Ella's Tea Party

I know some of you are wondering about the tea party.  I don't have time to make this post fancay and it's a lot to post to Facebook so here goes.

 

Some details.

We used the free city park and got permission to use table and chairs from our church also for free.

For the activities

*We used scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby for the fans.  It was on sale for .30 cents for 12x12 sheets!  Yay bargain!

*I got the hats at the end of April at the Dollar Tree.  I found the silk flowers, ribbon and trim early in May on clearance at Walmart when they were resetting their fabric department. 

*We did play a game.  I got bracelets 5/$1 at Hobby Lobby and we wrapped them together 16 times and played pass the present.  When the music stopped the little girl unwrapped one layer. 

*We also gave each girl fancy gloves.  We got them online during a 40% off sale for just over $1 a piece shipped.

For the Tea Party

*My mom and I started collecting antique china teapots and tea cups in April or May.  We found them at  Deseret Industries, Savers, Thrift Town, KSL.com classifieds and some on ebay.  Some pieces were as little as .35 cents. 

*All of the linens were sewn by my mom even the little cloth luncheon napkins.

*All of the food was home made .  Most was made by my mom, my sister helped and I made a few things.

*Inside the teapots was pink or raspberry lemonade.

*My mom has collected the apothecary jars.  Some were from thrift stores and some from Michael’s craft store at 40% off!  We love a bargain!

*The candy I got at Walmart or the grocery store.  It was a hunt to find pink candy in our small town but I did it!

*The cake design was chosen by Ella and made by my mother-in-law.  It was buttercream icing.

*The tea cup sets we gave away were our less desirable sets. We realized back in late June we had collected too many.  *blush* 

*My darling husband made the tissue poof balls the morning of the party while on the phone doing his job talking to his flight students and other flight instructors. Way to multi-task honey!  We got the tissue at Dollar Tree.

Proud Mommy moment

I feel like bragging today so I am going to.  It's my blog and I can do whatever I want right?  I am so proud of my kids.  They are such amazing good kids and they all work so hard and do their best.  They are not perfect.  We do have our moments but I think they are pretty awesome.

Christian - Christian will be earning his Life Scout rank in about 3 weeks.  He has earned a total of 22 merit badges to date and only has 2 required merit badges left (Camping & Family Life) for his Eagle Scout award.  He is on track to earn his Eagle at age 13.  As of today Christian has a 4.0 GPA.  There are 10 days left in the quarter and I'm pretty sure he has it in the bag.  His cumulative GPA for the year will be a 3.96.  He has even been recommended for Honors Math which came as a bit of a surprise because math is the subject that he has to work a little harder at.  He is also a good citizen and a great friend.  He serves others and honors his priesthood.  He is obedient and a good big brother.  I can't forget that he is also a very talented cellist.  He has come so far in the 3 short years he has been playing.   This summer he is going to try his hand at Tennis.  I'm sure he will be great at that too.  Here he is playing at is cello recital:

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Parker - Parker is also a busy little scout.  As he turns 9 this week he has earned a total of 10 arrow points.  Often he comes up to me and says, "Mom can we work on scouts today?"  He is a great reader like his older brother.  He loves to read and is reading books on a 6th grade reading level.  Parker is awesome at math.  He has many friends and is a good athlete.  He loves all sports and has good sportsmanship.  Parker is also a wonderful big brother.  Parker is very generous and has a kind heart.  Parker wants to try his hand at playing the violin next year.  I can't wait for him to try!  Here are some recent pictures of  Parker:

Ella -  Ella has grown up so much over the last year.  She is definitely ready for kindergarten.  Ella loves to sing and dance.  She never wanted to miss a dance lesson this year.  Ella thoroughly enjoyed preschool.  She loves to learn, doing her "homework" and she is already reading.  Ella has been teaching herself how to write in cursive from watching her brothers.  Ella has many friends and is outgoing.  She was an awesome little soccer player this year and not afraid of the ball.  Ella is a great sister.  She is kind and helpful towards her big brothers and she is Tyler's second mother.  I don't what I would do without Ella.  Here is Ella dancing at her dance recital:

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Tyler - Tyler is growing so fast.  He is a full blown toddler.  He LOVES the outdoors and starts crying at the front door to go "OWWT!" at 8am every morning. He would stay outside all day if we would let him.  He runs and climbs and loves to blow bubbles.  His other love is balls!  He loves all balls and can throw, catch and kick them.  We've had to remove all the harder balls from the house because he is such a good throw we are worried about him doing damage to the walls or a window.  He says at least 40 words now and is is putting 2 words together.  He follows simple directions and is already cleaning up when asked.  He is definitely still a total mama's boy and that's fine with me!  I'll take every second I can get.  I know how fast little ones grow up!

