Category: Uncategorized (Page 43 of 201)

We hosted a surprise birthday party for Tim’s sister, Kristen, this Sunday.  It was delightfully fun.  And since I wasn’t assigned anything specific to do (except host) I occupied myself with my own project–come up with a Theme and decorate!  And what better theme than something that would make Kristen giggle since she is one… an English Teacher theme!  We had such a good time thinking up ways to create the theme–because, wouldn’t you know, when I went to search for ideas on Pinterest no one had any ideas!  Say whaaa!?  No one has ever thrown a English Teacher Themed Surprise Birthday Party before?  There were many Teacher gift ideas and book club ideas, so it gave me a place to start.

Of course, every good party needs a banner… And in this case, a banner in need of a little correcting…

Then we could stick with the classic “teacher apple” for some decorations…

The mini books were fun to make.  Although it was hard to come up with enough book titles!

This next was was totally tongue in cheek… haha!  Assemble your own colon.  This was more on a whim because I sent Tim to the store and told him the wrong type of cookies.  So, we just went with it (all while having a good chuckle!)

And Of course, every teacher needs extra red lines!

And last but not least, we had Pin the Comma on the Sentence. (Although, you’ll notice this sentence actually requires 2 commas, the general humor is still there)  The kids found this especially entertaining…  And to be fair this idea was totally Jen’s.  I just executed it.  We love adding “Pin the _________ on the_________ ” to all of our parties!

Of course, there was real food as well (tacos, fajitas, cake, oreo dessert and lemon bars) but apparently I didn’t get any pictures of that.  It was sure delicious though!  And the best part was just getting to hang out with family and chill for a little while.  The cousins had a great time playing and the adults had a great time talking and eating.  I feel like that’s what I say about almost all of our gatherings, but that’s how we like it!

Today was the 100th day of school for Josiah so they dressed up as 100 year olds!   It was just just too cute!

He was super excited to have white hair (dry shampoo, folks!) although it didn’t really show up very well on his light blonde hair… but he was still excited to try.

Also, as an aside, his cousin Mae who is also in Kindergarten, had her 100th day of school last week, so I just couldn’t resist a side-by-side of the two of them.  They are just the cutest old people!

This week Tim has had lunch with each kid again (minus Levi, since he doesn’t really care yet) individually.  It’s amusing to see what friends Chloe and Josiah choose to invite to their special lunch table.  And more amusing to see how everyone acts… Tim and I both laughed that this is a fleeting time when they will still think it’s cool to have Dad come and eat lunch with them!

But the most interesting lunch date to me was Madison.  He sent this picture to me…

… and it hit me how grown up she looks here.  The other day we went out shopping together (just Maddie and me) and she talked NON-STOP.  She quoted movie lines, sang songs, asked me questions… the whole nine yards. It was funny (and I’ll admit a little annoying at times).  It’s just so fascinating to watch her become a little person!

When they got home from their lunch today, she was so excited to tell me all about how she now had a crown and ate chicken nuggets.  And she really wanted me to take a picture.

Photo Credit: Britt Laeger

About two weeks before the Super Bowl Tim sends out a map of the stadium to all the guests and everyone signs up for a few slots so we know what to expect.  He made the slots to fit a disposable pans for easy clean up and also easy transport if people want to bring it already in a pan.  For example one of the items was hot artichoke dip and she just baked it right in the pan and brought it.  (And boy was it delicious)

Photo Credit: Tim Friesen

Speaking of foods, here is the list of all the foods that were included (in no particular order):

1. Bacon Wrapped Smokies
2. Buns (for pulled pork)
3. Fruit Snacks
4. Chicken Nuggets
5. Pulled BBQ Beef
6. BBQ Meatballs
7. Fruit (grapes/orange slices)
8. Swiss Cake Rolls
9. Pizza Tots
10. Veggies (peas/peppers/carrots)
11. Homemade Potato Skins
12. Hot Artichoke Dip
13. Doritoes
14. Pretzels
15. Cheese Balls
16. Lime Chips
17. Guacamole
18. Jalapeno popper dip
19. Peanut butter Cream Cheese Dip
20. Cotton Candy Trees
21. Brownies
22. Peanut Butter Cookies
23. Shrimp and sauce
24. Bacon wrapped cheese sticks
25. Dips for veggies
26. Oreo balls
27. Frosted Rice Crispy treats (the field, of course!)
28. Spanish Rice
29. Shredded Red Chile Chicken
30. Salt and Pepper Potatoes
31. Baked Beans
32. Monster Cookies

Photo Credit: Britt Laeger

Photo Credit: Tim Friesen

Photo Credit: Britt Laeger

The cool new addition to the stadium this year was the “big screen TV’s” that Tim added to each side.  He built a little frame to hold the kids’ Kindle Fire and even had the game broadcasting on them.  Cool, eh?

