Birthday Girl

Today was Miss Brittany's 11th birthday. What fun we had! We decided to do a glamour tea party so we took Brittany and three friends to the local beauty school for updos and manicures. It took a little longer than I expected (and the local beauty school students were a bit edger than expected!) but wow the results were fun!

Here is Brittany with her Cinderella do. She smiled the entire time she was in the chair.

Her super cute friends. They all looked gorgeous.

Then we went home and they all decorated big cupcakes on the little cake platters I made. That is an actual craft people-I will post about it in the next day or two. Oh, and please notice the little petit fours I stayed up until midnight making at Brittany's request. They were utterly yucky. Hey, they can't all be winners.

Then the girls went downstairs to complete the transformation. Aren't they beautiful girls?

Then the tea party commenced. I am so glad Brittany has found such darling friends.

Bedtime for the birthday girl. New Alice nightshirt and furry friend. She may be eleven but she is still my little girl!

Taking the Cake

Anybody remember when this blog was about things other than kids? Like crafts and food? I miss those days. But these are the days of Summer and birthdays at our house. This is Joshua's cake eaten Sunday.

He was pretty happy with it.

Brittany wanted the fairy village cake she found on Family Fun. She had a lot of fun making it but I definitely think it would have been cheaper to just buy one.

Pretty happy girl though.

We combined the two kids family birthday party so the cousins wouldn't have to make two trips. There were more presents to be opened.

Thank heavens, now we won't have naked ZhuZhu pets running around anymore!

Joshua's Party

Yesterday we had Joshua's party with his friends. And my friends. The kids he plays with most are the kids of my friends who come to Wednesday lunch which has turned into Wednesday park days during the summer. It was pretty much the easiest party you can imagine but did serve as a setting for fun pictures and we all know it is about the pictures. Brittany painted every one's faces.

There were, of course, wonderful presents.

Then there was the playing with the presents.

Concluding with a tower of Buzz and Woody cupcakes. What more could you want?!

Ah yes, a nap with a new gorilla. Yes, that is a crib he is in. Don't judge us, the kid takes a two hour nap in there and still goes to bed at 8 every day. Maybe it is just my form of denial that my baby is four now!

A Day with the Dinosaurs

We have had house guests this week. William's brother Joe and his family have been staying with us. LOTS of fun. Monday we were looking for something fun to do together. Since it was also Josh's birthday a trip to the dinosaur park in Ogden seemed perfect. Did you know four year olds are really tough and can even take on big ole dinosaurs?

They can dig for fossils with the big kids too.

We saw some pretty fierce beasts besides the dinosaurs.

What a fun group!

But be sure and keep your eye on those little ones!

Recital Week

Last week was one of my very favorite weeks of the whole year. Ballet Recital week. It started with the dress rehersal. WE were lulcky enought to get to have lunch with some of our fellow dancing friends and their poor brothers who may not enjoy recital week as much as the rest of us. That is my friend Circe in the middle who teaches at our school.

It is amazing to look at these girls and remember when they were all as tiny as our little "music box dancer" Xanthe there in the pink. They have all become such lovely dancers. I was sad I didn't get to see Ari and Golda this year though.

Then our week took an ugly turn for the worse. See Brittany? She looks pretty doesn't she? You would never guess she was throwing up shortly before this picture was taken. Yep, she got the horrible flu the rest of the family had had all week. Except did she get it Monday like Josh? Wednesday like me? Friday like her dad? No, she waited until Friday night so that she was sick all night long and into the morning. With a performance at 1 and again at 7 I didn't know what to do. I mean, a dance with missing dancer is just not the same and it would have been so obvious in this year's dance. So after calling my friend Circe for serious counseling I called the teacher and explained. She said to bring Brittany just for her dance and then take her home.

Here she sits with her bowl waiting her turn. Lovely.

Minutes before going on with her class. The fun part was I got watch from backstage, a unique perspective. Then the unthinkable happened. MY CELL PHONE RANG! Would you believe the ring was the song they were about to dance to? Of course my bottomless pit of a purse was stuffed full with her shoes, the camera, and a multitude of other garbage. It just kept ringing and I swear it got louder. I still want to die thinking about it. Eventually I finally got it turned off and watched her dance, she was amazing. Then I took her right home and put her to bed. Then we turned around and did the whole thing all over again but by then she was feeling a little better so I got to watch from the audience. Let's just say it was a very memorable recital this year and we learned that Brittany can do HARD things. I am so proud of her!

Summer Crafting Begins

Not only have the summer field trips begun but so has the crafting. My nieces came up for a day last week and we painted rocks. Cute cupcakes aren't they?

Matthew made an awesome dinosaur and eagle and tried out the swirly rock that everyone eventually mastered. We drizzled acrylic paint right onto the rock and the drug a toothpick through it.

Abby and Libby created some wonderful animals and flowers too. One tip we learned was that a coat of clear varnish after everything was done really made a huge difference. We rushed the whole process along by putting the newly painted rocks in a warm oven to help them dry faster.

These girls cannot get together without playing dress up. Our three princesses.

Did I mention they dance too? Let the Summer crafting begin!

