Playing catch up!

So I'm finally going to try and play catch up. Starting off with my gallery wall which has been up for a few months now and I love. Just in time for the last post...which will be posted last... :) Anyway enjoy the update!

Some of the kids for the Gallery wall!

So I had a few open frames on my gallery wall that needed some pictures of the kids in them. I really only needed one of each of them, but they turned out really cute. Also this was the easiest, most efficient photo shoot I've ever had with them! It was a half hour for both of them! And only at one place! I was very happy! And Ryan didn't even get cranky! :)

The Daddy Daughter Kings Grand Ball!

So Ryan got the chance to go on a daddy daughter date to this ball in Lindon a few days after her birthday. I really tried hard to get Ryan to have his brother, who also went to this with our niece, take a picture of he and Bella dancing. But check out the sweet outfit he wore...



He was not thrilled about pictures! :) Doesn't he look awesome!? His mom made this prince Charming costume a few years back for his brother Riley when he worked at a preschool, and it seemed perfect for this occasion. Bella was thrilled!




How cute are these girls!? I love it! They had SO much fun!



I still haven't gotten the pictures from the Princess Festival from my sister in law's camera yet, and who knows when or if I ever will. So if I post some, they will have to be totally out of sequence! :)

The Pink Pony Cake...

For the family birthday. This cake was so easy to make and it was a hit for sure! I couldn't find pink rip rolls for the hair (which would have been way cuter cause it's "sparkly") so I used bubble tape which worked just as nicely!

A Pinktastic time!

So this year for Bella's birthday she decided on a theme early:
Are you familiar with this awesome book?



Well if not, and you have a daughter, you must familiarize yourself with it right away. But till then I will fill you in on the gist of it. A little girl eats too many pink cupcakes and wakes up the next morning and has turned PINK! She then eats more pink and turns red, then has to eat green food to get back to normal. It's a really cute book.



Well the party went well, but there were 11 little girls, and 3 hours to kill...I totally overdid it with the 3 hours but I had way too many cute ideas for this one...and I wasn't able to do them all. By the second hour I was so tired I told the girls to just go play, But I did plenty! Unfortunately since I was doing it all, I wasn't able to get very many pictures! :( I was so sad when I realized I hadn't gotten a picture of the food before the girls got served! It was all so cute, and I wanted something to prove I did it! :)

Below is a mess of pink stuff waiting to go outside,



Once the girls were all eating I turned to one of the moms there and was horrified that I hadn't gotten a picture of the table settings before they started eating! She however had snapped one with her phone while waiting. So thanks to her I at least have this one. It shows the far away view. I wish I had one of the close up view of each setting, but I don't. Hmmm.. a photographer? Really?



Here are my attempt of the cupcakes to look like the ones in the book. I think they turned out pretty good!



Here I am reading the story to the girls while they are eating. Some of them hadn't heard the story before, and so seriously what is the fun if you have no idea what is going on! We also had all the girls come wearing pink!



I forgot to mention above that half the decorations didn't get put out because it was SO windy! I mention this now because if you can tell, there are some strings tied to Bella's chair. They used to have balloons attached, however the wind kept blowing the balloons into things and most of them popped in the first half hour, scaring all the girls half to death!



Below are the party favors and activities. We had bubbles, "pink drink", and play dough pinkalicious labels I made and glued on. Then we had crowns and wands for each girl, that resemble the ones she has in the book. We did a pinata filled with only pink candies, we painted unicorn sun-catchers that looked like Goldie, her imaginary pet unicorn, and we colored pictures of her with Goldie!



The birthday girl! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of her in her full Pinkalicious getup! In this photo she has lost the wings, crown and wand. :)



My cute little niece!



Bella grinning as everyone sings Happy Birthday to her! We ate the cupcakes in the grass since the table had been trashed by food and paint from earlier!






I did these cute cotton candy sticks which then melted within the first five minutes of being outside! Then they didn't look so cute! The girls ate them anyway! :)



Love this. Doesn't it look so convincing that she's gonna hit it?



