Two Pink Parties, One Long Post!

While we were in Virginia for the holidays we celebrated Elizabeth's 4th birthday with my family. My brother's wife, Wendy, offered to make a cake and host a surprise party for her. She really went all out decorating with all sorts of pink and princess things!

Nate had Elizabeth playing at a nearby park and when we were ready, we all hid and they came in.

She was just chatting away (as usual)

and then she was surprised (and a little confused and scared).

Her little heart was beating so fast when I hugged her.

I think she felt pretty special.

Wendy had thought of all sorts of cute details, like these clip-on earrings, fit for a princess.

They decorated sugar cookies.

They played pin the tiara on the princess (princess drawn by Amy, Andrew's girlfriend.) Notice that the pillow pets were also in on the fun.

Harrison, Gwen, Emi and Elizabeth. We wish we could have cousins at all of our birthday celebrations. Cousin Max was being shy but we were happy to have him, K.C. and Suzanne there too!

Then we had the darling and delicious cake!

Look at these cute party-g0ers. Cousins, Blake, Beau and Johnny.

Thank you, Wendy for making such a fun family party! You really went all out and we appreciate it so much! It definitely could have sufficed, but Elizabeth has know for a year that she was getting her first friend party this year. So I had to deliver. I did push it off until the very end of

January (I'm glad I did, everyone was sick the weekend I had thought about doing it).

Elizabeth wanted a pink party and I was more than happy to make that happen. I LOVE having boys and there are some really amazing things about being a mom to boys. But let me tell you, I'd much rather throw a pink party than a Spiderman party!

The invitations went out (thanks Tamara for giving me your leftover triangles!)

And then the big day arrived. I spent all day making sure the house looked like it had been hosed down with pepto bismol!

(Thanks to Tamara for the banner too!)

One of these days I will learn to master party prep while maintaining a happy attitude. Unfortunately, this wasn't the day. And of all people to take it out on, it shouldn't have been the birthday girl when she didn't want to cooperate for pictures. But it was.

Thankfully she is quick to forgive and forget. (Thank you Brittany for letting us borrow the girliest, pinkest outfit ever!)

The little girls all looked so pretty in pink (as instructed on the invitation).

For almost an hour the girls quietly sat and beaded pink necklaces. I wasn't sure how long it would take and if I had enough things planned. Let me tell you, if you want an activity that is calm, make necklaces! Ten little girls focused and entertained! (Too bad I didn't think to take pictures until almost all of them were done.) I also had them make a shrinky-dink charm to go on the necklaces. I wish I hadn't done that part. They weren't that into it and it ended up being too complicated and time consuming on my part. Lesson learned.

While another mom and I slaved away on the charms, Nate entertained the girls in the other room. They played "Pink, pink, pinkalicious."

And pin the tiara on the princess made another appearance. (Mina, I needed you there as my photographer! I hardly got any action shots!)

Then it was time for the cake. Wendy really raised the bar of what birthday cakes should look like (usually my kids get a half-heartedly decorated 9X13). I don't know if she wanted to one up her last cake or if it was because she was 4, but she insisted on a "4 layer cake with pink skin and white polka dots." Well, I wasn't about to attempt that. So I hired a girl in our ward who makes cakes to do it. Kristina made Elizabeth's vision come to life and it was a big hit! Yummy too, strawberry cake with vanilla frosting.

This picture cracks me up because one of the other girls was trying to blow out the candle and you can tell that Elizabeth is perturbed.

We gave her another chance and she was much happier.

She looks so satisfied.

I finally had some time to take pictures. Here are all the silly girls eating cake!

So, you might have noticed that one of Elizabeth's friends looks like she could be her twin. This is a friend from Karate. The big brothers are in karate and these little girls play while we wait. She is half Japanese too and they seriously look so much alike, it's crazy!

I made each of the girls a flower clip for their treat bag. They are pretty easy. . .until you make ten of them!

They also got a pink pencil, a lip gloss ring and lots of pink treats that they picked out themselves.

They really got a kick out of making their own treat bag and actually took less candy than I would have given them.

At the end we got a picture of the fam. Don't mind Harrison's pose. That's his new favorite trick in pictures.

Our traditional birthday kissing picture!

This girl better feel loved after TWO great parties! We really do love and adore her so, so much! It is so fun having her in our family! And I'm glad to be done with birthday parties for 18 months until Harrison's 8th! (I'll post his Karate party from this summer next -- I really do have big plans for catching up on this blog).

Striking Resemblance

Harrison is doing a project on orangutans. During our research I noticed a striking resemblance between baby orangutans and my babies.

Namely, the hair.
I was laughing so hard that tears were forming in my eyes.

Good thing they're not redheads.

Wish I'd Thought of That, Carrie Underwood

Anyone who knows me knows how much I HATE DRIVING. It scares me bad and I fear it will end my life one day. Add snow to it and I hate it more. Last Wednesday didn't help this fear of mine one bit.

