Kate's Ballerina Birthday Party

Kate is 6 years old!

Where has the time gone?! Kate was SO excited to turn six. We had a friend party a few days before her actual birthday because of Memorial Day Weekend and people leaving. Her birthday is on Sunday May 29th so we'll do more partying then!

She has been planning this birthday party since last year. She is taking Ballet classes and loves pretending like she is a ballerina so that's what she wanted for her birthday party. I wasn't too thrilled on making a ballerina doll cake so I found some ballerina slippers that I could do. She loved it.

The invitations read:

Come Dance & Twirl with the Birthday Girl. It will be tutu much fun! Curtain Call- (date, time, place) Come dressed as a ballerina!

I was going to make a tutu to go around the cake, but I ran out of time so I just put the toile underneath the cake stand. Everything was pink, you'd think I was throwing a baby shower for a baby girl! The cake was strawberry and we had neopolitan ice cream.

I bought a bunch of pink candy to put in dishes. They ended up decorating their piece of cake with it. Not sure if they even ate their cake. Oh well...

All her ballerina friends. L-R: Dallas, Elsa, Kate, Alyssa, Tatiana, Ryleigh and Avery (Dallas' cousin who happened to be visiting, Kate wanted to invite her and since another girl ended up not coming I had extra stuff.) I loved how they all came dressed up as ballerinas and had their hair in a bun. I didn't even do Kate's in a bun and the girls told her she needed one. haha!

We played a few dancing games and they free danced a lot. I had burned some classical songs to a CD for them to dance to. By the time we were on our last dancing game the girls were all tired and sat down to rest! It was time for cake and ice cream.

She had a blast at her party and got some fun presents. After she opened Ryleigh's gift, Ryleigh gave her a hug! It was so cute. She has some cute friends at Church, school and in the neighborhood. I hope she is always a good friend.

Hula Hooping

These pictures are from the Mother's Day Tea Party with Kate's class that I had posted about earlier. I forgot my camera so my friend, Kati, took these pictures for me.

Kate introduced me and gave me this flower that obviously Lindsey wanted (Preston was next to me buckled up in the stroller).


There are like 35+ kids in our neighborhood. When the majority of them are out playing it can get really crazy. The kids usually have fun, but there's always drama from kids making clubs that so-and-so can't belong to. So us parents have to mediate and make sure the kids are being nice, but that doesn't always happen. There have been many tears shed in our house already and it's not even summer! I am trying to teach Kate to be nice, not make exclusive clubs and to not always cry over everything. It makes it hard when I want to protect my daughter and go make things right by talking to the mean girls. It's so hard not too do that, but I have to be careful because I don't need parents mad at me too.

On this day, the kids were doing a hula hoop show for us parents. All the kids really got into it and were doing their own different talents. It was fun for them.

I love how Kate had to wear gloves to perform and how she loves to show me her skills. She really likes to show me how she can hula hoop on her arm!

I had to get a picture of Preston eating the pirate's booty right in front of the pantry. He got a chair to get it off the shelf and then just sat there and ate it.

I ran a 5K this morning with some friends. It was in Mukilteo to support Muscular Dystrophy. It was drizzly and rainy for most of it. Our feet were soaked, but overall it was good. I was trying to make it under 30 minutes and I got 28:37! So I was very happy with that. It's my best time so far. Woo hoo! I took a nap in the afternoon and them had a yummy dinner (kabobs and salad and a new drink recipe that turned out delish) with some friends. It was a good day. :)

Girl's Weekend 2011

My Mom and us girls try to do a girl's weekend each year. This year we all met up in Seattle for a Girl's Weekend! It was fun and memorable. We all stayed down at Marci's house in Puyallup. It was nice to be kid free for a few days, but as I was leaving Kate cried. I was going to miss them too, but Kyle said in typical guy manner, it's only a day! True. haha.

Friday: we met in Southcenter, ate at Chipotle, went shopping, witnessed a shoplifter in Payless Shoes, picked up Sadie from the airport.

