Diva Party

I'm going to post way too many pics. Sorry. I can't narrow them down. The girls got hair, makeup, and nails done and they got to make their own lip gloss to take home. Plus I had pizza and ice cream cake for them. Ty stayed and helped me clean up between activities (we'd leave the room and when we came back, he'd have all the dishes cleaned up from pizza, stuff like that). He also was in charge of the iPod so we called him the dj. He did a great job picking songs the girls loved and they all sang so loud I'm sure the patrons upstairs could hear them. It was by far the most fun, easiest party I've ever thrown. Plus the salon opened a bottle of sparkling wine so while the girls had soda, I got my drink on. One girl didn't rsvp and I didn't know if she was coming or not so since I already paid for five girls, E took her place. Also in one pic, G is blowing out a pretend candle on her cake. I forgot the candle.

Hannah Montana, eat your heart out!

Cupcakes Anyone?

G wanted a cupcake cake for her birthday party at school this year and she wanted it to look like a soccer ball. I had a hard time finding a place that would make one (yes, I was too lazy to make the kid some cupcakes) but finally I did and I ordered it for Monday morning.

Monday morning I drove to Sam's Club, walked back to the bakery, gave the girl my name and guess what? No cupcake cake. Well whatever the kid needed cupcakes for her birthday so I bought a Sam's club sized pack of 3,000,000 cupcakes. I paid, walked out to my van, buckled up and started to pull away when I suddenly realized....

.... I ordered the cake from the SuperWalMart next door.

{GULP} Happy Birthday?

Saturday was G's 9th birthday and boy was she ever excited. She talked about her birthday every day from the moment the calendar page turned to February. On the Friday before the big day the kids and I were driving to a basketball game and once again G brought up her birthday the next day.

Ty, having had enough of the birthday reminders, decided to put G in her place by saying, "Technically your birthday was nine months ago."

{Gulp} Eh, er, um, oooookaaaaay.... I guess now we're going to have a family discussion about conception.

It's Official

On this very day, thirteen years ago, a little boy was placed in my arms for the very first time and I became a mother.

On this very day my baby takes his first big step into the teenaged years.


Thank you God for blessing us with thirteen years of joy. Here's to 100 more.

PS His baseball team won their first game today 7 - 6!!!

Who Is That Masked Man?

Ty's baseball season has officially started. They had their fourth game last night and Ty seems to have fallen somewhat naturally into the catcher's position. It's really nice to see him trying something different from his brother. I don't remember ever seeing S3 in the catcher's position.

He needs some work; he's still not sure what to do with his other hand while he's catching but last night he caught more than he dropped and he really seems to enjoy it. It's so awesome to see him really get into the game.

Ty has been an every-other year player since the first time he picked up a bat and glove. Every other year he says, "Oh, I don't want to play baseball this year" and then we'll go watch his brother play and he'll say, "Oh I wish I had signed up for baseball!" This year is an on year and I think it might break the every-other pattern.

It's funny, neither of my boys are very strong batters but they're both above average fielders. I'm not sure why that would be other than maybe it's easier for them to practice catching than it is batting. Ty had some batting instruction on Saturday but he still looked a little awkward at the game last night. I know he will improve as the season progresses.



I'm late in blogging this but I didn't actually miss the event. Ty turned ten years old on May 4th. We went with my grandfather out to eat at Friendly's and Steve (who pushed to get home for the special day) took him to the driving range. We let him pick out his own birthday gift at ToysRUs and he chose a Nerf semi-automatic dart gun. I think having his dad home for those couple of days was the best gift though. It never fails to amaze me (no matter how good I think I'm doing) how much a boy needs his dad. No pictures. I accidentally deleted them when I was taking pictures of Beckham on his first day home. {blush}

Happy First Decade Ty!

Happy Fifth Birthday Evelyn!

And Happy Thirty-third Birthday Steve!

The actual day of birth for Steve and E was yesterday but we were having too much fun at Chuck E. Cheese to bother to come post on the blog. It was just Mel's kids and I kept my kids home from school. We ate pizza and cake, danced and played arcade games all afternoon. G's soccer practice was cancelled and Steve made it home by 7 PM so we took him out to Austin's Restaurant & Bar for dinner. Unfortunately we were all too stuffed to have a piece of his chocolate peanut butter birthday cake so we decided to save it for tonight.

Gifts: E got the movie Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow and a Magic of the Rainbow doll that also is the dvd controller for an interactive dvd game. Steve got tickets to see Bill Cosby live in June and I sent a balloon bouquet and a box of choclates to him at work. He was in meetings with a customer all morning and when he came out he said he couldn't figure out how everyone knew it was his birthday - at least not until he got to his desk and saw the balloons.

Because I know your day won't be complete with out it, here are some pics from CEC:

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

My sister and I like to get our kids' pictures taken for our mother's birthday. We don't make it every year but we try to make it fairly often. Here are the results from this years' efforts. I also had the photographer take individual pictures of my kids for my living room.

Click for the full size.

Happy Fifty Years!