Snow packed neighborhood roads + A rushing mom on autopilot = Expensive life lessons

Thankfully, I was in the car alone and I'm fine. I wasn't going fast enough to get hurt. Just too fast for snowy roads. Usually the snow here melts after a day. It had been colder and the snow had been around for a few days. I was getting more and more comfortable with it. I was rushing to pick Elizabeth up from dance and totally in my own world (NOT on my cell phone, didn't even have it in the car -- wish I had!) I was thinking about a friend in need and next thing I knew I was fishtailing. I did not know what to do -- all the advice I'd ever been given about how to drive in snow immediately left my head. I had the thought, "What would Nate do? Nate would know how to handle this." I overcorrected three different times and realized too late that I was going to hit a parked black 4-Runner. My thoughts were "Nate would definitely not have gotten himself in a position to hit this car. I hope the air bag doesn't come out, cuz that hurts. I'm glad none of the kids are in here. This is going to be expensive." You'd think with enough time to think all those things I could have not hit the car, but time is a funny thing in those situations. It goes so slow, but so fast at the same time.


So a nice, older European man stopped to see if I was alright, and ended up giving me a short ride up the street to my house. I called Julie (Elizabeth's dance teacher, my dear friend). She came over and was awesome to help me figure everything out. My neighbor, Joanna, was really helpful too. She took Harrison to school for me and then took Elizabeth to her house for lunch and playing. I got everything squared away with Geico -- left a detailed apology note on the 4-Runner with the claim number so his car would get taken care of (he was gone at work all day). Side note, this poor guy had his car totaled in his driveway four years ago by a teenager running from the cops. Who is unlucky enough to have two cars wrecked while parked in front of their house? Don't worry his car is not that bad this time -- he hasn't had it fixed yet, so I get to drive by it several times a day and feel awful that I did this.

Anyway, the tow truck came and we got a rental car. The first estimate was $6, 300 but they hadn't taken a good look at the engine yet. Thankfully our deductible is only $500. Our premium will likely go up. But thank goodness for insurance, right? We hit a deer in Utah last Christmas and have been so grateful in both cases for deductibles, rental car coverage, etc.

So the lessons are:

1. DRIVE SLOWLY IN THE SNOW -- no matter how used to it you are, no matter what kind of car you have and not matter how many wheel drive you have

2. Buckle your kids up even on the little neighborhood roads -- in snowy areas ESPECIALLY on the little neighborhood roads. Our famous line is, "Hurry up and get buckled, we're almost on the big road." Well, here the big roads are safer because they get plowed.
Confession: On the way to dance, Elizabeth was having trouble with her buckle and I told her not to worry about it because we were just going around the corner to Julie's. I don't think she would have been seriously hurt if she had been in the car unbuckled when I got in the wreck, but she definitely would have been thrown around and traumatized. I'm so glad none of the kids were in the car. It would have made it even more stressful. So now I'm that mom who won't leave the driveway until all the kids are buckled.

The next day as I was driving through the snow very slowly in the Civic, "Jesus Take the Wheel" came on the radio. This song has always felt a little trite to me, and I feel a little sac religious when I say this, but the story of the song was very close to home and I thought, "Man, I should have tried that!" Even though I didn't think fast enough to go for that option, I really do feel like we were blessed because it could have been so much worse. It's just an expensive, annoying lesson, but I got it! Hopefully it can save someone else from having to learn the hard way!

Christmas Outfits, A Christmas Miracle & The Big Man

Because Elizabeth grows so slowly, she has lots of Christmas outfits that still fit (parts from all of them since her first Christmas). We find things that coordinate for the boys and look Christmasy at church for the whole month of December. Here are the outfits from 2009.

Elizabeth's outfit from 2008 looked great with Harrison's outfit from 2004, which fit Johnny perfectly.
Here are the pictures from the Santa visit. I forgot to upload the one of all three of them. I'll add it later. Elizabeth had accidentally told the Santa at the church party that she wanted a Barbie. She kept asking me to remind her to ask this Santa for a Princess Umbrella. She remembered all on her own.

She said she wanted to wear red and white to match Santa, so this is what we came up with.
Johnny had the typical baby's response to Santa.

I mentioned the Pillow Pet incident in my last post. Harrison was thrown off because when he told Santa he wanted a Pillow Pet, Santa asked which one and then named a few. Harrison had been teetering between a panda and a dog. Well, Santa named off a few including the dog. He did not mention the panda, so Harrison took that as meaning the panda was not an option. Grandma went out and purchased the dog the next day and the panda is sitting in her basement waiting to be returned to Bed, Bath & Beyond.

We had a bit of a Christmas miracle that day. We had to go to a different library because I didn't sign up in time for our local library. It was 30 minutes away. Well, we left his school uniform sweater there accidentally. He and I were both pretty upset about it. Him because it meant he'd have to tuck in his shirt (he loves the sweater because you don't have to tuck it in) and me because going back to get it would be a major pain especially at this crazy time of year. Later that day I was helping in his class and in walked a parent with his sweater. I was stunned, confused and very happy! It turns out that another parent from our school had been at the library and seen the sweater with the school logo on it on the floor. She brought it to the school and because I had written our name in it, they brought it straight to his classroom. Yeah! These are the Christmas outfits from 2007. Elizabeth's 12 month skirt still fits. Harrison's tie still fits (getting a little short) and a friend was selling Johnny's outfit at a garage sale that was from the same collection. So, so cute! Nate didn't get the memo about wearing grey and red, so he was the photographer.

Little Two Fingers looking quite spiffy. Of course, he wanted nothing to do with the hat during church. None of my kids have tolerated hats.

We're at my parents in Virginia right now having so much fun!!! If I have time I'll do some posts from here. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!