There we go...much better!



So after all 11 girls attempted to break the pinata multiple times, and nothing happened, it was then Ryan's turn. He first tried to hit it with our tiny Cinderella bat, but that wasn't working, in fact it was breaking the bat, so I suggested he break it on the swing set beam. Well he did, and the candy SHOT out and flew at the girls like bullets! Amazingly enough only 2 girls got hit with the flying starburst. They both burst into tears so this cute picture is Ryan comforting one. I was comforting the other girl, but that didn't get captured! :) So sorry to those little girls! We were idiots! lol!



And last but not least, how cute are these little Pinkalicious'!? My brother in law Riley and his wife Sydnie made this awesome poster for the girls to put their faces in for pictures before they left! Unfortunately because of the wind, this kept blowing over and so got tucked behind one of the tables during the party. Then I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to get the girls the right goody bags at the end (and half of them were thirsty, or needed to use the bathroom etc) that four of the girls left before I realized we hadn't gotten pictures of them! :( I was SO sad! Thankfully 6 of them still got a picture and they were thrilled! I am planning on emailing these to them.



And there you have it! I guess it was at least memorable, since I have had parents comment to me a few times that their little girls wouldn't stop talking about it. So I guess it was a success! :) Thank you to my cute neighbor Alex as well for helping out! She came over early and helped set up, finish food, then helped with everything all through the party. She took most of these pictures for me, which is why I got any at all! And then, as if that wasn't enough, she stayed after for awhile and cleaned up my entire toy room and all the garbage outside! She's awesome!

Happy 4th Birthday Bella!

I do realize this post is a little late, but our little toddler Bella, turned into a kid on June 22! About time! She has been acting like one for almost 2 years now! ;) For her birthday she got the much anticipated dollhouse which appeared much smaller at her cousins house than it does in our toy room. We were quite surprised by how huge it is in our house! lol! I was a little embarrassed actually to have anyone see it. Poor Liam will have no room for any toys now! :oP









I have a friend who interviews her kid every year and then puts up the answers and I thought this was a cute idea. Kind of like a journal of sorts! :) So I have interviewed Bella with her answers below! Enjoy!

What's your favorite color?
"All the colors"

What are some of your favorite things to do?
"making stuff!...I mean skip all that, I love playing with Liam"
(she LOOOOVES all things creative!)
-Swing
-Draw/color/paint/cut
-Dress ups
-Play barbies

What do you want to be when you grow up?
"Right now I'm an artist, and then when I grow up more, I'll be a teacher!"

Who is your best friend?
"Claire"

What makes you happy?
"When dad comes home from work"

What makes you sad?
"When my friends have to go home"

What makes you ANGRY?
"Nothing makes me an-gry! :P"

What is the best part about being a big sister?
"Playing with my little brother"

What is the hardest part?
"Being nice to Liam"

What do you like to do with Mom?
"Make cookies and cakes!"d

What do you like to do with Dad?
"Play house with him"

What does your mom like?
"hmm...when I clean my room!"

What does your dad like?
"when I be nice"

What does Liam like?
"When I make funny faces at him!"

What is your favorite food?
"broccoli and mushrooms and carrots!"

What is your favorite treat?
"all of them!"

How old are you now?
"4!"

Happy 4th of July!

So incredibly happy to live in this country! My kids are so happy too...they just don't know the half of it! Thank you to all those out there making sacrifices for our continued freedom. We are so grateful.
Here's the kids in their patriotic getups!

Have you heard of Anthony Barbie?

My brother Anthony recently signed on with a modeling agency, Muse Modeling. Next thing you know, I'm perusing the Mattel website and come across this remarkable discovery...





Do you see the resemblance? Well if you know Anthony in person there is an even bigger resemblance than you see here! Even the way this doll STANDS is like Anthony...heck the part in the hair is just like his! So come to find out, Muse told my brother when he signed on, that they discovered the new face of Ken. So they have connections to Mattel. Anthony also received a random paycheck from them not too much sooner than my discovery for the same amount they agreed to pay when selling copyrights to his photos. Now, they haven't told Anthony one way or another if this is him, but come on...what do you think? Either way we have decided to name this Barbie (who currently is named Barbie Basics Model #16 Collection #002...even more of a reason to think they used his pictures) Anthony Barbie! And we bought him one for his birthday!



