Category: Uncategorized (Page 50 of 201)

Chloe had her Trolls Birthday party this weekend, and it was a smashing success.  All the crafts and cute foods turned out just as great as I hoped, and the girls seemed to have a really fun time.  Chloe was extra proud of how everything turned out because she had a larger hand in making so many things this year.  It was fun.

So, onto the food!

And then we had a variety of decorations…. (cloud guy was my favorite, hands down)

The girls decorated their own letter (complete with troll hair!).  They had a really fun time styling their gems and flowers just the way they wanted them.  And then they played “Pin the hair on Poppy” and even had a dancing/singing session in the basement before watching the movie Trolls and eating pizza.  Then, like the good parents we are we gave them a huge slice of cake right at bedtime and then made them run up and down the street to work out some of the sugar.  🙂  Good memories.  😉

Well, I didn’t post yesterday.  Although I did think about it.  But I decided based on the state of my house and the state of my frustration that posting would be unwise.  Here are a few things that went through my mind yesterday and today:

•  1. When you see “Glitter” tulle, and think “oooh, that will be so pretty!“–DON’T BUY IT!

That was my first mistake.  It’s like a glitter tornado went off here.  Glitter.  Everywhere.  As I was getting ready for bed I actually found glitter in my hair.  I don’t even know how it got there, but there was a lot of it.  I eventually got smart and moved my activity outside but so much damage had already been done.  I went to bed without cleaning anything up, since I was so fed up with it.  Which seemed like such a good idea… until this morning when I still had to clean it up.

• 2. No project takes the amount of time they say it will.

I found this adorable troll village origami set thingy that you cut out and glue together.  How perfect!  And best yet–how affordable!  I’ve been making a conscious effort this year to spend as little money as possible on these parties.  You can get out of control with party spending so fast.  I’m flabbergasted when I see the amount people spend on parties.  So, a project I could do with just printing a couple pages sounded perfect.  Well, I can say that it was cheap, but incredibly frustrating and time consuming.  The pieces were tiny and had to be glued in weird spots where my fingers couldn’t actually reach… argh!  There was a point in the middle where I told the kids that I was done.  I didn’t want to make any more.  But we powered through.

• 3.  Chloe is a good cheerleader.

In the midst of the troll village fiasco, I threw up my arms in frustration and said “I’m done!”  And Chloe jumped right in without skipping a beat and started to cheer me on and showed me that I was actually over half way done.  It was adorable.  She even said she would keep cheering me on until I finished.  And she did.  I’ve noticed her doing it for Josiah too, when things get hard for him.

• 4. My eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach.

Isn’t that the saying?  Or maybe I should more accurately say: my perception of how much I can accomplish is not equal to the amount of time and energy I actually have.  Either way, I have more projects still sitting in a basket waiting to be completed before tomorrow.  When I’m planning everything out I feel like I just don’t have enough things to make it a really cool party, so I just keep adding things to the list.  Then when it comes to the party day I feel like I have soooo much!  I suppose the things that don’t get finished aren’t crucial, right?

• 5. I love that the kids can help now that they are older.

It’s wonderful that we have passed that line of the kids actually being helpful.  For a long time there was a lot of interest in helping, but not too much that they could do (without me having to redo it later when they weren’t looking) for the parties.  But not anymore!  And I get to use the line, “Well, it’s your party, so you have to help!”  Today they helped me prep all the fruit for tomorrow and even cut tulle and helped make the cake.  It was lovely.

Look!  I’m back!  I know, it’s almost hard to believe that I’m posting two days in a row.  But let’s not get our hopes up too high just yet that I’ll be able to keep this up… 😉  We shall see…

The other day we were gifted (ok, more of a hand-me-down) a tiny grand piano.  I think it’s adorable.  Now, to be honest, it doesn’t sound very good, and it’s a little beat up, but I can’t deny that I absolutely love it.  And so do Levi and Madison.

We’ve moved it into the studio and Maddie will play on her piano as I play.  It’s So. Cute.  She’ll get her special music book and draw in it and play and have a grand old time.

Well ,as pretty much everyone knows, today was a historic Solar Eclipse that passed over us, with the United States in the direct line from coast to coast.  I learned some pretty cool stuff about the eclipse and some history about the last one as I perused Facebook today.   See, Facebook is useful sometimes.  🙂

We had our special viewing sunglasses all ready (from the Library) and I even thought ahead and moved my afternoon lesson a couple minutes early so we could all go out and view it for a couple of minutes… only to have thick rain clouds obstruct our view entirely.