Back Among the Living

Yesterday I got the flu. The yucky, upchucky flu. I learned something though. My daughter is very grown up now. For the first time ever I was able to stay in bed most of the day and just be sick. Because Brittany totally took charge of Joshua. Matthew went to play at a friend's house so since Brittany took Josh downstairs it was the first time since having kids that I was able to lay in my bed and not on the couch so I could still keep an eye on kids. Soooo much better! While they were downstairs they made houses out of the little tents we have and then took each other's pictures.

Brittany's lovely, well decorated abode.

Super sister of the year! Thanks kiddo!

Heeere Cooomes the Train!

We had the first of what will hopefully be many field trips today. My friend Marci called and offered us free tickets to ride the train in Brigham City.

We got to ride in the dining car, just like the pretty gloved and hat-wearing ladies and gentlemen of the 1960's. This is Matthew with his buddy Dallen and his little brother Corbin. They don't get to hang very much since the moved to a lovely new house.

Brittany and the movie star we call Joshua.

It was really a fun ride followed up by a great visit with friends. Yeah Summer!

The Hills are Alive

Oh, I created a great memory with my kids tonight! We went to see some of our favorite people in an amazing production of The Sound of Music. Now understand that this particular musical is very special to me on several levels. The big one I suppose is that it represents my mother in law in many ways. She grew up in Austria during the war, while her father was fighting in the German army involuntarily. She came to the States as a young adult and help support her family. Years later she would make it a family tradition to watch The Sound of Music every Christmas while the family assembled the same Austrian cookies she had known as a child. I came along and dated her son. Watching that movie with their family and making cookies is one of my first memories with them. That all came after the movie had been part of my own childhood. It was being replayed at a big theater in Ogden when I was really little and my mom and I think my "Great Nanny" took me. First movie memory, well that or Cinderella I'm not sure which came first. My mom also had the record album and I remember listening to it over and over. My kids were really impressed tonight that I knew all the words to the songs. So tonight, when some of our favorite family friends, the Dopps were involved we had to be there. Excuse the awful tiny pictures but I was obeying the no-flash rule and this was the best my sad little camera could do. We knew Miss Golda and Ruby were talented, in fact I was just planning on their being amazing and they were. Golda was Louisa and I think Ruby was Marta, beautiful talented girls that we are so glad to know. I wasn't expecting such a well done prodution I have to admit. The sets and costumes were really impressive. Especially considering the tickets were pretty darn cheap.

Their dad Scott somehow got roped in to being the Nazi Admiral who tells Captain Von Trapp (who also went to high school with us) he has a new assignment. I have to tell you the audience was full of Dopps and honorary Dopps like us who just could not miss this chance to see Scott on the stage. He looked sharp and did a great job. I am so glad we didn't miss this, after all the years Scott has teased me I am going to get a lot of mileage out of this one. Probably not as much as his brothers will though.

So if you are in my neck of the woods, and you know if you are, I highly recommend The Sound of Music as a Saturday outing tomorrow. Hey, it's rainy and yucky out there. Wouldn't you rather visit Austria?

Summer List of Fun

I have been working on my ideas for keeping kids from uttering the dreaded "I don't have anything to dooooooo". Here is what I have come up with so far.
Lots of art projects, here are a few I like.
This awesome batik project might be first on my list. Her whole blog is amazing and I think it is where I am going to look anytime we need a craft project this summer.

We may have to make bubble machines again.

We may have to make slime again. I also saw a recipe that called it Gak and used liquid starch here.

This is corn syrup painting from eighteen25.

Agirlandhergluegun had these great ideas out of a book she had.

-Field trips to Salt Lake

-temple square

-Hoogle Zoo

-museums at the U

-Davis County Summer Reading program, we do this every summer and it is great! The schedule is here. My endorsement has nothing to do with my mother being the library event scheduler.

-Helen's Pool (my mom's friend who graciously shares her pool)

-Field trip to Provo

- Bean Museum

-Museum of Fine Art

-This is the Place Heritage Park

-Swimming Lessons

-Park Days with friends

-Free Bowing at Orchard Lanes in North Salt Lake. Free all summer if you register at www.KidsBowlFree.com/orchard

-Read a book aloud as a family (instead of TV)

And last but not least I caved in to peer pressure and got us season passes to Cherry Hill , the local water park. I was really reluctant to consider spending a far part of my summer in a swim suit but the last few days have been so fun and the amount of sibling bickering has been so small that I think I am fan. The deal is the kids have to complete a chore chart every morning before we can go so I get a clean house without nagging plus they seem less inclined to mess it up when they had to help clean it!

So those are some of the things we will be doing, I posted them so I can look back when we are out of things to do and maybe there will be something there someone else can use.

Let the fun begin!

My New Hat(s)

Poor neglected blog! I have been having too much fun with my newly free children. I have learned the last couple of days that I am going to need a hat to spare the world from seeing my icky swim-hair. That and to keep my from burning my part, I hate that. So after looking at other people's cute hats yesterday I came up with this solution. One hat, lots of different flowers with a pin on the back so I can change them to suit my mood!

Last Day of School!

The kids on the first day of school. Gosh, 2nd and 5th grades were fun!
They have learned so much and grown up so much. Matthew has really gotten to be a great reader and better yet, he likes it now! He has made a ton of friends and tells me how much the girls like him. Brittany is doing math now that blows my mind. Of course she still loves reading the best though. I am so glad she has made some good friends too.

After the kids left this morning I tackled the changing of the seasons. This went from this.

To this, bring on the Summer!