Taylor's Tea Party.

This party was had when our baby girl was turning 5 years old. She was enamored with my friends, much more then a lot of the kids her age. We decided to have a tea party for her with "grown ups". She couldn't have been more pleased. She chose the menu including sandwiches, peppers, and the yummy "orange chicken salad" from Jack in the Box. Of course there was cake, chocolate covered strawberries, and pink milk. All of the delicious treats were served to us by Shawn and Cameron, which worked perfect to keep them involved in the girly fun!

All the place cards were hand written by Taylor and we bought fairy notepads for each of the ladies to take home.

We dug out my grandma's china and had lots of toy friends, twinkle lights, and bubbles. I collected things from all over the house and it was amazing how much ended up in one room.

There was plenty of girl talk, bubble blowing, and tea drinking all around the table.

It was such a fun afternoon and a big hit with Taylor. When it was all over, I made a special little scrapbook of the party for her. She still looks at today. Overall it was a very inexpensive party and very little work to put together. When party planning for you child, think about the things that they love to do and who they love to be with. Look around your house and outside of the box...you never know what you can come up with and the memories will last a lifetime!

Happy Party Planning and Birthday Celebrating to you!

Leap Frog.

I can not highly enough recommend these two DVD's. I have tried others and been kinda disturbed. These two are FANTASTIC. I use them during school time for a change of pace for Emma. This also gives me 35 minutes with the older two kids. If you have a pre reader, or new reader...RUN to Target and whip out your 9.99 plus good 'ole tax and BUY THEM!

Day 55. Love Leaps.

I just fell in love, all over again, with my kids today. You know the feeling? A little love leap, perhaps. The day started a little rough as I dragged my caffeine starved body out of bed at a miserable 7:30, threw on a hat, mascara, brushed teeth, and was at the doctor by 8:00, for yearly check ups for my two oldest.

After plenty of poking and prodding, and some uncomfortable turn your head and cough moments, we left the doctor with 2 clean bills of health, picked up Emma from daddy's work, and headed home. I pulled Cameron into the kitchen and told him he needed to pick a cookie recipe and make them, all alone. He embraced the idea with intensity and turned into a male Betty Crocker instantly. He had the ingredients all pulled out of the cupboard in a line, in a moment's notice.  This was his first time baking solo.

Emma enjoyed all of our play dough "stuff"

...and Taylor got to paint her new Triple bunk doll bed that she received for Christmas.

I sat at the table and just relaxed, soaked it all in, and looked around online for fun field trip options.

All three mastered their projects. Cameron cleaned up, without me even asking. He asked if we could take the cookies down to my husband's work, to pass out, to everyone there. I quickly agreed. Then I secretly forced him into a living word problem, as he had to figure out how many cookies each staff member could have and yet still leave left overs for us. He was stunned when I pointed out he just did a word problem. "oh yeah, I guess they are useful". The girls made cards while Cameron bagged up his creations and we were on our way.

We were able to hand deliver, to everyone on staff, except our Senior Pastor who was out of the office, daddy who was at lunch, and our youth pastor who was on the phone. We were making a sufficient disruption on our own, until we were completely outdone by our Children's director. When asked for a photo op, she began shouting, "I'm gonna make the blog", repeatedly in the halls. You made it T...you've been published :). Thanks for helping us document our trip.

After chill time, we headed down for our book work in the late afternoon. It's funny how in the beginning of the year that was always a total train wreck. It worked perfect today. We ended the day with our Black Out Family Night. It was a great day, surrounded by those that I love with all my heart...

Now there is just 115 school days left until summer.

Blackout Night.

The first Family Night of twenty-ten was a smashing success. The kids were wound up all day long in anticipation of returning to our absolutely favorite family tradition.

I sent the kids upstairs while I prepared, which involved going on a candle and flashlight hunt. I gathered up what I could, turned off all electricity, prayed to the Lord that the candles would stay vertical.

We informed the kids of the travesty that occurred...we will have to man up and do family night in the dark. Instantly there was lots of pointing out the running clocks on the stove, the backyard light (oops), and humm of the refrigerator. Emma, quite proudly, turned the kitchen light on just to be sure. Once everyones curiosity was satisfied that we were in fact, lying (for the sake of fun) about it, we moved on to dinner.