Saturday: slept in until 8am!, ate yummy french toast breakfast with buttemilk syrup, went to Pike's Place Market in downtown Seattle, saw "the" gum wall, ate croissants and macaroons from a French Bakery, saw them throw fish at the famous pike's place, saw all the beautiful flowers, ate paninis (mine was gross!) at a sandwich shop- a hole in the wall, but one that overlooked a little busy alleyway, went shopping to Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, went to Mary Poppins Broadway show (we were all a little disappointed with it), went shopping to Old Navy and Forever 21 and H&M, ate at Cheesecake Factory, ran in the rain to the car and went back to Marci's house.

Sunday: woken up at midnight by my Mom saying she needed to go to the hospital for sciatic nerve pain (she was a hot mess!), spent 4 1/2 hours at the hospital in the ER with Marci and my Mom and all the drunk kids who got in fights that night (broken nose, broken ankles, knee injury's- it was interesting clientele!), finally got my Mom pain meds at a 24hr pharmacy, she was much happier/comfortable, got some donuts at a donut shop open at 5am!, went back to Marci's to sleep, woke up at 8:30 to get ready for Church, went to sacrament meeting with sister's (left Mom home sleeping), packed up and went back home because Kyle needed to go to Church, I stayed home with Lindsey and Preston and slept! What a crazy weekend!!! It was fun!

The gum wall- gross and cool, huh?! This picture doesn't even get the whole wall.

Can't go to the gum wall without leaving your gum behind! I have 2 pieces there now. Haha.

Beautiful flowers at Pike's Place Market

Where's Waldo?! Sadie was wearing a red/white striped shirt and was a good sport and acted like Waldo (or Wanda) hiding in the crowd. :) We thought we were funny. We were all taking pictures and someone came up to Marci asking if there was someone famous in the crowd because we all had our cameras out! Hahaha! Sadie you are funny!

Mary Poppins show- windy at the time, nice hair girl's!

Soaked from walking in the rain after dinner!

I cleaned out my purse and receipts while sitting in the ER for 4 1/2 hrs. Very productive.

Thanks Mom, Marci, Jeni, Sara and Sadie (and husband's- Kevin took all 4 kids to Church by himself!) for the FUN weekend!

Bathroom Makeover

I had posted earlier about my bathroom makeover (and fiasco- paint spilling everywhere) and it's pretty much finished so I wanted to post about it.

After seeing Jeni's kids' bathroom it inspired me to redo our kid bathroom. I found this picture online and this is what Jeni did to her bathroom too. She added the beadboard and hooks. We had a towel bar, but you can only fit 2 towels on it so I had to have another over the door thing to hold another towel. This idea with the hooks you can fit all the towels along the wall. Love it.

Before Picture:

I almost forgot to take a picture so this shows what the wall color was like. It was a bright yellow that matched the ducks on the curtain. It was the 2nd time I painted it yellow trying to find a nice yellow. Well, I still wasn't happy with it years ago when I painted it, but left it because I was sick of painting the room.

After Picture:

Tada! The walls glow kinda like the yellow one's, but the color is more fun and we all like it. Kate says it's her favorite color. I found the shower curtain at Target and then color matched the paint at Walmart. I got the beadboard and had it cut at Home Depot. When I got home, the wall was not straight along one edge so the beadboard was crooked, which meant I couldn't get it put up like I wanted to before Kyle got home. It ended up turning into a bigger project. We had to cut the beadboard more and put LOTS of caulking around the baseboard to hide the discrepancy. After painting it 4 times (2 times with one color of white that was too flat and not white enough and then another 2 times with a semi-gloss white) I was done! Painting beadboard is a lot of work! I still want to put up pictures and a vinyl saying above the beadboard wall to complete it.

We put 3 hooks on the wall, the door opens and is next to the pink towel. It's also nice because the kids can hang up there own towel now.

A Week of Celebrations!

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful Mom and Mother-in-law!!!