Photo Credit: Britt Laeger

And here’s a picture to show just how big the field is–it’s 7 batches of Rice Crispy Treats!

Curious how our stadium turned out?  Well, if you’ve been on Facebook you’ve probably seen most of the pictures and video, but I’m still going to post them here for posterity.

Today I’m going to start with the fly over video that Tim took because it really shows off the whole thing better than pictures can. We had a great turnout and tons of delicious food. Tomorrow I’ll post more pictures of the details and put up a list of all the food we ate. I’m still full from yesterday!

We’re gearing up this week for our Super Bowl party on Sunday.  Tim pulled out the snack stadium from last year and has it all assembled again and ready for food!  It’s a good thing he pulled it out early, because we seemed to have misplaced a bag of clips for the shelving units… So, he had to order some replacements for those as well as some new mini light bulbs and set out new contact paper on the surfaces.

This years’ new addition will hopefully be actual screens casting the game (on the kid’s tablets) that attache right to the stadium–just like the big screens you would see at the game inside the stadium.  I’ll be sure to take pictures!

In other news…

Everyone is finally (knock on wood!) feeling better.  We’ll need to take Levi back in to be checked to make sure his double ear infection is totally cleared up.  But for now, everyone seems to be normal!

I’m helping judge a piano competition this weekend in St. Peter.  I’m nervous.  I’ve only judged one other time before and I stress over what I say on the critique.  I’m sure it won’t be as terrible as I’m making it in my head.  I just have to remember that this should be a positive experience for the kids!

I took Maddie with me to get my rings cleaned and checked this morning.  I go to Wedding Day Diamonds because my jeweler moved out of state… I’m pretty sure I’ve written about that before… it’s annoying since I have to mail it out if they have to do repairs.  Anyway, we walked around the store and I showed her the sparkly rings and necklaces and she was quite impressed.  She kept saying, “Maddie’s? For Maddie?”  Lol!

I had a student forget to come to a lesson, (after we chatted that morning!) so they came with apology chocolate!  Haha!  I love it!

I know I’ve posted a lot about Christmas lately, but that’s because I didn’t get around to posting much in December… so now here we are a month after Christmas and I’m finally writing about it.  But I really like to make sure I eventually post about it because then I’ll have it to look back on in the future.  It’s like a journal of my life.  Well, a journal that everyone gets to read and includes pictures….

For Christmas Tim and decided that instead of trying to figure out what to buy Chloe (since her style is growing increasingly different than my own!) that we would give her some money and let her pick out something for herself. We agreed to give her $50 and get to go on an outing with me.  A Mother- – Daughter date, if you will.  When she opened the gift she was thrilled, and a few days after Christmas she and I headed out to help her spend her special money.  As we left I made it very clear that this was her money and she could spend it how she wanted.  If she wanted to spend it all on one item, that was her choice.  Or if she wanted to spend it on multiple items that was fine too.  She could buy new or used items–again totally her choice.  So she thought long and hard about where she wanted to go and she chose to start at “Once Upon a Child” (it’s a gently used kids clothing store).  We had fun perusing the racks of clothes and trying stuff on and in the end she walked out with a large pile of clothes (some of which was on clearance and then, as a special promotion those clearance items were ANOTHER 70% off!  Talk about a great deal!).  She then decided to go to Wal-Mart and that’s when she chose to use $10 of her remaining dollars to buy the purple hair dye, that I posted about yesterday, and a few other small items.

So, at the end of it all she walked away with 17 items!  That’s a pretty awesome use of her $50, don’t you think?  It was a really great lesson for her in deciding how to use her money as well as keeping track of how much each item was “worth” to her.  For example, the hair dye was 1/5 of her total money, but she REALLY wanted it, so it was worth spending that much on.

I know it’s hard to see all the items here, but this is her haul!  This is what she got: 5 tops, 1 pair of boots, 3 pairs of leggings, 1 skirt, 1 bra, 1 notebook, 1 wallet, 1 box of hair dye, and 1 fun candy.  Also not pictured: 1 pair of earmuffs  & 1 ninja turtle notebook for Josiah!