolate Brown are her colors and there will be a sort of old Hollywood/Tiffany's theme to the reception. So I figured, why not carry that over into the shower as well? These were the games:

1) We played the traditional shower clothespin game, with a glam tiwst. I found these pretty silver bracelts and put them in a silver tray on the table as guests first walked in. The game was, "Don't Say. . ." and there was a list of words you weren't allowed to say in your conversation with other guests. Each person took 2 bracelets at the beginning and then every time you caught someone saying one of the "forbidden" words, you got to take one of their bracelets. Whoever had the most bracelets at the end wins! Honestly, this game didn't go over too well, mainly because there were so many people and all with different backgrounds--work people, church people, institute friends, old friends, family etc. and each group kinda stuck together without a whole lot of mingling going on. Women are so funny that way. I think had we done it the other way where you can't cross your legs, that would have been better.

2) Next, we played the "tray" game. Where you bring out a tray, give everyone only a short time to look at it, then take the tray away and see how many things they can remember and write down. Whoever has the most at the end of the set time, wins. Our twist to this one was that everything on the tray was from an Audrey Hepburn movie. 6 movies were represented, and probably no one but Casey and I really "got" any of it, but it was fun to just have a bunch of random things on the tray instead of the typical "bridal" stuff. And all the cards we handed out for people to write on had Audrey Hepburn quotes on them.



3) This game we called "Famous Couples". We handed out a piece of paper to everyone with the female half of a famous couple written down with a blank next to it. Given only a few minutes, everyone had to write down the male counterpart with the help of a name bank at the bottom of the page. Again, 6 Audrey Hepburn characters were represented. And surprisingly, the winner, Jody, good friend and my boss's wife, got almost all of the Audrey characters correct! I guess we're not the only Audrey fans.


All the prizes for the games were wrapped in Tiffany Blue paper to look like gifts from Tiffany's. The prizes were Audrey Hepburn movies an other stuff like big black Audrey sunglasses, a silver and diamond ID holder, lipgloss and a sleep mask. Anyone seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's?

The highlight of the shower was the video we made of Jordan. Very few women at the shower had met Jordan, family included, so we thought that we should let them get to know him a little bit. So Jason and I video-taped him answering questions like, what is Casey's favorite color, where was you first date, etc. Casey wasn't in the room when we did this. Then at the shower, we would ask Casey the same question and then play the video to see if her answer matched Jordan's. We have about an hour of raw footage which is hilarious! Once you get Jordan talking, he just keeps going. And he has such a great sense of humor. So it was really hard, but we cut it down to about 7 minutes. It was so funny. Thanks, Casey (and Jordan too) for being such good sports!

We also had these little notecards (complete with the black damask border) for women at the shower to write down advice for the bride. It turned out really great--can I borrow the cards sometime, Casey? j/k

Overall I think the shower was a huge hit. Even Geri, Casey's other bridesmaid who HATES showers, managed to make it all the way through. That's a good sign I guess. She had a huge turn-out and received a lot of great stuff. We all love you Casey!

And proof that all the women in our family think alike, look at this photo of my grandma, my mom, Casey and me. All in black and white. I promise we didn't plan it!

Valentine's Day

Andrew, the other ballet teacher at our school, was out of town last week. I was supposed to teach for him--3:45 to 9:00 (ugh!)--on Valentine's Day. However, for once all this crazy snow worked in my favor and the office ended up canceling all classes that day. So I got to spend Valentine's with my4 valentines.

I was not in the mood to cook (shocker), so we had Mac-n-Cheese, what more could you want on Valentine's Day? I did manage to make a cake.

Chore Chart

I think we have had a break-through! Rylee, my 3-year-old, has had a problem for a long time with sleeping in her own bed. She absolutely refuses to fall asleep in it, and though she will sometimes stay all night in it once I move her, she often makes several trips back and forth making for restless nights for both of us. I have spent months trying to get to the root of it all, and finally concluded that she has just made up her stubborn little mind that she will not sleep in her bed and that's that. Being the terrible mom I am, I have given in, not wanting a screaming tantrum at 11:00 at night. BUT. . .she has been wanting to do a sticker chore chart like her brothers. So last night I thought, sure, let's try. I told her that if she went to sleep in her bed and stayed there all night, I would make her a sticker chart in the morning. And every night she sleeps in her bed, she will earn another sticker. It actually worked!! She crawled right into bed and stayed there all night. So true to my word, we made a sticker chart today. She picked the pictures and the paper and even helped me "goo" it and laminate it--notice the wrinkles? But she doesn't care. (I love her little belly sticking out.) And she has already decided that when her chart is full, she wants a new bear. Whatever works!

Birthday!!

My baby girl turned 3!! I can hardly believe it. We kept it simple with a family party (and a few close friends!)

Rylee can be such a girly-girl and LOVES anything pink. So pink and crystal was the theme. Pink cake, pink plates, pink tablecloth, pink utensils, pink flower petals and pink punch. She was tickled pink!



Tulips in January--aren't they pretty?!
She could hardly wait to blow out the candle.
She wanted a princess cake and, of course, Belle is her favorite. I think it turned out pretty cute! The little hearts around the bas of the cake were made from whit chocolate chips. I melted them down, added food coloring, poured them into those silicone ice cube trays in the shape of a heart and let them cool. My crazy idea worked!! I love it when that happens. :)

Football Birthday

On Saturday we had the boys' birthday party. All year they have been saying they wanted a football party--I really meant it when I say they are totally obsessed! Even my sports-crazed husband says he thinks it's remarkable how into it they are at such a young age. We were driving home from my parent's house last night and they asked if there were any football games on the radio. Seriously! It's hard enough for me to watch a game, and here they were asking to listen to one! Crazy boys.