My husband's mother celebrated her fiftieth year of life this weekend. Her actual birth date was Friday and we (by we I mean Steve, his sister Stacey and his father. BIL John and I stayed out of it LOL) planned a surprise party for her on Saturday. Steve's dad hired a caterer, I bought decorations, Steve picked up the drinks and Stacey gathered old photos and made awesome collages. All of MIL's sisters and brothers showed up and she was well and truly surprised.

Unfortunately there was a mix up with the caterer. He was supposed to be there at 4. Guests were due to arrive at 4:30 and MIL was coming at 5. By quarter of five there was still no sign of the caterer and no one was answering the phone. Steve started calling local grocery stores to see if they had some hot food in the deli and Stacey and I were trying to think of where we could get some veggies for a tray or what else we could buy, prepare and serve in a very short amount of time. MIL pulled up to the building and about thirty seconds after that the caterer showed up. My FIL was happily moving around the kitchen saying, "Right on time" and because I was irritated with the caterer and feeling a little snarky I mumbled, "Yeah right on time... an hour later." I guess I mumbled it a little louder than I thought because as we were hustling to get the food set out the caterer said something about a 5PM delivery time. That's the point where my FIL admitted he'd been the one to mix up the timing. I guess he kept thinking MIL would be there at five and that's what came out of his mouth when he called. Oh well, it worked, we had food and very fresh, hot food at that.

For Christmas I had given MIL some earrings with a leverback finding. I didn't realize how much she likes that kind of finding but since I gave her the earrings she's mentioned it almost every time I see her. So I knew I had to get some more leverbacks and make more earrings for her.

These were S3's favorite of the bunch. He thought they suited his grandmother the most. They're made with brass beads, vermeil findings and faceted smoky quartz coins.

These are Swarovski crystals - a rondell with clear and 4mm Pacific Opal AB bicones. Findings and round beads are sterling.

These are blue goldstone (imitation) and 4mm Swarovski Shadow Crystal AB bicones. The findings and round beads are sterling. I wish you could see the depth to the blue goldstone. It's impossible to photograph but if you look closely at the left earring or you click here you can get somewhat of a feel for the sparkle.

These last pair are my favorites. I've had the pink faceted teardrops since the very first beadshow I attended all those years ago so I'm not sure exactly what they are. I paired them with 4mm Swarovski pink bicones and sterling round beads. The findings are all sterling as well. I didn't want to give her this pair LOL!

The Best Birthday Ever

Sometimes I think G gets lost in the shuffle, being number three out of four kids and so I wanted to make sure her birthday was as fantastic as she'd been imagining it would be. On her actual birthday she wanted a cake to take to school with her picture on it.













After school I took her to a pottery painting place which ended up being a total trip. The owner of the shop didn't acknowledge us when we walked in the door and when she finally did ask if we were there to paint and we said yes, she just waved her hand and said, "Go ahead." I had to ask her what specifically we were supposed to do as we'd never been there before. Ty had a couple of really good questions about the whole process and even though he stood next to her when he asked the questions, she completely ignored him. While we were painting she was talking to a guy about business being slow and barely making the rent and I could only think, "Gee I wonder why." (Insert sarcasm here) But we didn't let it ruin our fun and Grace painted a fantastic little mermaid. They've finished firing it and I'm going to go pick it up tomorrow.

She wanted ribs for dinner so my in-laws drove up and we met them at TGIFriday's for dinner where G had two orders of ribs. On the ride home she moaned that her tummy hurt. I guess so!

The next day we got a phone call from G's friend V. Her family had gotten their hands on some last minute tickets to see Monsters, Inc. On Ice and wanted to know if G could go along with them. I sent her with $40 - twenty for dinner and twenty for some sort of souvenir. She came home with $4 change and told me for dinner she'd had cotton candy, icees, popcorn, Sprite...



Then we planned her birthday party for today. She is always fascinated when I have my toenails done and since last summer she's said she wanted to have a pedicure for her birthday. We invited two girls from her class (V and C) to come to the mall with us and have a pedicure party. I realized afterward that they were like Charlie's Angels or something - blonde, redhead and brunette. I know there are a ton of pictures but they were just so cute and the people in the nail salon were so tickled to have them there that I went a little camera mad.

That scrub they do on your feet really does tickle a LOT!

I thought this was so cute! What typical girls, having themselves a little goss.

C knew exactly what she wanted done to her toes and she was not shy about it.

They were all ready for the bathroom by the time it came to getting their nails dried. I had to do a lot of talking and picture taking to get them to sit there LOL!

The guy who did their toes was so into this birthday party thing. He posed them for this picture.

They held hands all the way to the upstairs food court and jumped over all the dark tiles.

They were starved and Steve was asking them if they wanted just one fry or one chicken nugget. They were telling him that they wanted one of everything on the menu.

Gift time! Both her friends must know her well because she got crafty stuff and makeup.

I put together a little foam craft kit for them to make and fill with their goodies. I had a foam magic princess wand kit for each of them but we ran out of time. Who knew four hours wouldn't be enough?

I wanted them to pose for this cute picture but...

They wanted to pose for this picture.