Of course it doesn't quite look like him in THIS particular photo :oP

Bella's Gymnastics Showcase!

First let me just say I am WAY behind! Aside from this showcase, I also need to blog our completed playset, the princess festival, Bella's birthday, Bella's pinkalicious birthday party and The daddy daughter kings grand ball! My problem mostly is that I have 3 different people I need to collect pictures from. So keep checking back in the next couple of days and I should have a few more blog posts by then! :)

Let me apologize for these horrible pictures. I wasn't sure how this showcase was going to be set up and I brought the wrong lens. I should have brought my zoom lens. So a lot of these I had to just crop in real close which is why some are such bad quality. luckily I think Ryan got some video on his phone cause it was so hard to get anything of Bella with people walking in front of us or standing in front of us.
Anyway, Bella has been doing gymnastics for the last couple of months. Her last day for the summer is actually tomorrow. She has done pretty well learning but the curriculum they have set up for this age group is very relaxed. Some of the things Bella has gotten much better at include, balance beam (this is my favorite to watch her on because she points her toes so nicely!), jumping/falling into the foam pit, jumping on the trampolines they have there which are WAY springy, and she has almost mastered a front handspring! lol! One downfall of all this braveness that has come, is that before our slide was put onto the playset, Bella decided she was going to jump out of the hole for the slide to "practice" flying! It didn't turn out so well, but it could have been much worse!
They all got a medal at the end of the showcase and got to take a picture with this giant bear...I'm not sure why...I think it was because they were collecting stuffed animals for orphanage kids...

The New Van!

So we got a new van. It's been a month now, but the first day we got it home, I was backing out of the driveway, which has a curb at the end, and didn't realize how low to the ground the van sat...went over it too fast I guess and the front bumper slammed onto the concrete popping it out of place, knocking some rubber piece that holds the bumper on, off, and partially knocking off the undercarriage cover. I have been waiting to take a picture until it got fixed and now it is, $400 later! So ridiculous.
Anyway I totally love this van. It is a Honda Odyssey Touring 2006. It only had 37000 miles on it! For those of you who aren't yet sold on vans, here are the reasons why I would drive NO other vehicle as a mom!

-It drives SO easy. Easier than the Subaru
-There is DVD with multiple sound outlets. The kids can listen to the DVD while you listen to the Radio if you wish! (Yes I realize this isn't only a van feature!)
-The sliding doors, while not appealing are so awesome for 2 reasons: 1) You can open them with the push of a button and 2) While putting a car seat (with a baby inside) into the car, you don't have to worry about your car door hitting the car parked next to you! Something SO hard to do, when you have a huge baby like I did... (yes did, I will explain later!)
-I can not only open the sliding doors with the push of a button, but the TRUNK or cargo or whatever you want to call it, as well!!! So I'm walking to my car with Liam in one arm, and two sacs from a store that doesn't have cart return areas outside, and bam, with the push of a button my life gets so much easier!
-While we are driving on a road trip, or any lengthy drive, even to Provo, if one of the kids needs something, I can unbuckle myself, WALK into the back, and join them! :) It is all so easy!
-Other things that are so much easier include: changing diapers, nursing, putting kids in PJ's, feeding Liam baby food, etc...
(these are the things that I love after having used the outback for so many years with a kid!

There you have it! Buy a van! They really are much better than people give them credit for! :)

Also, how I mentioned that I USED to have a huge baby, it's because Liam had his 9 month checkup on the 1st and he weighed in at 19 lb 6 oz and 27.9 inches. Meaning he really hasn't grown since his 6 month appt. He maybe grew .5 inches! lol! So he is now in the 25th percentile for both weight and height! Quite a difference from 95th! :)