Party! Party!

We had a lots of fun at our party this past Saturday.  We had 47 people over with 19 of them being kids.  That's alot of kiddos running around!  With the exception of Elianna's inside toys being taken outside and getting all dirty, they were all pretty great!  

{I realize that taking inside toys outside is not a huge deal.  I spent most of the time trying to remember that it's just toys.  However, I prefer some sort of order and not having to clean toys that in reality should not be outside.  I'm dealing with it.  Promise.}

Everyone brought their own meat and Chris threw it on the grill.  I felt bad because he spent most of his time behind the grill.  We also served up The Pioneer Woman's Baked Beans {delicious!}, pasta salad {my own recipe - gasp!}, chips and s'more pops {hit of the party}.  Basically for the pasta salad, I cooked tricolor rotini, covered it in creamy caesar dressing and added cucumber, tomato, olives and feta cheese.  Easy and extremely good tasting!  The original plan was to have a fire pit and make s'mores, but refer back to the number of children running around.  So Elianna and I simply dipped marshmallows in chocolate and rolled them around in crushed graham crackers.  Easy and extremely good tasting!  Do you see the theme here?  Easy and extremely good tasting!  Oh!  Did I mention the punch?  Pineapple-Lemonade Punch.  And, of course, easy and extremely good tasting!

The guys ended up playing football in the park behind the house {until someone got hurt} while others played bocce ball and the remaining others sat around and talked.  The weather was gorgeous and the company fun!  While it was extremely stressful with our vacation coming up so soon {and fast I might add}, it was well worth the migraine I had until Monday morning.  

Aunt Bobbi also brought down Elianna's flower girl dress.  It is beautiful!  I'm so excited about how it turned out!  Thank you for all your help Aunt Bobbi!

Aunt Bobbi & Chris

I didn't take very many pictures - just 2 riveting ones really.  One of the chips and one of the plates and silverware.  Told you - riveting!

And to show how nice it was, here is Elianna earlier in the day celebrating 60 degree weather Colorado style.

Next thing on the list is to sew a few things with a few doctor's {and vet} appointments thrown in before we leave on vacation.  No pressure!  

MIA

Yes there is still an extremely long long list of things to get done.  Right now my main focus is getting ready for our party on Saturday.  Yeah, I'm not sure why I decided to have a party right now except this winter was full of sickness and I feel like we have lost touch with some people because having someone over for dinner and serving up a side of the crud is just not appetizing.  Therefore, we are having a party for ... no good reason.  It's been fun to design and get ready for!  Just a little time consuming and stressful.  But come Saturday it will be nice to relax and hang out with those friends we haven't seen in awhile.

Here is a taste of the things I've been working on for the party:

I'll try to remember to take pictures and share them after the party.  Happy {almost} weekend!

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Countdown!

The countdown to vacation is on which means things are getting a bit neglected around here.  Today marks 1 month until we leave.  Yikes!!  Lots to do.

Wednesday Chris' cousin's son was in his 5th grade play.  Seeing as he is Elianna's "best buddy", we drove up to see him be a "Mighty Medieval Man" in the play.  Elianna was fascinated by it all and at one point came down to me (she was sitting at the other end of the row) and said "Cameron is dancing with some girl.  He's silly."  Which based on the look on her face, I took to say she wasn't too happy with him dancing with some other girl. 

You will note her piggy tails.  Finally.  I've been begging her to let me do something different with her hair but she has always said no she just wants the hair clip in her hair.  It was getting boring!  The other day I asked her again and she said she wanted hair like her friend Natalie which lead to these adorable piggy tails!  Every day since then she has asked for piggy tails.  I've already talked to Natalie's mom to let her know when we are tired of the piggy tails that Natalie will have to bust out a new do so we can copy it.

We also had a guest stay with us Wednesday evening and Elianna decided Mr. Zach was her new friend.  He was very kind and played and entertained her.  She has since named one of her babies after his little girl - Jocelyn.  

Thursday Chris' aunt and uncle came down so she could help me start on Elianna's flower girl dress.  Sadly, we didn't get it all done.  Not that I really and truly thought we would but it would have been nice.  It is all cut out and part of the bodice done.  I sewed my first darts and they weren't that hard.  I can't wait to see it all come together!  It's exciting!

Thursday Elianna also caught me off guard while she was helping me clean off Chris' white board.  She had erased all the previous writing and said she was going to write her name.  I said sure - not really thinking too much about it.  Talk about caught off guard - this is what she wrote:

Saturday Elianna and I headed up to church to help out with the church wide spring cleaning.  We moved stuff and cleaned stuff and threw stuff away.  It was quite tiring which made the fact that since Chris was at work and Elianna was in a cranky mood it ended up being a super long long day.  But it's over and I'm more than thankful.

Sunday after church the elders had a meeting with someone which takes us to 2pm and starving families.  Our plans to grill were put on hold and we headed to Sweet Tomatoes with friends.  We left Sweet Tomatoes at 5pm.  Yes, 3 hours of eating and talking and talking at Sweet Tomatoes.  And that is why I didn't update the blog until today which ended up being a good thing because then I actually had something to talk about - but then I kept thinking of other things to write so this last statement is not as true as it was 15 minutes ago.

Here's to hoping the little one gets caught up on her sleep and ditches the grumpy pants. We have a busy week ahead which includes hopefully finishing her dress!  

Elianna and Chris practicing her karate

Good Friday Pictures

My very talented friend, Lisa, took pictures at the Good Friday service.  She was kind enough to pass them along to me.  Check out the Good Friday post to see it updated with pictures.

Easter 2013 {Good Friday}