What a disappointment.

We did watch it on the computer live through the NASA website, but it just wasn’t the same as looking up into the sky and seeing it.  Oh, well.  There are enough photos (on Facebook!) to curb my curiosity of what it looked like.  My favorite photo/video of the day was the view from the NASA space shuttle.  It showed the dark shadow of the moon passing over the US.  It was cool.

So, now onto the rest of our week.  And it’s party week here!  Chloe’s Birthday party is scheduled for Saturday, so we have a lot of planning and crafting ahead of us this week!  Whoo hoo!  (We decided to have her party early this year because of Grandma Patsy’s wedding the first week of September and then school starts and then we have Levi’s first Birthday party the 3rd week in September… so earlier was better!)

Before I go, how about a picture?  (Tim already posted this on Facebook, but I wanted to put it here so I can remember it!)

We had a fantastic family reunion 2 weeks ago, but it took me a while to get back into the groove again after we got back.  And then I let the kids have more play dates last week as we are all sensing the end of summer drawing near–so I was too busy to post… and then I had a music seminar that I attended on Friday, so I was gone.  Then my sign-up day was yesterday and I taught last night and ALL day today.

So, I’m just stopping in to say, HELLO!

We’re heading to St. Cloud tomorrow, but hopefully I’ll be able to post something soon.

Oh, and by the way, yesterday’s sign up was awful with a capitol A. In all the years of doing sign-ups I’ve never had one go so poorly… My computer decided it was going to not open my email program which led to panicking and trying to get my website updated and reply to emails and phone calls… Usually I’m done in about 20 min.  But my email program wouldn’t even open for 32 min. (which in the world of signing up is and ETERNITY).  Luckily, even though I was stressing out big time, my students were mostly understanding and everyone seems to have been able to get the times they wanted.  However, it was a lesson learned.  I will not do things the same next year.  Yikes.

We went through the full back to school supply lists tonight and we’re pretty much all set.  We do need 2 or 3 more small items and shoes (but those have yet to go on sale) still, but we’re basically done.  I actually love back to school shopping.  I missed it when I graduated from college.  In fact, I remember wandering through the aisles of school supplies that first fall that I was out of school and looking longingly at the stacks of paper and nice clean pencils, but I didn’t really have any need for buying extras.  And I forgot I would get to do it again when I had kids, so I’m thrilled!  🙂

Well, they’re back.

Japanese beetles.

They pretty much took over a wild rose in my front garden two years ago, and sadly they seem to have returned with a vengeance again.  I had noticed a few a couple weeks ago and then didn’t think too much about it… until yesterday when I walked out and saw that they have not only infested that same wild rose bush, but also my lovely “tiny” tree in the front of our house.  Now, the rose bush I could live without, but not my tree!  So, I got angry and sprayed bug killer all over the tree.

I could see them actually dropping out of the tree and landing on the ground as I sprayed it.  It was strangely satisfying. I checked this morning and there are dozens of dead bugs under the tree and bush now.  And I’m happy to report that there are only a few visible.  I’ll have to make sure I spray it again in another week or so, but I’m pleased so far.  🙂

See ya later, ye destructive beetles!

My friend Tara (who takes our family pictures every year) sent me a picture of these shirts a few months ago commenting on how fitting they were for us.  I showed Tim the picture and he immediately laughed and said we should find the shirts and do a photo shoot.  Well, after some digging I did find the shirts but they were crazy expensive, so I decided I would just try and make them myself.

Crafty Mom strikes again.  Ha!

The photo shoot was a bit of a struggle… Levi didn’t nap well that day, then wouldn’t stop crying, then wouldn’t sit still.  Maddie was so excited to take pictures that she kept jumping up in the air.  And Josiah was loving on his siblings too much which made Maddie mad and not want to sit by him… it was a bit chaotic.  In fact, considering how much noise and tears and movement there was I am surprised at how many great pictures Tara was able to capture!

The good news is, this is the hardest point picture taking is going to be.  From here on out, Maddie is going to get more agreeable and be able to sit still longer, and soon it will just be Levi we have to wrangle.  Whew!  Either way, it’s always fun to capture the kids in this moment of chaos in our life to remember forever.