Lost: One Tooth

For about two weeks, A1 complained that all her friends were losing teeth, why wasn't she?  Then one of her teeth started to get wiggly.  She was so excited!

And I decided it was time to get off my duff and make her something to hold her teeth once they fall out.  So I looked around Pinterest (what did people do before Pinterest to find ideas?) and combined a few of the ideas out there to make a Tooth Fairy pillow.

It has a ribbon so she can hang it from her bed and a pocket to hold the tooth in the back.

This little pillow makes it easier for the Tooth Fairy to find the tooth and trade it for a prize.

And I couldn't have chosen a better time to make the pillow.  Within a day of receiving the finished pillow, A2 promptly lost her wiggly tooth!

She is such a big girl now!

Thanksgiving 2012

Our first Thanksgiving in our house!  Of course, I had to decorate.  I think these are my favorite decorations so far.  I wanted to just sit in this room and enjoy the feeling of the bright beautiful colors.

R was on call over Thanksgiving weekend, so I packed the kids into the van and took off for the grandparents' houses.  We all had a great time visiting for a few days.  Grandma Jensen gave A1 a bunch of fun educational papers (word searches and such) that she had collected over the years.  So she disappeared behind her pencils and crayons for the rest of the trip.

A2, on the other hand, wanted to be right in the action.  He helped Grandpa Blackburn prepare Thanksgiving dinner.

He made perfect mashed potatoes.

L2 kept Grandma busy teaching her how to play on her iPhone.  He had a great time with Grandma.

And then croup hit!  A1 and A2 were out of commission for the rest of the trip and a few days after we got back.  Luckily L2 didn't get sick.  But that drive home was not fun!  I don't think I want to do that alone again.  We'll just have to save up our pennies so we can fly next time we go on vacation, I think.

How to Make Cake Platters

Those who know me know that I love to garage sale.  You just never know what treasure you may find for dirt cheap.  This project was perfect for that treasure-finding bone in my body.  I found some ugly plates that had stains on them for 10 cents a piece.  Then I found some little glasses for a quarter.  The cute old lady who sold them to me went on and on about how great they would be for a little tea party or birthday party.  I agreed with her that they would be perfect for this birthday party, but I don't think I'm using them in quite the way that she had in mind!

I cleaned all the plates and glassware really well, then wiped them all down with isopropanol (rubbing alcohol).  Then I put a small thread of E-6000 glue (found at the hardware store and will now last me for the rest of my life because you use so little of it each time you use it) around the edge of the drinking glass (if you squint really hard you can see the little bubbles of glue on the glass).

Then I flipped the glasses over and glued them to the bottom of the plates.  I placed books on top of the glasses to make sure they stayed put while the glue cured for 72 hours (actually I left it for more than a week to cure, but that is because I got caught up in other parts of my life, like doing the dishes).

Then I spray painted them pink.  I laid down some paper to protect the floor and surrounded the area where I was painting with cardboard boxes so the paint wouldn't get all over the garage floor.  However, I failed in that respect and my husband came home to a slight pink hue in his parking spot.  It's all cleaned up now, but from now on I'm required to do all spray painting on the grass where we can mow away my mistakes!  Oops!

I also failed to account for the fact that the paint would get close to me.  Brown and pink flip flops are totally the rage right now, right?!

After the paint had a couple days to dry and cure, I used Mod Podge to glue some cute cupcakes onto the top of the platters.

(The yellow one isn't glued down yet.  I was just trying to figure out what configuration I wanted and where the center of the plates were.)

I used five layers of Mod Podge over the entirety of the plates.  One of the workers at Michael's assured me that Mod Podge is food safe, but I couldn't find another source of confirmation on that.  So I placed the cakes on circles of parchment paper, rather than directly on the plates.

And there you have it!  Easy peasy, cheap cake platter, perfect for the girls to take home as a party favor!

A1's Cupcake Wars

We watch a lot of Food Network at our house.  I love to cook, but even more I L.O.V.E. to eat.  My kids have picked up on my love of food and prefer to watch Food Network over any other channel (including the Disney channel).  A2's favorite program is Good Eats and insists that we cook just like Alton tells us to.  A1, on the other hand, is a huge fan of Cupcake Wars.  Something about trying to bake and decorate the perfect little cake sets her heart a-flutter.

So Cupcake Wars was the perfect theme for her birthday party a few months ago.

