All American Tea Party

I let the kids have a "friend party" for their birthday every other year and this is an on-year! I love letting them get their creative juices flowing while they plan out the details of the party and then helping them put it all together. Hallie loves her Felicity doll and has gotten a lot of fun American-Girl Doll stuff from her Grandma this year so she wanted to have an American Girl Doll Tea Party. The guest list started with a few close friends and quickly spun out of control to almost 20 girls!! Only 14 (+2 little brothers) ended up being able to come which was just perfect. Hallie even got on the computer with me and I let her design the invitation, here is the finished product:

When the girls first arrived they sat down and made tea-party food for their dolls and stuffed animals out of play-dough.



Then they (Kyle, Trisha & the girls) went out back to play some old-fashioned games (pillow-case races, three-legged races, ring toss, hula hoop etc.) while we (Mom, Isabel & I) baked their doll food to harden it and set the table for the tea party. We set out our "fine china" with a little menu and place card on each plate, and a little plate at each spot with their dolls food on it. We served scones, little sandwiches, cookies, cupcakes and ice cream. I found the menu online here. Here is the version I came up with (x3 for printing): I simplified everything, added Hallie's All-American Cup Cakes to the menu, exchanged crystal and china for paper and plastic and it all turned out great. It was really cute and fun and I think the girls enjoyed it. After they ate Hallie opened presents and then the girls made shoe-lace jewelry for their dolls. They each got a colorful shoe lace and got to string beads on it to make a belt, necklace, headband, or whatever for their dolls.

We got all that done in just two hours--a feat I definitely couldn't have pulled off without the help of my Mom, Trisha & Kyle. It was a fun way to continue Hallie's month-long birthday celebration. We had her B-Day on 4th weekend, the party on the 20th, and we still have her baptism coming up on August 7th. Party on Hallie!!

Great to be 8!!

Our little Fourth of July Princess is 8!!! We are all still kind of in shock. Or maybe its just me. I can't believe how fast she went from our beautiful little baby to "We don't want to play princesses, we just want to talk..." AAAHHHHH!!!! But she is still our sweet, innocent, fun-loving little girl and we LOVED getting to celebrate another 4th of July Extravaganza Birthday Weekend with her. We are so blessed to have her as part of our family.
Sorry about the sideways pic, here she is looking through her American Girl Doll books from grandma and trying out her new rollerblades!! And these are from her Birthday BBQ that we had with her local cuzzies (missed you Alexis, Logan & Froggie!! ) on Saturday.

Birthday Girl Fashion Show.

One of the main events at the BBQ was the Hallie Fashion Show, mostly courtesy of her Nana. Here it is....Eliana Style :)

The show started with pieces from the "Popsicle Collection" This versatile shirt can be worn with stylish capris for a day out with the girls...Fun and festive bermuda shorts for a weekend at the beach...


Or throw on the skirt for a night out on the town.

In an unexpected moment of craftiness I made all the little girls 4th of July TuTu's....go me!!4th of July Chic (that's sheek not chick)


This darling Sunday dress came courtesy of Kelli and TJ

Out of all of them this is the outfit that seemed to just yell "hallie!" and the one she has been seen in the most times since :)

Vintage Country Girl (check out those cute boots btw)

And we finished off with the Butterfly Collection.

Just can't get enough of those giraffe print bike shorts...

I couldn't tell who had the most fun, Hallie or Nana :)

Thanks!!!!

4th of July 2010

After the bbq Saturday we had fireworks at Mom&Dads courtesy of TJ (aka The Firestarter). Monday morning we were up BRIGHT (some of us not so bright) AND EARLY! to go see the balloons and eat pancakes.

Oceanside

Our big road trip in March was to Oceanside California for the 1/2 Iron Man there. Kyle and my parents were all racing so we made a party out of it with Jeff & Alisha's family and Trisha coming along too. We spent the first night at my aunt & uncles house near San Diego. Every time we stopped the car on the 12 hour drive out there Mason would jump out of his seat really excited and ask "Is this Uncle Dave's?" He doesn't know Uncle Dave all that well so we figured he was just excited to get there. When we finally did get to Dave & Karla's he hurried inside and starting running up and down the stairs and in and out of all of the rooms. I was a little embarassed by this total home invasion, especially since Mason had 5 kids (mine & Jeff's) following him. So I told him to come back downstairs. He ran down and asked "Mom, where are the Chipmunks?" He thought we were going to see Dave Seville and Alvin, Simon & Theodore. He was pretty disappointed when I told him Uncle Dave was out of town, and he decided that the chipmunks had just gone with him. =) Did I mention I love that little boy?

