Amelie's 3rd Birthday - Strawberry Shortcake!

We had Amelie's birthday party on the 15th at a park near our home. We decided somewhere along the line to go with a Strawberry Shortcake theme. (There were 2 other themes in contest, but BOTH of them were used by relations in months before, but I think it turned out just perfect for her.) Thank goodness I had lots of family help, cause you know I can't throw a party with everything bought from the store! It was a pretty good time, and I'll save you the long commentary for once, but I made up for it with a ridiculously long photo-cataloguing. Enjoy!

The Thematics:


Strawberry Shortcake!






Face Paint!


The Food:
"Raspberry Torte's Punch"

"Blueberry Muffin's Fruit Pizzas"

"Orange Blossom's Chicken"

"Strawberry Shortcake's Kabobs"

The Cake:


The Favor (cookie pops, which I completely forgot to give out until most people were long gone...):


The Pinata!:

Jeff was a trooper and held the pinata when we couldn't find anything strong enough.










The Gifts:












The Bike!:







The People:

It was weird, at the end this giant horde of seagulls came and just hovered...

Peace Gardens Photo Session

Looking at the pictures on our and others' walls lately, I decided it was definitely time for some newer stuff. With Amie's birthday party, halloween festivities and especially Christmas on the horizon, there was zero budget, so I just decided to steal my brother's super-nice camera and see what we could get. My sister offered to come along so we could get a whole family portrait, and Jeff had the genius idea to go to the International Peace Gardens. We all went in knowing that we might get just what we paid for ($0), but I am more than pleased with our results. Here are the highlights.

Jeff:



Nikki:




Amelie:
She's always gotta have one!


My friend said "Childzilla?" which I thought was hilarious.




Alisa:





Combos:













Family:





I'm pretty proud of this one, seeing as we each pulled our best faces in different photos, I patched together the best ones... using Paint! That's the closest I had to any photo editing system.

Witch Weekend

Witch Weekend! As you may know, every year my in-laws do a Witches Night Out weekend, with a Friday night ladies party, and Saturday night out at Gardner Village.

Friday night, my mom and sister Jaimie came over and we headed to the Witch Party. It's always a big crowd, with killer decorations! We always take some pics first, then eat soup and other halloweeny treats, then make a great halloween craft (this is the main source of my halloween decorations, and slowly growing!) This year, we made a picture holder that was adorable, and ideal for displaying witch weekend photos!

Cousins:

All In-Laws:
Norths:


Saturday, mom and sis Melissa and niece Stacey came with me, Amie and Lisie to meet the crew at IHOP for dinner. We always attract a few stares...


"One of these things is not like the others... "

Chris with all her little Rapunzel witches!

After dinner, we head to Gardner Village, (where Jaimie met up with us) where they have booths, shops, raffles, a parade, witch royalty, crazy decorations, and most importantly music and dancing! It's always a popular event, but it seemed extra crowded this year. It was weird - there were a lot of males and families there, though it's a ladies night out.







A rare after 8pm Lisie smile.
A cold break.

We had fun, but I have to admit it was a little rough for these girls. With a late night the night before, Amie's party that afternoon, and being out late that night, they struggled at times. I don't like to wish away my girlies' childhoods, but witches will be more fun when they can handle a later bedtime! Either way, we totally love it and I look forward to it every year!

Festivals!

One of my favorite things about warmer weather, is the myriad of free events to enjoy. These are a few we stopped in to this month, as well as some other misfits.

The Be Well Utah fair is put on by the U and I totally look forward to it. This year, the week included one day's free entry to Red Butte Gardens, Tues. We went and got some free health information and goodies, Amie was excited that she got to meet Curious George, and of course, we got to see the gardens. Our fave was probably the pond with ducks and fish. That $.25 of food goes a long way to make little girlies happy! I was kinda hesitant to go, because free days are always overcrowded, but it didn't even feel like there were that many people there to me! I was really glad we went, we all really enjoyed the garden and exercise.

The actual Fair was on Saturday, and we went early since we had many other plans crammed into that day. There were endless booths (everything is centered in some way on wellness) giving out information and freebies. I really wanted to get my ears cleaned for free, so even though there was a long line Jeff and the girls stuck it out with me. When we finally got up there, they said my ears didn't even need it, but Jeff's did! Isn't that always the way. We got lots of pens, magnets, bags, cups, screenings, candy, baskets, aprons, books, face paint, healthier recipes and even lunch (turkey dogs, fruit, baked chips, healthy cookies, creamies) and everything was free! They had Curious George there again, along with magicians, balloon artists, music. No pics of course.

We also made it to the NAMI Walk this year. It's actually the first time I did a walk for anything! NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness and they provide free services/support of all kinds to people with mental health problems. UNI (where I work) had a team there to walk, so I signed up. I did it really last minute, so I didn't raise any dollars, but Jeff and the girls even came and walked (or strollered) with me. They also had some snacks (fruit, water, bagels) for walkers, as well as some booths and the radio station. They held a raffle with SO MANY PRIZES. We sat and listened to them draw tickets for 45 minutes for prizes like gc's to Rodizio, Lagoon, Whole Foods, concerts, movies, and a billion other great things, but even with 5 tickets, we didn't get anything! Sad. It's cool, though. I enjoyed the walk, and hope to be able to do it every year. It's a cause that I really believe in and doesn't get nearly enough air time.