Anyway. Back to the party. I started out by sending out these invitations:

When I asked them what they wanted to do at their party, they said they wanted to go to the park and play football with their friends. Easy enough! But not with last week's snow storms and the freezing temperatures. So I had to get creative.

We started out by eating food that you eat at a football game, or as the boys said, "Dome food", so-called after the big dome NAU plays in. We had hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, nachos and soda--all very healthy. It was a huge hit!









The boys said they wanted to buy football jerseys for all the kids at their party, but after we explained how expensive that would be, we opted for making our own t-shirts. They were really easy and turned out pretty cute--football players for the boys and cheerleaders for the girls. It was a packet I got at Wal-Mart where you can print right off the computer onto these iron-on papers. Then the kids colored them with markers and crayons, you remove the backing, and iron on to a shirt. The instructions say you can wash them--we'll soon find out!

Next we played some games:
**Musical footballs: I cut a bunch of footballs out of foam sheets and hid them around the room. After a game of "find a football", we then played a variation of musical chairs with them.
**Hot football: Hot potato only with a football. I had no idea they would like this so much!
**Dizzy Kicker: Jason was the target. I would spin a kid around until he/she was dizzy, then they had to try to kick a balloon and try to hit Jason. The kids thought this was hilarious!

All the games were a big hit. Our house was sooo loud! But it was a lot of fun. And with the exception of one little boy who kept trying to cheat, all the kids got along really well. The winners of the games received a "Superbowl" trophy with gum inside.

Then on to cake and ice cream. I miscalculated and the cake only went up to the 40 yard line. Even I know that there should be 50. The boys were so excited about the football action figures that they didn't even notice. If they had, however, we had a backup plan--when Jason was in High School, he played 8-man football on an 80 yard field. So if they had noticed, we would have told them that we did it on purpose. The scale of the players is way off, but oh well. They didn't care.















Instead of goody bags, Jason had the idea to put all the loot in Gatorade bottles. What a creative husband I have! I found Strawberry Shortcake cantines for the girls. The kids seemed to really like them. Especially when they found out there was candy inside. We also included gum in plastic football containers, gold medals, candy watches etc.




I bought these little foam footballs and it was my plan to have each of the kids sign the ball, but I totally forgot! So I just wrote their names on them so they can remember everyone who came to their party.

On their real birthday, we had a family party with aunts, and uncles, cousins, grandmas and grandpas. And of course, another cake.

Football Cake #2

Enrichment

Last Tuesday, we had our Enrichment Night. It was a huge success, despite all my stressing. We titled the evening "The Gift of Our Savior." We started off with a message from our wonderful Enrichment Leader about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and about what a gift his birth and life was for all of us. It was such a sweet message and was exactly what I needed to hear. A reminder to my frazzled nerves about what Christmas is really about. As a gift to each of the sisters, I found these cute little ornaments made of olive wood, all the way from Jerusalem. (Thanks, Mom, for letting me be a copycat!) I attached a ribbon and this quote from Pres. Faust that Kate used in her message:



"I testify that the greatest gift of this or any other Christmas is the Atonement of Jesus as the Redeemer, the Son of God. It is a gift we cannot handle or touch, but we can feel the immeasurable love of the Giver."

For the rest of the evening, we decided to do a service project for a local women's and children's domestic violence and homeless shelter. We had advertised for weeks for sisters to bring all their gently used toys and clothing that they were no longer in need of. The response was incredible! We had such a good turn-out of sisters and even more impressive was the amount of things we collected. Many hands made for light work and we were able to quickly sort and bag all of the items. We also had another table dedicated to putting together hygiene kits. We were able to put 40 together!

The next day, my wonderful husband helped me load everything up and haul it all to the shelter. We filled the back of his truck all the way up to the top of the cab, packed my van tight with only just barely enough room for the kids, and also packed the back of a friend's jeep. I just had to take a picture of all the stuff. It truly was amazing!



The lady at the shelter was in awe. I had told her there were a lot of things, but I don't think she realized just how much. She said over and over, "Thank you so much. This is so overwhelming." At it was. I was so glad we were able to help out. I can't even imagine what some of those women and children living there have gone through. I am so, so blessed.

Halloween

My kids were so excited for Halloween this year and it turned into a full 2 day celebration! On Tuesday, we went to our church "Trunk or Treat" party. So fun! The kids had a blast and got WAY too much candy. The boys were excited that there were 6 or 7 other ninjas there--it must be year of the ninjas.

Then on Wednesday, the boys had a party in their Kindergarten class. Rylee and I went in to help celebrate. Rylee was so grumpy for most of it, but once I was put in charge of "Musical Tombstones" she cheered up and played over and over again with the "big kids".

Halloween night, Grandma and Grandpa came over to help us celebrate. We had a SPOOKY dinner that the boys had fun helping with. We had green slime pizza. . .(Add food coloring to the mozarella)


. . .bread stick fingers, complete with painted nails. . .(almond slivers painted with food coloring)

Notice the heaps of Parmesan cheese in the lower right corner of the cookie sheet? Wes got a little carried away.

. . .and bug juice. . .(frozen raspberry lemonade, gingerale, frozen raspberries and gummy worms)

I also attempted to make fun cupcakes.
First, I tried these spiders that I saw on the Martha Stewart website, but Safeway didn't have black licorice and because I didn't want to run all over town with 3 kids, I settled for red legs. Yep. They would have looked better with black.
Next I attempted to make some cyclops aliens. The combination of too much sugar and too little sleep produced these interesting things--more like one-eyed crabs that Rainbow Bright threw up on.
After that unsuccessful attempt, I stuck to the quick and easy method. Much better.