Jaime's Baby Shower/Birthday Party

Last Tuesday, I co-hosted a party for my friend Jaime. It was a Baby Shower AND a Birthday party. (Jaime's birthday is Christmas Eve and never gets to celebrate with friends. Everyone wants to hang out with their families that day, go figure.)
We hung flower balloons from the ceiling.
I made 2 banners. One said, "Welcome Baby Blaisdell" (Jaime's last name) and the other said, "Happy Birthday Jaime".
Yummy refreshments: apples, carmel dip, candies, chocolate, cream puffs, punch and AWESOME pumpkin bars made by my co-host and good friend Mandy. I believe the pumpkin bars were the highlight of the refreshment table.
Great job Mandy! Requests have been made for the recipe.

Since Jaime isn't finding out the gender of the baby, and this is her 4th kiddo, I decided to make a diaper cake and have everyone bring some sort of baby toiletry or toy.
On to the ever FUN baby shower games...
First, we "made babies". I gave everyone a peach-colored ball of playdough and 5 minutes to sculpt the cutest baby they could. Then had Jaime judge the winner.
Here's the winner. I call it "Budda Baby"...just look at that tummy!

After "makin' babies", we had to deliver them. I froze these little plastic babies in a tiny cup. The participants had to melt the babies out of the ice to deliver their baby. It was a "natural delivery", so there was no sucking or biting them out. :o)
Next game, was to find out if Jaime was having a boy or girl. I randomly passed out these little bags of blue and pink jellybeans. Then I had Jaime give a number between 1 and 12 (the amount of bags). Then they opened their bags and looked at the number inside. Jaime guessed #7, so the bag with the #7, is supposed to predict the sex of the baby. It was blue! The person who had the winning number, also shared their favorite baby name.


Jaime is truly struggling with naming this baby, so I thought our last game should help her out. I gave everyone a paper with the letters A-Z. Then I gave them 2 minutes to come up with baby names beginning with each letter of the alphabet. At the end of 2 minutes, we shared our answers and crossed off the ones that were the same (Scattagories style). The person with the most names left won. Our winner had 20 original names!
Since this was also a birthday party, I baked Jaime a huge cupcake cake. We sang her Happy Birthday and had her blow out the candle. When making her wish she said, "And it BETTER come true!" Gee, wonder what she wished for?

I also had everyone donate money toward a gift card to one of her favorite home decor stores... "Graples" or "Real Deals". Jaime chose "Real Deals", so on Thursday, I went and got a gift card there. She had lots of participation/donation toward the gift card, so she'll have a lot of fun spending it. I hope I'm invited to tag along. I'm excited to see what she finds. :o)

Ward Tailgate Party

Last Saturday, our ward had a "tailgate party". We were all supposed to dress up in our favorite sports team attire and decorate our vehicles. Our team was BSU Broncos...of course! This was my attempt to make our van look like Buster the Bronco. Ok, he looks more like a reindeer or kangaroo, but I tried. Unfortunately it was raining so hard that day, we didn't get the decorated car to the church and the party was taken inside. It was a little crowed, but still lots of fun. Our new ward is SO friendly and sweet.
GO BRONCOS!

Cute Lunch Organization

I think we should all do our kids a favor and teach them to be self-reliant. Ok, I have to admit...it benefits me also.

When Rylee was about to go into Kindergarten, I bought her an alarm clock. I told her that when it rang, in the morning, she should get up, get dressed and go eat breakfast. This allowed me to get a few extra ZZZZ's and not to have to nag her out of bed. The other kids are following suit, although it doesn't come as easily to them.

Part of this taught self-reliance is having them make their own school lunches. I provide the food, they make and take the lunch (hopefully not forgetting it in the fridge or on the counter). I was recently inspired by a blog I was reading, about how each child having their own container. So I bought some little crates, from the dollar store, to fit into our kitchen pantry. I fill the crates, at the beginning of the week, for the whole week. So they have to regulate how much or how little they use each day. Once their lunch snacks are gone...they're gone. (Although there are always less fun ingredients on hand like carrots.)

At first there were no names on the crates, so it was easy to "borrow" (or steal) out of one another's crate. I put an end to the no-name crates in a cute, crafty way. Hopefully it will cut down on the "borrowing".

Cute crates



I think Treyson's is my favorite. I like the colors and the buttons.

See how they fit so nicely in the pantry.

He called to me ALL week!

I have recently frequented, a fairly new home decor store in town called, "Real Deals". It's the kind of store that's in a warehouse and is only open 2 days a week. I saw this finial last Saturday, and he called to me all week, "Come buy me...come buy me." I had to wait until Thursday, to finally go see him. I couldn't leave the store without him, so he now sits above my kitchen cupboards smiling at me. I'm not sure that he's in his final destination, but he's satisfied to just be with me.
A tin star and tile also made it home with me that day. Lucky them.
I didn't get this at "Real Deals", but it is a recent purchase. I bought it from a lady in Nampa who purchased a vinyl cutter, with her sister, just to support their own habit(s). She only charged me $14! I think I'll be a returning customer. It's not necessarily unique, but I LOVE it.

More Hair-dos

Humor me please.