We grabbed what we could from the pantry and the refrigerator (quickly so as not to lose the cold). It consisted of lunch meats, cheese, sandwiches, tortillas warmed by candlelight, and fruit. The only casualty during dinner was a Hansen's soda. Not bad, overall.

These were the rest of the activities:

crowning Shawn the champion in Candy Land

flashlight tag

shadow puppets

reading stories, and

being thankful that our fireplace, still works when the power is out.

it was great, it was easy, and it cost nothing. The only thing we were missing was an actual storm.

Can't wait 'til next week.

Emma's Fancy Nancy Tea Party.

Emma had been waiting for her tea party ever since she was old enough to look at her sister's album from her tea party. We went with a Fancy Nancy Tea Party for Emma. I fell in love with Fancy Nancy as soon as I saw her, she reminds me of Emma. Emma loves her too...

We fancied up the dining room, with lots of girly~ness, rose petals on the floor, boa's on the chandelier, and twinkly lights wrapped through fabric on the ceiling.

We had a nice little spread of sandwiches, snacks, and pink milk.

the little girls loved every minute...

...toasted with their fruit loops in plastic champagne glasses

...and celebrated with Emma as she blew out her candles

and for the mommy entertainment...a pinata with a bunch of little ones dressed fancy...

...a wonderful afternoon party. With a bunch of special young ladies.

Happy Birthday Emma. xo.

Day 54. Let's Plan It.

Oh, back at it today. Unfortunately insomnia, lurking shadows outside of Emma's door, and snoring husbands, made last's night sleep incredibly brief. To make matters worse, because of my insane idea of quitting caffeine, sugar, and carbs cold turkey on Sunday morning....I am miserable. Self induced misery is sometimes the worst kind. I read that if you taper of caffeine slowly that you can do it with very little discomfort, but the critics of that plan state that if you go cold turkey you will see just how very bad you feel. This will hopefully show you what caffeine is doing to your body and increase your chances of staying off the stuff. I personally don't care about any of that right now. I am so tired, walking around in a cloud, ridiculous muscle aches, and just wanting to sleep for weeks. I hear that 9 days is the maximum these symptoms can last. I have just completed day 4.

I am slowly taking back control of my spun out life, my house, my health, my schedule, etc. This inevitably would have been my phase in life right now, but how convenient that it falls around New Years. I will take full advantage of my clean calendar and fill it with things that matter the most. I am in the middle of planning our field trips, school days, and holidays for the rest of the school year. Also we are looking forward to beginning family nights again this Thursday. Read about those here. I am also planning some house projects, and all the while trying to take things slowly. I have no reason to rush. My top priorities right now are school and my health. My health plan is all laid out for the next 12 weeks. This caffeine removal from my life is phase one. I already do feel empowered.

I am working on a system to try and condense the trips to the grocery store, Target, and Costco. Perhaps visit them once a week ? I wonder what that would be like. I am also trying to figure out when to schedule in the house chores. The beauty of this all is that between quitting my job and being home so much more with school...this is for the first time in a long time, this actually could be all doable. How lovely.

We started off school today working on our Christmas Thank You Notes. Target sells some fun stationary that allows coloring around the edges of it. The kids all worked on that while I addressed the envelopes. The thank you's will get written tomorrow night and they should be in the mail Friday.

Emma was particularly thrilled to be back at her desk. She did lots of worksheets today. Her favorite thing to do, still remains cutting and pasting. She got some great new books for Christmas. I am a bit concerned though regarding her developmental process....she was insistant that the tops of these sail boats pictured above, look identical to a "bunch of butts"....

Now there is just 116 school days left until summer.

Cameron Night.

I plan to have a family night celebrating each person in our family. So far, we have had Cameron night. I had a meal that was all of Cameron's favorites...Pineapple, Chevy's chips, and Chevy's tortillas made into quesadillas. My boy is all things science. I scoured Family Fun and found a test tube cake, buggie wonder mold, edible eyeballs (almost turned out), and some fun science experiments with food coloring and dish soap. I made a poster and hung it up to celebrate is great qualities (stole that idea from my friend Nicole who does this for her kid's on their birthdays). We dissected the mold and have some new additions to our family...you've gotta love little boys and their toys....Love you Cam, xoxo.