Read it. Pick it.

I saw this on pinterest and fell in love. I have a grid 1-100. I picked a number and for every 50 pages hannah reads she gets to choose a number. If and when she chooses my number she gets $10. Fun and motivating, perfect!!

Pinned and Tried

I have tried a few more recipes I have pinned on Pinterest. Here is my report.


Best Burger. I am not an expert when it comes to burgers, but these hamburgers were really good. I will keep trying different burger recipes, but I have a feeling I will be keeping this one and using it again and again.
CONSENSUS: KEEP PINNED


Strawberry Lemonade Cake. I made this for Father's Day. The presentation of this cake is worth it alone. People see this cake and they think WOW! As for the taste of it. It is good (I am mean how could it not be), but I felt like the tastes were a bit lopsided. Maybe too much cake. It was good, but I don't know that i would make it again. I think I will keep looking for something a bit better.

CONSENSUS: DELETE PIN (but if you are looking for a "make a statement cake" that is still edible... you might want to try this one!



Pineapple Chicken Sandwiches. I made these last night and was disappointed. The way the originator raved about them. I am not sure if it was because I used canned pineapples or what, but not that great. It was missing something (specifically a sauce of some kind). I added barbecue sauce and it was better.) Overall, it was so-so.
CONSENSUS: DELETE PIN

PS - the images come from the blogs that I link for the recipe. The credit goes to them!

Buzz invitations

I forgot to post a picture of the invitations I sent out for Jake's birthday party. Here you go.

Buzz Lightyear Party

Jake wanted a Buzz Lightyear Party and has been talking about this party since Ella's birthday party. I was so happy that it had finally come so he could have his very own party. Here is what I did.






The kids decorated their own rockets. We used Crayola Neon Explosion Paper which was really neat and stickers. Then we went outside and the kids throw rockets through a hole in Gamma Quadrant Four. We played Buzz Bingo and then ate lunch and had cupcakes and opened presents.

The party favors where this sphere balls I got at PartyWorks and filled it with Toy Story pez, a squirt gun, suckers and starburst. It was fun as alway with good friends!

Birthday Boys

My husband and son share the same birthday. It is always a fun day to have them celebrate together. One of these days i am going to throw a party that celebrates both of them, but for now, Jake gets the party and Chris get the birthday dinner, favorite birthday cake and presents.

Jake's favorite gift was a book. He has the "little blue truck" book and it is his favorite. I found the companion book "little blue truck goes to the city" and he loved it! He said it was his favorite gift.

Here are some pictures of the two of them celebrating their special day!
pictures of his buzz lightyear party are coming soon.

End of school Festivities

The Last day of school was a crazy day full of fun! Here is what we did!


Ella had a end of the year program. Her class sang "My daddy is a baker". it took awhile for Ella to get into it, but by the second half of the song, she was acting it out and singing. We got to say good-bye to her wonderful teachers. I love the preschool she goes to and the great teachers the just love my children and do so much for their educational and spiritual development.

Then of course we had to pass out goodies to the teachers and friends. This year I gave the preschool teachers these gifts (click on link to see them).

I gave Hannah's teacher this summer kit gift. It has a beach towel, magazine, sunscreen and treats. I included the tag I used, in case you wanted to use it too.





And all the kids in their classes got these adorable gumball treats. I of course got the idea from Pinterest and this blog! I changed the tag up a bit and I am including it if you would like to use it.





Then we had to take Grandma to the airport and say good-bye to her. That is always our least favorite thing to do. Then when the girls got home from school I had this banner waiting for them. Again, found it on Pinterest. Loved it and whipped the thing up quickly. They weren't really sure what to do with it. I told them to run through it. Hannah has hesitant, she didn't want it to get ruined. But I told her it was okay and they went for it.

Then I let the kids watch a movie with popcorn and just veg out for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing like a great start to the summer!

help!

I am turning to all you moms out there to help me out if you can. It has been 6+ months since i have had a good night sleep. And most nights, I average getting up 4 times a night. I am slowly questioning if I will every sleep again. (I know I will, but not anytime soon). So, here is what is happening....

Child #1 (3 year old boy) = he gets up every night at 3:30ish. He doesn't' have to go to the bathroom. He just wakes up, yells "mom", I go in and say "it's okay, go back to bed" and he rolls over and goes back to sleep. (But now I am up and it takes a while to get back to bed). This has been going on for months now and it is consistent every night. How do i get this to stop? Any ideas?

On the positive side, he used to be getting up at 6;00 am, so that wake up call has stop, thank heavens.

Child #2 (6 month old boy) = he typically wakes up after 4 1/2 hours of sleep and I have to let him cry it out and he eventually goes back to sleep and then wakes up after 6-7 hours (but typically 6 hours). I feed him than and he goes back to sleep. I know he can sleep at least 7 hours (because he has done it before (usually once a month he sleeps through the night), but I think it is an answer to prayers, more than anything.

If I let him cry it out, it usually works for about 4 days (we sleeps and doesn't wake up until 6 hours) but then we start all over again and he wakes up after 4 1/2 hours and I have to let him cry it out again. A cycle that has been going on for months.
Any ideas on this one? Am I alone out there with a baby that "Crying it out" doesn't work long term?

Please help this sleep deprived and tired mom!

On a good note my first born is still asleep and it is 9:30 am... why can't they all sleep like her!

Baptism Dessert Table

For hannah's baptism, I did a fun dessert table to celebrate with friends afterwards Since we weren't able to have all the cousins and aunts and uncles around for her baptism, i wanted to make it an event for her friends to it felt extra special for Hannah on her extra special day. And boy did it ever. She loved it and so did all the kids. It was the perfect ending to a perfect occasion!

Hannah's Baptism Day

Hannah has been waiting for this day for quite some time. She was very excited to baptized.
When she had her interview with the bishop he was very impressed with how much she
knew about baptism and what she was doing. That is because she was so excited.

Grandpa Brimhall gave a talk on baptism, Grandma Brimhall played the piano. Uncle Brian and Grandpa were the witnesses. And you primary teacher Sis. Pittam gave the closing prayer. Three other children were baptized with you that day. We also asked Claire Evans' dad and Kyle Kriebel's dad and the Bishop and Brother Pittam to be in the confirmation circle. it was wonderful. I was a proud and touched mom.

As for the rest of the meeting, it was pretty rough. The rest of the kids
were horrible. Jake cried the whole time, ella had to leave crying and Graham was
passed around to everyone pretty much through the whole meeting. It was a bit rough
and really quite unpleasant, but Hannah had no idea and got to enjoy the meeting so that
was good.

But for the record, the reason the kids were so bad is they were up until 11:00 pm that night before,
basically woke up early and then went to the zoo and it was 95 degrees and no nap and
had they had reached their max. Jake couldn't handle it, so he went bonkers (literally).

Spring Dance Recital

Last week the girls had the spring dance recital. Ella danced to "Surfin' USA" and Hannah danced to "Girls Just wanna Have Fun". They had a great time and did so well. The best quote of the day was that Hannah said "I am sure people are looking at me wondering why I am dressed so old-fashioned". I told her she is not old-fashioned... she is vintage!