SUPER Seven!

Ben turned severn years old a few weeks ago and to celebrate the event we hosted a "Superhero" party for some of his friends. It turned out to a fun party and I thought I'd post a few pics.

I made some simple capes for the guests...I was worried they would maybe think they were too old for such things but they all wore them and posed happily for me.

We served pizza and Superhero cupcakes...

I tried to decorate the cupcakes like the superhero symbol I created for Ben's invitations...they turned out okay...it's supposed to be a lightning bolt.

I know it's not anything like you would see on "Hostess with the Mostest" but I thought the table setting turned out pretty cute. I set the table with our theme colors red, yellow, and blue with the cupcake tower as the center piece. I put out Superhero "tricks and treats" party favor bags, and draped their capes over the chairs. I thought it looked pretty good for a someone hosting with a budget quite smaller than "Hostess".

We played several superhero games...superhero bowling, pass the kryptonite, superhero Bingo, a web toss, a Pete Parker - Clark Kent relay face off, and a fun obstacle course that the boys loved!

Ben also opened presents and loved every minute of the party! It was a fun evening but I must say that entertaining nine boys whore me out! Kudos to all you mothers out there with lots of sons!

Photo Shoot

With Christmas around the corner I started thinking that we should get our family picture taken for Christmas cards. So I asked my sweet friend, Erin, if she would take our picture. She has a nice camera and likes to take pictures. She met us at the park and did a great job capturing some cute photos. Here's a preview of what's going on the Christmas card:

According to...

I love the funny, silly, quirky things my kids say and how they pronounce certain words...so here's little list for the record:

"Sleepin Duty" - aka Sleeping Beauty
"ginner" - aka dinner
"skelekin" - aka skeleton
"eachgether" - aka each other
"wiggy" - aka wiggly as in "Ben's got a wiggy tooth!"
"ups goes the daisy" - aka oops a daisy
"gril" - aka girl
When I started this I thought I could come up with a longer list, but now that it's after 10pm I can't think so I'll have to add to it later.

A funny story...
The other day Natalie had over a couple of friends to play. Friend A arrived first and they decided to play "house". When friend B arrived, I asked them what they were going to do and Natalie replied they were going to play house. "I'm the mom and friend A is the dog." Then I asked, so who can Friend B be? Natalie's reply..."she can be the Honey." I had to walk away and giggle...funny what our kids pick up!

Mirror, Mirror

My little girl has a developed a love for princesses of all kinds but has taking a particular liking to Snow White. That was even her pick for her Halloween costume this year. Her love of Snow White reminds me of one of her cute little habits that I want her to remember...
I often catch her looking at herself in the mirror when she's brushing her teeth, putting on my make up or washing her hands at the sink and I love how she always smiles at herself and giggles. I love how she's happy with how she looks and who she is even if she's wearing mac n' cheese on her face of has crazy bed hair! I love that in her sweet, innocent 3 years of age that she can see what a cute, sweet girl she is and just smile at herself. I hope that when your 13 or 33 that you can still do the same and not worry about pimples, wrinkles, or what others think of you. Just know that you are beautiful inside and out. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all..." Natalie...it's you!

32 Things

I recently celebrated my 32nd birthday and thought I'd do a post about me...something I'm not very good at doing. I hope someday someone in my family might me interested to know some random things about me at this time in my life. So...

32 Things (you may or may not know)About Me

1. I am the proud mother of 2 beautiful kids and the wife of a wonderful husband.
2. I love gardening and getting my hands dirty trying to grow things.
3. I love being domestic and keeping a home, cooking, cleaning, canning, and all that kind of stuff.
4. I love being creative and usually have some crafty project I'm working on...scrapbooking, paper crafts, sewing, or other.
5. I'm very organized and love a clean and organized home. I've recently become a little famous or infamous for these skills and have helped others organized and clean their homes.
6. I love giving and receiving homemade gifts.
7. I got stung by a bee for the first time in my life this year.
8. Although I'm not the most graceful person in the world, I have avoided ever breaking any bones in my life.
9. I love classical and other more modern instrumental music...I've never really been into popular music much and my husband loves quizzing me when were listening to the radio to see if I know the artist...9 times out of 10 I don't.
10. I have been teaching piano lessons as a means to help my family financially for the past 5 years and love it.
11. My favorite dessert is warm, soft chocolate chip cookies.
12. I have a major sweet tooth and love treats...my figure kind of tells that...I have a hard time saying no!
13. I love autumn and all that goes with it...harvest, Halloween, leaves, Thanksgiving, sweaters, hot chocolate, cooler days, pumpkins, warm colors.
14. I once dreamed of being a doctor and traveling with the Peace Corps to Africa.
15. Instead I graduated from the U of U in Recreational Therapy and loved working with children at Primary Children's Hospital before I quit to stay home and raise kids and teach piano lessons.
16. My favorite holiday is actually Halloween...not the gory, scary stuff but the cute, whimsical stuff.
17. I hate fish and seafood...can't stand the taste of smell.
18. I've been married to my sweetie for 11 years...time flies when you're having fun. We were pretty young when we got married and it's fun to reminisce about how things have changed since our newlywed days.
19. I love family vacations...somethings I inherited from my Dad.
20. I'm a big Disney fan and have loved taking our kids to Disneyland now 4 times.
21. I have 6 siblings...2 brothers and 4 sisters. I love them more than anything and treasure the times we spend together.
22. I have wonderful parents...they did an amazing job raising 7 kids. I'm thankful for their dedication and the good things they did to help us become who we are.
23. I love work...I love being busy and have a project going.
24. I love the climbing into a well made bed with clean sheets in clean pj's...it's very refreshing and relaxing at the end of the day.
25. I love lemon...fresh lemonade and lemon bars...but not lemon Jello - Yuck!
26. I am addicted to Scenty wickless candles and burn them everyday in my home!
I can't stand food smells in my home and avoid it if I can...I'm known for plugging my crockpot out on the back porch!
27. I lack confidence in my fashion sense...I want to look good and be a little trendy but have no confidence in knowing what really looks good...so I'm pretty conservative and basic when it comes to clothes.
28. I love a good, warm bowl of soup.
29. I love the mountains and though I don't do it a lot now, I love hiking.
30. I love our little neighborhood and our friends and neighbors.
31. I have terrible eyesight and got glasses in 2nd grade after my Mom took me to the eye doctor and I couldn't even read the big E!
32. I am a member of the LDS church and am so thankful for my testimony of the gospel and the peace and comfort it brings to my life.

Catalyst

Do you remember learning about catalysts in science when you were in school.

Catalyst:

1 a substance which causes or assists a chemical change in another substance without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.
2 someone or something that helps bring about a change.
3 something that causes an important event to happen.

For some reason that word keeps coming to mind when I think about my life the past few months. An interesting catalyst presented itself in my life and caused me to evaluate the "good, better, best" elements taking up my time. I was worried that maybe the good, better and maybe even some bad were taking time away from the best things in my life and it was refreshing to put away some of those things for a while to make more time for the best.

So, now after some time has past I want to keep up this blog. I think it falls into the better category since it is a journal and a form of scrapbooking for me. Although my attention to it may wax and wane depending on how well I'm doing with giving attention to the best things. So...on to more blogging!

I'm Taking a Break

I'm going to make my 2 family blogs private for a little while...I need to take a break from it for a bit....

Just wanted to let anyone who might read it, that I'm not shutting anyone out on purpose...just need to simplfy my distractions right now...