We spent our first day there at San Diego Zoo.

Isabel was more interested in us than the animals.

Here she is trying to kiss her reflection in my glasses.

And checking out Brenna:

Here's Hallie trying to tame a tiger.

And rhe rest of the wild animals: The next couple of days we spent in a hotel right on the beach in Carlsbad. The kids & I spent most of our time the first day on the beach and in the pool while Kyle & my parents got all checked in and ready for their race and Jeff & Alisha took their kids to Lego Land.

Grandma & Grandpa Young came into town to support the racers on their way back to Utah from their winter home. Here's Grandma trying to give Izzie a pacifyer, good luck with that Grandma. That girl does not like her passie.

And then we had RACE DAY!! I was so proud of all three of them. Kyle beat his Boise 1/2 time by 50 minutes and felt great and Mom and Dad both had great races despite being diagnosed with strep throat three days before.

The race started early so Trisha & I didn't bring the kids over to watch until the run. It was a beautiful location and great race for spectators. We set ourselves up under the boardwalk on the beach and were able to watch them run back and forth past us 4 times. Here are Trisha & Mason keeping an eye out:

And here is Kyle going back....

and forth...he looked just as full of energy and strong on every pass but I never did get a great picture of him :( I blame my camera.

I did a little better with Mom. She was smiling and looked like she was having a great time through the whole race:

Who's Your Papa? Here's Dad taking a little time to hug his adoring fans.

We all finished! The kids held up great until Trisha & I walked them 1 1/2 miles through the crowds, up the beach to the finish line. Here they are recovering in the shade. Isabel is trying really hard to open that Gatorade :) Trisha & I weren't looking pretty enough for a picture at this point.

Mom & Dad looking great at the end. They put in a lot of work training for this and it was fun to see them meet all of their goals.

And here's IronMan Kyle. Great job sweetie, we love to watch you race!

You better watch out...

Funny story: Mason over the past few months has been waking up scared at night. Whenever we ask him what's wrong or what he is scared of he says "Santa." We just smiled and tucked him back in the first couple of times but finally this last time asked him why he's scared of Santa. His answer: "He sees me when I'm sleeping." I've never thought about how creepy the lyrics to "santa clause is coming to town" are before! I love that little boy. =)

A little confession...

I'll admit it....and I'm sure this won't come as a shocker to any of you who are loyal enough to still be checking my blog after months and months of no updates but....I HATE BLOGGING! Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but it is definitely a chore. A lot like cleaning bathrooms, eating green leafy things, and vacuuming out my car. But I still try to do my other chores because I like the end result. So I will keep making an effort to blog because I do like sharing bits and pieces of our lives with all of you, and I love reading your updates and feel bad about not reciprocating. So, without any more angst, here is the start of our 2010 Highlights:

We still have no shortage of Super Hero's in the house. Here are IronMan & Wolverine protecting their baby sis from the forces of evil. I decided to get in on the action and made Super Heroes the theme for Girls Camp this year....bring on the spandex & capes! :)

This year has been a Road-Trip year. We managed to make it down to St. George for 3 different weekends in January and February, twice for Kyle's IronMan training and once for my duathlon. We all loved being able to get out of the cold and get outside. And the kids got to go swimming--nevermind that the pool wasn't heated and it was only 50-60 degrees, they were unstoppable. Izzie has used our frequent road trips to hit all of her milestones, she rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time while we were down there in January and from her back to her tummy while we were there in February. And she started sitting on her own while we were in Cali in March. She still doesn't roll a whole lot (she's a big fan of sitting), but we know she can!

I can't believe how much she has changed between this pic (in January) and now!

Grandma & Grandpa Woody made it out to visit a couple of times. This is a rare moment for Izzie, she hardly ever sleeps outside of her crib.

One big thing we got checked off our list this past winter was we painted our vaulted ceiling in the living room! This is Kyle priming it---it was kind of a hassle to paint but SO worth it to have nice bright ceiling through the winter. We also painted that wall behind him bright blue, I'll post an "after-shot" later.....