May the "Fourth" be with you!

Happy Star Wars day!  We celebrated by having a special dinner and watched Return of the Jedi. I totally stole all my ideas from here.  Amazingly I had almost everything on hand except for Oreos and Lime sherbet.  Fun times at the Parish house!  

We fed the neighbor children too! :)

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Today was Pi day!  What is Pi Day you ask?  Well, Pi Day

is a holiday to celebrate the mathematical constant Pi. It is celebrated on March 14, because Pi is approximately 3.14.  How do you celebrate?  Why you eat pie of course!

Christian has been counting down to Pi Day.  He has insisted we need to make pies!  So we did. 

We made from scratch:

Chicken Pot Pie

Mango-Pineapple Pie

Candy Bar Pie

Maybe when I'm less tired I will add the recipes to this post but for now here are the pictures in a crazy random order.  I have to say my chicken pot pie ROCKED!  The mango-pineapple was good and the candy bar was super yummy.

A night in Paris

A couple people have asked me how my “French” date went.  I’m not usually one to advertise the details of my relationship and I rarely kiss and tell but I decided to document this date and share some of the details.  If you don’t know Brandon and I well, this is our 20^th year together and 15^th year of marriage.  We celebrate our 15^th wedding anniversary in Sept.  Our relationship has always been kind of an oddity.  We get along really well, too well if you ask some people.  If you are not someone blessed to know my husband, I’m sorry.  He is one of the kindest, most patient, charitable people I know.  I still remember the talk President Hinckley gave a few years back about he and Marjory.  At least I know we are not the only spouses that have ever lived on this earth that don’t fight.   I posted more about that here.  And that post is actually the last time I posted much about our relationship.  We have had our share of life troubles. Brandon was sick for 4 years, we have had financial difficulties, we‘ve had a still born baby and several miscarriages. Through it all we’ve just gotten closer and relationship has become stronger. Honestly, happiness feels like such a hollow word next to what it's like with Brandon.   

I think effort plays a huge roll in successful marriages, probably the biggest roll. But honestly it doesn’t feel like we put that much effort into our marriage. It is so second nature it just happens. We both are constantly putting each other first. I don’t think either of us thinks about ourselves anymore and because of this the other person is happy and gets everything they ever wanted and more. With us it has always just happened like this.  We started doing stuff like the French date we had this weekend regularly about last summer. It seemed that marriages all around us were falling apart.  Currently I know of 8 people with either a rocky marriage or currently going through a divorce.  Although our marriage has always been very strong and we have always been very happy and in love I decided I wanted to affair proof/"fireproof" our marriage.  Plus, we've always had fun dating each other. 

 I was sitting in my kids' swimming lesson one day and thought I should do something really fun for him. So we spent the day buying up all his favorite candy bars and I took them to the florist and they made them into a candy bouquet. I wrote a flirty ;) note to go with it and delivered it to his work for a fun surprise when he got back from his FedEx route. He was teased by the guys and ubber surprised but it totally made his day. In fact that day about 3 bad things had happened that I didn't know about. For the first time he had a student fail a check ride with the FAA examiner. He had been 100% with all his students for 3 years and this reflects negatively on him as a flight instructor. He had a major issue at FedEx. And the biggest blow was someone who he thought was his close friend told him they didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Basically this person had been doing some things they shouldn't and Brandon found out and although Brandon had not done anything this person decided to take out a lot on him because they were upset about their own actions and being found out. He was pretty beaten down that day and my one act turned things around. It brings tears to my eyes because I didn't know how badly he was hurting that day. After that I started doing a fun surprise tied to a date or time spent with him once a month. We spend a lot more time together than that, but at least once a month I decided to make a pretty serious effort with surprises, etc. A couple of months ago I found a great website with lots of ideas for wives. romaticmarriages.com. I use some of their ideas with twists of my own. I think it's as much fun for me as it is for him!

Romantic Marriages was started by 4 women who saw a need in their own lives and wanted to help others.   Everything on the site is in tune with LDS standards.  They’ve done a lot of research and their site is based on a couple of things, novelty and the 4 A’s.

"First creating new experiences with your spouse actually activates your brain’s reward system.  This floods your brain with Dopamine norepinephrine, the feel good chemicals.  We need to find ways to introduce novelty into a long term relationship because just spending time together doesn’t do it.  You have to do something different.  Those old brain circuits can feel new again just like they did during early romantic love just by being a little innovative." 