I had a good day with my family and a good day at Church. Preston stayed in his class the whole time, Kyle took Lindsey during the third hour and the kids gave me homemade flowers from Primary. Then, Kyle helped me make dinner (he doesn't cook so that won't ever happen. haha), he did the dishes and told me to put my feet up and relax. I played on the iPad and read magazines. Nice. ;) I told him Mother's Day should happen more than once a year!

"The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserves the admiration and plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God." Pathways to Happiness, comp. Llewelyn R. McKay (1957), 116.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

He turned 33 on Saturday. I had a girl's camp meeting in the morning, but then in the afternoon my parents and Marci came over and we celebrated with them. My Dad took Kyle to the Traxx to go go-cart racing while we went shopping to Costco. Then we met up for dinner at Olive Garden. We came home and had cheesecake with raspberry topping.

When my parents first got here Lindsey was asleep so when she woke up my Mom went and got her out of her crib. Well, my Mom was holding her and Lindsey would not look at her! It was really funny. But by the end of the night she would lunge for my Mom and was all smiles. This picture is my absolute favorite! I LOVE Lindsey's 4 teeth showing in all their glory. Adorable. As Kate would say, "she is the funniest baby we have had" (as if she knows, but I love that she thinks this! I told Kate she was really funny too.)

Happy Anniversary to Us!
We also celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary last week. It was a busy week of celebrating! We actually didn't do anything for our anniversary because it was Wednesday and we had the young women come to our house for mutual. We had some guests come and teach the young women how to make mexican food. When the yw president asked to use our house, I didn't tell her it was our anniversary because I figured it was okay and we could celebrate later anyway. So it was fine, but I told my Mom and she said, "well, you can tell you've been married 11 yrs then!" haha. It's true.

Easter 2011

Our busy Easter Weekend...

We went to Ellensburg right after Kate got out of school on Friday and saw my Grandpa Paul who is in the rehab center. He fell a few weeks ago and has had pneumonia so he's been having a hard time. It was really good to see him and my Grandma though. Then we headed to Tri-Cities to Melanie & Milo's and I got my hair highlighted and trimmed- it had been a LONG time so I was excited to get it done. Dee Ann was there visiting. She had flown up and surprised Melanie which was awesome because she has never done that. It was her spring break. We ate a yummy lasagna dinner with amazing french bread from Yolk's (I'm still drooling Melanie!). We swung by Jeni & Kevin's to see her cutely decorated home and then went to Mattawa late that night.

The next morning we went to Connell to watch Jared's baseball game. It was a beautiful day!

Jared even got cheerleaders- whether he wanted them or not! I think he was a bit embarrassed by ALL of us cheering. Joys of being the youngest. :)

My Mom brought all the stuff for a picnic/bbq lunch. We were grilling hot dogs when a kid came up trying to buy one! We had to laugh because we weren't selling them, but maybe we should have.

Reagan and Lindsey playing. They are only a week apart so it's fun to watch them together. Lindsey was stealing Reagan's toys and Reagan would try to get them back. Reagan is so laid back and will sit in one spot for a long time whereas Lindsey is moving around and into everything. It's funny seeing the differences in their personalities.

We dyed Easter eggs and then did an Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon. The kids were sad when Aubree found the golden egg with money inside (she found it last year too and everyone remembered that!). So my Mom quickly got more golden eggs with money inside and hid them for everyone to find one!

Here's our kids on Easter after Church. It was really sunny and bright so they didn't want to look up. Preston was way more interested in James. My Mom made all the girl's dresses and skirts. Very cute!

And my pictures are all blurry in the corners. Weird. Not sure why. I'm sad about it actually.

Trying to get a cousin picture was even more interesting!

L-R: Aubree holding Hailey, Kate holding Reagan, Preston, Carter holding Lindsey and Paige

Us girls! Woot Woot! :)

And to end our Easter festivities, Jared had his Eagle Court of Honor Sunday night. He is a good kid and very cute I might add. :) We are proud of him!

Jared with a lot of his friends from Church.