The other things we have been up to include cousin Stacey's birthday party. Amelie was beyond excited to go, and all 3 of us girls had fun. Amie's been obsessed with birthdays for weeks now. She asks so many times when her birthday is, that we finally had to start telling her "First is Ty's bday, then Stacey's, then Mallory's, then Papa's, then yours!" It happened so many times that she know the order, and she know that Papa is next, then it's her birthday! She tells everyone that "Someday it's gonna be my birthday" and "Someday I'm gonna be 3!" or "I'm having a strawberry birthday cake!" It's cute and exhausting (after 2 months) but she's being a good sport - she doesn't get mad or anything when it's not her birthday.


Finally, the last misfit, pictureless post-worthy item is Labor Day. We went back and forth (as always) about whether or not we would go to Delta for the little time that Jeff wasn't working. We ended up not going this time and hung out with my fam that Monday. We had lots of food and fun games, and then a fire in mom's fire bowl. By some freak accident, I burned my face with a flaming marshmallow! Though small, it was quite painful and the marshmallow stuck to my face! I had to keep cold on it for a few hours before it finally felt ok. Most of the area just peeled a little after a few days, but one small spot was a concentrated ouch-machine! I still have a little pink spot where it was and I am not sure if it will go away completely or not.

MTMMS: Double Duty

#1 - Amelie has been sick with a cold last night and today. In true toddler form, she's been very short fused and whiney/crying. We're talking complete melt down with each and every single drip from her nose. Just when I thought I might roll over and die of frustration, out of nowhere she leaned her head on me and said "Mom I really like you."

#2 - The other day I was doing Amelie's hair, I sat her on the toilet facing the wall. She kept kick kick kicking the wall and finally I calmly asked her to stop. A few minutes later, she started running her shoes along the wall. When I said "please don't do that, Bug." She said "Mom, I'm making music for Jesus!"
Oh my precious!

These are the moments that make me really feel good that I kept great control of my negative emotions.

Funny Things the North's Say, 2

Jeff:
- "Babe, I love that you're smart... but mostly, I love that you're football smart."

Nikki:
- In the middle of my (first) Young Women's lesson about dating "Hopefully you'll have more loose relationships."

Amelie:
- "You can be a dude, I'll be a princess."
- "Best friend!" (to every new child she meets at the park)
- At bedtime, in the rocking chair "I'll sing to you tonight." (And she did!)

Alisa:
- boo buh bull (beautiful)
- I swear she said "Dad what are you doing? You can't write that." While he was writing a response in The Game of Things. I swear!
- Everything! (she has all of a sudden started talking her little head off non-stop now. It's adorable!)

Fourth Anniversary!!

It's that time again - time to dote and love on my husband. Just like my birthday, it seemed like our anniversary snuck up on us, without all the normal months of planning. We decided we would do a trip every other year, and gifts every other year. This year was a trip year, but we als took a big trip to Florida, so that had to count. Meaning, we didn't do a trip OR gifts on our actual anniversary. As the day rolled near, we had vague plans to spend some time in Park City and eat at the Melting Pot, but 2 days before, Amie and I got a nasty stomach flu. Jeff kept saying "You'd better not be sick on our anniversary!" I was still a bit subdued, but feeling just better enough. Lo and behold, as you guessed, Aug. 30th rolls around and Jeff started taking his turn with the stomach flu.

We tried to set out with our plans and headed up the canyon. We stopped in at the Olympic park and checked out the skiing museum, which was actually fun. We went from there just to meander around historic Park City. We really enjoyed looking in the art galleries and some shops. We had a late lunch (due to large breakfast) at Good Thymes, which I am sure was really good... but, we both discovered we were not up to it, so we spent a whole lot of money and took our food to go. We knew we needed low-key so we scoped out a movie theater which just happened to be showing The Help starting right then. We stopped in to see the movie (It was great!) and knew we didn't have anything left in us, so we went to pick up the kiddos. Jeff spent the rest of the day in bed.

We were both feeling better by Thursday, so we were able to get a pity babysitting from Jeff's sister and went to have our anticipated dinner at the Melting Pot. It was delicious, but rough. We hadn't been eating much in the days before that and we got so full so fast! Took home some food from there, too.

I mentioned our anniversary must be doomed - this year getting violently ill, last year my grandfather passed away, and the year before that our cruise couldn't go to Cabo because of a hurricane! Next year, we'll be sure to put in lots of planning, and take lots of vitamins...

We've come well to the point where now when I say "4 years" it doesn't seem nearly long enough. It feels like we have been together forever, and in a good way. :) I taught the lesson in Young Women's today about dating and got the chance to reflect back a lot on dating, and it just makes me even more grateful for such an amazing partner in all of life's adventures. I can not wait for dozens more!