Second, men need what the wives at Romantic Marriage call the 4 A’s:

Appreciation

1. Regular expressions of gratitude for your husband
2.  Recognizing and voicing your man’s qualities
3.  Verbally valuing him.

 Attention

1.  Giving serious consideration to your man’s opinions and preferences
2.  Notice and show interest in all that is HIM; his hobbies, his interests, his goals.
3.  Being nurturing when he shows his vulnerable side.

 Admiration

1.  Share with him the positive ways in which you regard him.
2.  Share with others (his boss, your children, others) his positive qualities.
3.  Brag about and flirt with him in the presence of others.

 “Physical” Affection

1.  Initiate physical contact and intimacy
2.  Initiate physical contact and intimacy
3. Initiate physical contact and intimacy

You’re wondering, Steph what did you do for your date?

So I decided since I couldn’t take him to Paris I would bring Paris to him!  To start the week off right, on Monday I took him his invitation for the date.  I added some extra touches like spraying it with my perfume and sealing it with a kiss.  I stopped at the florist and bought a long stemmed rose.  I put it on his car at work for a surprise.  The invite went something like this:

A date in Paris for Two

So our romance can renew.

We’ll see the sites.

Enjoy French bites

Then French kisses

I’ll be sharing Avec vous!

He still has the card and envelope in the car because it makes his whole car smell like me.  J

Each day during the week I left him little surprises in places he would find them at work.  For a couple days I printed French postcards online and even made the place for the little French postage paid stamp.  I wrote things to him in French like what a great father he is.  He had fun trying to translate his messages.

I toyed around with cooking French food and having a quiet candlelight dinner at home but that wouldn’t be able to take place until after the kids were in bed.  So dinner after 9pm.  Boo.  Plus the kids would wonder what I was cooking and I would have to share some of our good special food with them.  Apparently I am a mean mommy because we prepared them a dinner of fish sticks, fries and a vegetable and Brandon and I went to town.  Thanks to my friend Moncia, we went to The Crepery in Logan.  It is this adorable little crepe and coffee shop inside a 100+ year old house in downtown Logan.  It is also an art gallery.  We sat at a little bistro table and enjoyed crepes.  My crepe had fresh arugula, chicken and artichoke hearts.  Brandon’s had sun dried tomatoes and pesto and cheese.  We shared a yummy dessert crepe with strawberries, cheesecake filling and chocolate! 

On our way home Brandon stopped and got me movie popcorn from the theater with extra butter.  He KNOWS how much I LOVE movie popcorn!!!!

We got the kids in bed and watched a newer movie -  Midnight in Paris.  It was meh... But it really showed the sites in Paris.  What a romantic place!

To finish the evening, since I couldn’t take him to see the Eiffel  Tower in real life we built our own tower using a Jenga game and played a little game of Jenga with a grown-up twist.  ;)

The total cost for this date including my surprise popcorn was $33.48.  A good investment in our relationship if you ask me!  It was a great night I can't wait to start planning my next date!

Holy Diapers!

I got the most amazing package in the mail today! It was the rest of my Nifty Nappy stash from Vilate Thacker. She is the amazing work at home mom behind Nifty Nappy Diapers. Many of these were custom made from knits I sent her. I discovered her diapers almost exactly a year ago. We love them! I know some of you might make fun of me because I use cloth but hey I'm saving lots of money and my baby is cute and comfortable!

Check out all my cute prints!

Bugs, Zoo Animals, Giraffes, Owls and Ooga Boogas!

Cars, Race Cars, Trains, Boats, Construction Vehicles and Baseballs!

Jack Skelington, Trick or Treaters, Rock Star Skulls, Argyle, Strips and Dinos!

With Daddy a pilot, Airplane diapers are a must!

Airplane diaper #5!  Daddy would love to move to Alaska where his brothers spent their early years while their dad was in the air force.

We even have a toy soldier  Diaper!

Arrhhggg!  A Pirate's of the Caribbean Diaper!

Everybody wants to be a rock star!

 Who can resist cute animals and stripes?!

COWBOYS!!!

More pirates just showed up from a Nifty Nappy Cottage Licensee Amy at Amyzing Creations! 

Vintage War Planes from Amyzing Creations!  How cool is this print?!!!

A few more Nifty Nappy stash essentials - 2 swim diapers, 2 Heavy Doody night time diapers and a Woolie Wrap.

What a lucky baby I have!