Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Volume 8)

Sam was sitting in my lap today (while talking to Uncle Brian) and I was randomly looking in his ears. I noticed a TON of wax and took my handy dandy light (idea from Aunt Sandy) and looked further. Wow he had a lot of wax. Weird. So I got the Q-tip and tried to shake the "wax" out and only pushed it in further (bad idea I know.) Called the peditrican and they told me to come in ASAP... as in 10 minutes. Got all the kids in the van, got over to the ped, and he said... "yep it is wax." He told me he was going to get it out with that wire stick wand (Donna knows the name of it) and the ped got it out. I said, "Whoah that is the biggest piece of wax I have ever seen." Ped said, "Oh no that looks like paper." Upon closer inspection, I noticed it was actually a gum wrapper. When I flattened it, I noticed it said "Orbitz". The last time Sam had "Orbitz" gum was in Michigan 3 weeks ago .

Bakery Party Photos

Cakes and aprons packaged and ready to go!

Cakes that the girls decorated.
Rita says, "look, it is a masterpiece!"

Avery was very serious about her dotting skills.

Pre-decorating...

Missing Rita here and one other little girl...

Bakery Birthday Party Prep

We had a blast at Grace's birthday party this weekend! We invited the 8 little Kindergarten girls from her class and had about 9 girls total including family members. It was a bakery theme and Pastry Chef Grace and her chefs decorated birthday cakes and took them home. Here are some of the pre-party planning activites we did. It was a hit and many of the moms called to say that it was the most thoughtful and fun party their girls had ever been to! I had a lot of help so thank you to all who helped.

I thought that this would hide the cakes from my younger ones before the party but as you will see in the next photo, it did not work.

Ten Tiffany Blue cakes with "finger jabs"... thank you to that child of mine who decided to do that!
These were the toppings that were hiding in the oven along with the example of the REAL cake that the kids ate. It was supposed to be an aquarium but the girls weren't into that. We had pebble toppings, confetti, gold spray, nerds, every other sprinkle you could think of.

This was the changing station for the chefs. We put it in front of our tree out front with a mirror so they could change into their chef attire.

This was one of the games... bad idea. Six year old girls don't think it is "fair" when someone wins a prize for winning!

This was another game... a utensil scavenger hunt. Big big hit.

We covered our sunroom with sheets and this was the bakery. I told the girls it had to be sterile (Sterile is a fancy word for clean!).

The first activity when they walked inside was to customize their cake box. This took the most time of anything we did!

I will include more photos of the girls next post.

Birthday Party... More to Come

Public Works Open House

Blog Name Change

Happy Birthday Grace! This is from her actual birthday day last week. We celebrated as a family that day. We (me, my mom, and kids) brought her cupcakes at school and then went to IHOP for dinner. Her choice!

SMILING exersaucer girl...

Exersaucer girl

Father Daughter Dance

Nate took Grace to the Father Daughter dance that our school hosted. It was precious and we were laughing seeing the little Princess climb into the minvan and buckle herself in the booster seat to go to the dance. Here are some photos.

Swagger Wagon (minvan parents read)

This video is hilarious... on my brother's website.

Click here.

Michigan Friends

While in Michigan, we got together with some close family friends. Jamie took some fab photos... check out his wife's blog by clicking HERE.

Betsy (Nate's sister) and Buster... for her blog click HERE, to date her email me privately.
Nora and Sam

Nora and Sambo

Ellen

Evie, Marta, Rita, Will, Ellen, Eliza, Nora, Grace, Sam and Wes.

Evelyn Lucielle is about a month older than Ellen Faith.

Few favorite things from Michigan...

Herb Garden markers made from spoons... by Jennifer

Etsy sign at Jennifers house...
Nothing like a Costco cake...

Cloth Diaper sign made from cloth diapers at Hopscotch Toys...

Fridge magnets at Jennifers...

Birthday sign at Jennifers...

Best Chocolate Around...

Cupcake liners at the bakery...

Framed wrapping paper....

Michigan Weekend

We flew to Michigan this weekend and had a wonderful time with family and friends. I didn't take as many photos as I would of liked but there should be some up on my friend/family's blogs and I will post links when I get them. Here are just a few highlights.

The flight to Grand Rapids....

Nate run in a 25K race and at the Expo before the race, they had cotton candy.

I treated Sam to some...
Grandma loves this little grocery store. Actually it was more like a deli, grocery store, nursery, bird store all in one. We had lunch there one afternoon.

We celebrated Grace's 6th birthday a little bit early.

This is us on our way home...