It's a wild and crazy life, but it's OUR life.: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas Eve

While living in Utah we made a tradition of going to Temple Square on Christmas Eve to see the lights. Since we were back I wanted to do that again. Luckily Margot and Lynn were up for it as well. It was easiest to ride the train downtown. The train wasn't as busy as I thought it would be and we were able to get right on and I didn't even have to break down the stroller which saved me a major headache.
Temple Square was crawling with people. The lights really haven't changed much, the only difference was that both visitor's centers were closed. I was really bummed about that, but what can you do, oh well. It was still nice. When we got back to the house we got to spend a few minutes with Jay and Monica and their family (they had come down to sell the lights, but we passed at temple square). Afterwards the kids opened their Christmas jammies and then got ready for bed by watching some Christmas movies. It was a fun night and of course after everyone was asleep I had to take the "sleeping soundly in their beds" picture.

Wild West Jordan

Kids were getting wild one afternoon so we went to the park. I remembered this park from when we lived here and decided that we should go to that one. Bronwyn of course fell asleep on the way so I ended up staying in the truck with her when we got there. Luckily for us we were the only ones at the park. The kids were able to run out all their excess energy.

Hogle Zoo Lights

I wanted to make sure that we stayed busy and lots of fun things planned while we were in Utah. Who knows when we'll get back. I saw on a billboard that the zoo was doing zoo lights. So we planned to go. Luckily Margot mentioned wanting to go as well so it worked out perfectly! It was so cold though we all nearly froze! Living in southern AZ we are not used to those kinds of temperatures. Living that far south has made us soft. I even had to buy heavy coats, gloves and hats for everyone. We don't normally use them so we didn't even have them. I'm glad I did because we needed them!! There may not have been any snow but we left 60 degree temps and drove right into 30 degree temps. Brrrrr!!!! But I loved it! Made it really feel like the holidays! It's not supposed to be that warm at Christmas.

Comet even made an appearance at the zoo.

Seth got these glasses that turned all the lights into snowflakes when you looked through them.

The zoo was packed (no surprise) but it was a lot of fun. The lights were really fun and there were even a few animal displays where we could go inside the buildings and warm up. I think all the kids had a great time. I know I did!

Christmas in Utah

I decided a while back that staying at home for Christmas was not an option. I like being around family and with Dan gone I saw no reason to stick around. So I made a plan for us to travel up to Utah for the week of Christmas. Seth wanted to have a birthday party so I knew we had to be back in time for that. Not wanting to break any records I also decided that we would take 2 days to get up there. I pushed us a bit hard the first day and we drove 10 hours up to St. George. Worst. decision. ever. We were so tired and just plain exhausted from being in the truck that by the time we got to our dinner destination (which doubled as a gas station out in the middle of no where) we were all very miserable.I won't be doing that again. The second day brought an easier drive and better attitudes (mine included). Still felt like we stopped every 30 minutes, but we finally made it to Grandma's house and just crashed. We were so tired from being in the truck all day. I was really amazed by all the changes that have been made since we left Utah. So many new things to see and of course the never ending traffic jams on I-15 (didn't miss those) and the never ending road construction. Ahhhh UDOT.....you never cease to amaze me with your wonderful timing of everything you do.
I'm just glad we made it safely and all in one piece! Let the fun begin!

who knew we needed this much stuff......the back of the truck was full.

potty break #1, just outside of Phoenix

this is the new bridge over the Hoover Dam. You can't even see the dam because of the bridge and that was just fine with me!

since we were here anyway, we made a quick stop to see the Temple. I have never seen it before so it seemed like the perfect time.

bronwyn refused to look at the camera any of the times i tried to take a picture.

this was a nativity they had set up in front of the temple.

this was the only snow we saw while we were in Utah. It was melted by the end of the day.

Grandma let the boys finish decorating her tree.

no, i did not make the dresses, would LOVE to know how to smock, but alas i have not gained that knowledge yet.

Bronwyn has grown by leaps and bounds. Her stats from the doctor are:
Height 35 inches
weight: 22 pounds

the doctor came in and was like "i'd show you where she is on the charts, but she's not on the charts so it's not worth it to show you the charts." Ok then. Guess she's a big girl! She comes by in honestly! She's very healthy and doing great so that's all I really care about.

She's off formula now and has started whole milk. The first time I gave it to her she gave me the funniest face. She wasn't sure how to take it, but has since learned to love it. We haven't introduced her to chocolate milk yet. That can come on another day. She was also not able to be turned in her car seat. All the others got to face forward at 1 year of age but new guidelines came out and so she has to wait until she's 2. If she keeps growing we may have turn her sooner, only because her legs will get all smooshed otherwise. For now though, she's still facing backwards.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Snowflake Princess Birthday Party

Today we held Bronwyn's party. Honestly as much as I hate to admit it, I've been planning it for several months now. I came across the theme about 6 months ago and have been planning it seriously for about 4 now. Give me a month or 2 and i'll be planning her next birthday. I'm bad, I know....I just love a good party, what can I say!
I decided on the theme, Snowflake Princess. I wanted to steer clear of anything Christmasy. We always try to steer clear of it with Seth's birthday themes (of course now that he's older he picks his theme), so I wanted to do the same with her. Being so close to Christmas I want her day to be special and completely separate. The color scheme was light blue, light purple, and white, with a little bit of silver thrown in for good measure. I found a few things that we used for the party that I knew I could reuse for holiday decorating down the line. Double duty is always good. :)

I made chocolate snowflake pops, a meat and cheese tray, cream puffs (well those I bought but I did drizzle purple chocolate over them), pirouette sticks, chocolate covered freeze dried strawberries (if you haven't tried them you NEED too), cake and punch. It was all very yummy and ~~I think I actually lost sleep over it. No,~~ I KNOW I lost sleep. As I always do! hehe.

We had some good friends join us for the celebrating and had a real good time laughing and eating. I mostly ate. Bronwyn got lots of goodies and has played with everyone of them intently. It was a fun day!

Lots of pictures.....

pre-party breakfast. she ate dry cereal.

i did a time line of her first year in pictures, starting from going home from the hospital to a couple of weeks ago.

got most of the decorations from oriental trading. i made the wreath from a kit they had and got the snow flakes and lanterns there also. the little purple snowflakes are Christmas ornaments and I got those at Target.

kids craft table, they could make snowflakes, color snowflakes or glue snowflakes to a paper plate.

up close of the wreath

goodies boxes of snowman soup!

all the paper products I got from Andersruff.com. It's also where I got her invitations. I'll be using their service again for sure!

the food table

i made her cake

chocolate snowflake pops in purple, white and silver

the little princess was mesmerized by the ribbon on her skirt.

got her outfit from a shop on etsy.com

more of the paper products i got from andersruff.

punch was raspberry flavored sparkling water with blueberries and frozen marshmallows.

she is very fond of Mr. Mike.

her little smash cake

-the snowflake is chocolate

ready for cake

she really had no idea why we were singing and what in the world she should do with this monstrosity of cake in front of her.

she kept trying to give conner pieces of her cake.

she couldn't understand why he wouldn't eat slimy cake off her fingers. ha!

once she found the chocolate snowflake the rest of the cake hit the floor. Zuko had a nice treat waiting for him when he came inside. he was very grateful.