(Yes, that little cupcake goes inside the little wrapper.  Yes, it kind of looks like an ice cream cone.  Yes, I cut them all out by hand.  Yes, it took me two full days to get the invitations ready.  No, my husband was NOT happy about that.  Yes, my mom has since given me a paper-cutting machine that will make this process so much easier.  Yes, both my husband and I are eternally grateful for that new machine.  Why do you ask?)

The girls started by making aprons to wear throughout the party.  I bought cheap white aprons and sewed velcro strips along the front.  Then I made ruffles with coordinating fabric and sewed the corresponding velcro strip to each of them.  I also made flower pins.  Then when the girls arrived they could put the ruffles in any order and place the pin wherever.  And thus they were ready for baking!

We started by cutting out sugar cookies.  I found a box of various shapes for really cheap and let the girls do what they wanted with the dough.

While those cooked and cooled, the girls decorated little cakes.  I made cake platters for each of them (a tutorial will be forthcoming), made mini cakes (I baked them in a small Pyrex bowl to get the right size and shape), and covered them with marshmallow fondant (I don't like the taste of real fondant, but one of my greatest friends, Jenna, gave me this recipe, which is both easy to work with and very tasty).

The girls each decorated a cake with small bags of frosting in various colors.

(Don't mind Alicia and me in the background gabbing while the girls made cute, cute, cute creations!  Also as part of this parenthetical, I would like to thank Alicia for helping out with the photography during the party.  She is amazing.  You can definitely tell which pictures she took (the ones that look professional) and which I took.)

A1 really enjoyed decorating with frosting.

I made A2 his own tiny little cake so he could be part of the action too.

Then the girls decorated their sugar cookies with those same bags of frosting.

Those girls did some amazing work.  We definitely have some very talented artists among us.

Time for the birthday cake.  I made a giant cupcake to go with the Cupcake Wars theme.

My husband insists that I include the total amount of sugar that went into this party: 7 boxes of cake (yes, I make my cake from boxes, not from scratch!) and 9 pounds of powdered sugar (the fondant gets its stability from powdered sugar).  This was not a diet party by any means, but it was SO. MUCH. FUN!  We were also going around our neighborhood for the next week trying to find people to help us eat so much cake! *smile*

Happy birthday to my sweet, smart, talented, beautiful girl.  We are so blessed to have you in this family.  We love you!

Hello!

Just a quick post to say hello and hope you have a happy day!

A2-isms

This sweet, smart, curious, funny little boy really keeps me on my toes.  He has some of the greatest insights about the world around us.

We were discussing the music we were listening to in the car.
A1: Is this song one of the Hymns? {our Church music}
me: No, it's not that kind of song.
A2: Then is it one of the hers?

One night as I tucked him into bed and kissed him goodnight, he pushed me away and said, "Mom, stop kissing me!"
I replied, "But I like kissing you!"
He immediately rolled over and said, "Could you go away?  I'm trying to sleep."

I'm going to have my hands full as he gets older and more curious about the world and with a stronger opinion about how things work!  But I wouldn't have it any other way.  I love him dearly.

Halloween 2012

We had a great first Halloween in our new house.  Once again, I love the fact that I have a space to decorate!

We're still working on the outside of our house, but the pumpkins added a bit of fun!

Unfortunately, I was not really on top of things in October (that pirate ship birthday cake really took it out of me!), so we didn't get our jack o' lanterns done until about 15 minutes before we walked out the door to go trick-or-treating.  We bought A1 and A2 each a pumpkin and let them decide what they wanted to carve into it.

A1 decided she wanted a witch.

A2 decided he wanted a dragon.

The kids decided they didn't want to go as a theme this year, so they each got to choose their favorite thing to be for Halloween.

A1 chose from her many princess dresses, and came up with this warm Rapunzel costume.

I didn't get a picture of her hair from the back, but we tried to recreate Rapunzel's braided look topped with 10 or so flower clips.  It turned out really nice.

A2, following his recent trend, decided he wanted to be a pirate (what is it about four-year-olds and pirates?).

Trick AAARRRRRR treat!

L2 didn't get much say in his costume (he's not saying a whole lot in terms of fashion these days).  He makes an adorable Tigger!

All set for trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood:

What a great time and place for real, house-to-house trick-or-treating!  We love Oregon!