I'm having so much fun doing new things to Abree's hair, that I have a few more hair-dos to show. (Are you sick of seeing the back of her head yet?) She is getting quite used to it and is starting to expect a picture every time she gets dressed and ready for the day. Am I creating a monster? Here she is with her Hello Kitty. She requested this photo be taken after she brushed her hair and put a headband in. Next she asked me to take a picture of her with Arial (Little Mermaid). Two was her limit for the day.

Twisty braids
This was supposed to be a "flower bun", but her hair didn't cooperate, so we ended up with a messy braidy bun.
Pull-through criss-cross
Zig-zag piggy buns
Rag dolls.
Rylee has been begging me to try putting "rags" in her hair. With the Sacrament Meeting Primary Program being tomorrow, I finally agreed. Wonder how they'll turn out.

We'll see tomorrow...I'm sure I'll update you.

New Bows = New Hair Do's

Along with new bows (my new found obsession) has to come new hair-dos. So Abree has been nice enough to be my guinea pig. The first few are just my own little dos, the last one is one I saw demonstrated on this cool blog site. Here's the address if you're interested www.shedoeshair.blogspot.com. There are a TON of fun hair-dos on her site. Check it out.
Flippy, pigtail buns
Tri-braid flippy back bun
Criss-cross piggytail braids
Lattice pigtails

I love this one. It was easy and so cute.

"Moppet Togs"

What's this all about? What a mess!

I've been participating in children's consignment sales for the past 3-4 years. I sell clothing/items that my kids have outgrown or don't use any more. There are three different groups I've consigned with. They are all very similar, only differing in location, management and quality of items. They take 20-30% of your sales. (If you volunteer, you get 80%, otherwise 70%.) You name your price and tag your items. It can be a lot of work, but it's kind of fun and you can sell stuff, you would otherwise D.I. or give away.

I've been most loyal to "Moppet Togs" www.moppettogs.com. They have this cool system which allows you to enter your items on-line, at home. Then when you go to drop off your items, they print out adhesive labels and you put them on your stuff. The labels have the description you entered, price, your consignor # and a bar code. (So when things are purchased, all they have to do is scan the tag and it automatically enters it on-line. So professional. You, as a consignor, can look on-line during the weekend sale and see what has sold and how much you've earned.) It's so cool.

In the Fall, I like to put Halloween costumes into the sales. I purchase them on clearance, at the end-of-season, and sell them that next year. --I really should catalog and keep receipts to see how much money I am actually making...if any. :o) --I store the costumes in moving wardrobe boxes. It works ok, but I'd like to get something a little more sturdy and permanent.

I love Halloween costumes and dress up. (Although I've never been a huge dresser-upper and hate it when my kids leave dress-up everywhere and refuse to clean it up.) I have so much fun buying them at wonderfully discounted prices with exciting thoughts of the next year's profits. I think part of it is the season and part of it is the thrill of the bargain hunt. It's kind of a weird hobby, but I like it.

*This year the sale is September 18-20th. If you're in the area, you should stop by. It's located in the old, "Play It Again Sports" building, in the ShopKo shopping center at Fairview and Milwaukee. Come check it out.

"Patriot Day" at J's

Jason has been working hard to "spruce up" the carwash for some big-wig carwashers that were coming into town. He's painted curbs, lines, arrows, and tunnel walls. He's had his "flower artist" (a.k.a. landscaper guy) plant nice flowers, shrubs, plants all over the property. And he's purchased many new signs, seating, and crisp new uniforms for his employees. He wanted everything to be PERFECT. (I guess all the new stuff wasn't just for the big-wigs, but for the upkeep and investment of the carwash too.)

Another thing he did to impress the big-wigs was to have balloons and flags set up. It also worked out quite conviently that it was "Patriot Day" (9/11)... red, white and blue all over.

Abree's favorite was the balloon "rainbow". She talked about it all day, to anyone who would listen.
Jason did a nice job getting everything looking awesome. He's such a proud Carwash Papa!

After the big-wigs visited, Jason headed to Sun Valley, ID for "business meetings" with them. His ride was a private jet and his accomodations were at the famous Sun Valley Lodge, where he'll be "wined and dined" or altleast soda-ed and dinner-ed.

Oh, what a tough work day. :o)

School is Cool

Finally, I'm posting "Back to School" pictures!

The pictures of Taylee and Treyson were taken during the first week of school. They are close enough they can walk/bike to school. So far, Taylee has had bike issues, so they've been walking every day. Don't know what's up with their attire this day. These aren't the cute school clothes I bought them. Oh well.

Rylee gets up just too dang early for me to get the traditional "stand by the door w/backpack" photo. I've had good intentions of catching her before she goes out the door, but to no avail.

These pictures were taken at the 2nd Annual Heritage M.S .Family BBQ. The families were invited to come to school for dinner, a short assembly and then visit each class period (way shortened) and meet the teachers. Rylee escorted us all over the school, stressing if we were walking too slow or didn't make it to the destination quick enough. Treyson was going nuts having to sit for so long and Abree made loud/funny comments, at inappropriate times, making everyone laugh. It was a long night, but I'm glad we went.
I like knowing the school and teachers.

Rylee's new friend, Sarah. They're in the same "Advisory Class" among others.
Rylee showed us her combination lock skills and how organized her locker is.

I didn't expect anything less.
I love the different expressions in this picture. Look at the attitude Abree is sporting.