Festival of Colors!!

Have you heard of this? I've seen pictures but have never been, until today.  We took our little family and had a blast. The Kirshna Temple in Spanish Fork is so beautiful, never seen it before now.  The website has a very accurate video of what happens when you get there.

The view from the road. The temple, with a ton of people throwing colors.

A view from the crowd. So many colors. a lot of fun!

Only a few tears from my youngest when another kid threw some in her face.

Love this picture. She wasn't expecting the colors, and fell.

   Great experience! My kids had a lot of fun. Definitely a lot of people, but there's music, fun, dancing, and a ton of colors being thrown at eachother.  Can not wait until the next festival! But word to the wise: wear clothing you don't mind if it gets ruined.

St Patricks Day Dinner

    With work, I honestly have a hard time making a real sit down dinner for my family.  Luckily St Pattys day landed on a weekend, so it was much easier.  Here's what my girls saw at dinner time!

    Spinach salad with green apples, a clover breadstick, green Alfredo pasta with chicken, and green layered jello...with an orange layer. Girls loved it. And most important, ate most of their dinner!

    Later that night, I met up with an old friend I used to work out with at Bootcamp.  We were celebrating her 50th birthday! A little bowling, and a few drinks at 'Bout Time Pub in town. Look who showed up?? A few Irish bagpipers and even a few dancers. What a treat!

Birthday Candy Card

Wanted to do something fun for my husbands birthday!

   "Dad, we think you are 'extra' special. Hope you like this 'whatchamacallit' candy card. We hope it doesn't make you 'rolo' ver and get sick. If it does we promise not to 'snicker'. Just wanted to say we think you are the best dad in the whole 'milky way' galaxy. We were going to give you '100 grand' but it slipped through our 'butterfingers'. You will always be our 'sweet-tart' heart. your girls 'airheads'

Cute huh. This is my oldest reading the card to her dad.

Dad and his girls

     And of course the younger brother who shares the same birthday.  He was in town as well so the girls gave him a birthday present.  Do you recognize who is on the shirt?? Perry the Platypus! aka Agent P. Such a great show. love Phineas and Ferb.

Hope the boys have a great birthday weekend!

Valentines Dinner

    This year, Valentines was a little busy for our little family.  Between work schedules and classes, we barely had time for a family dinner.  I tried to make it a fun holiday for the kids, and my sister had a great idea.  A pink/red dinner! All the food was valentines themed or pink/red.  My mom gave us these heart shaped noodles and I dyed the sauce pink, then made raspberry and grape jello, and made heart shaped breadsticks.

    My girls loved it...even if we only had 15 minutes for dinner before we had to rush off to the next thing.  Here's one of my favorite things for valentines! my chocolate strawberries. :)  Mu husband has been giving these to me for the last few years. love them.

Gotta enjoy the holidays.

Tacoma Weekend.

   A quick trip to Tacoma to help my sister move out of her apartment. But first! A birthday dinner with friends.  We went to this cute restaurant in Seattle on Capital Hill.  Of course Seattle just went through one of the largest snow storms in over 30 years. Everything was covered in snow.

   The restaurant was really cute and had some great food and drinks!  They even had these "mocktails" that everyone tried. My sisters favorite drink was the Nojito.  The birthday girl had her friends, family and good food! Oh and the desserts were AMAzing. We tried one of everything and by the end everything was gone. Almost licked the plates clean.

   The next morning we started the big move.  That was a fun adventure.  Luckily my sister was really good at purging and having everything boxed and ready to go.  All we needed to do was move the boxes from in the apartment to the moving truck.  The building had a grocery cart that helped moving stuff a lot easier. Don't get me started on the elevator...every time we would step on the elevator it would shake. Being 8 floors up it was very unsettling.  After we emptied the apartment we made a quick trip to the storage unit to get more of her things. So nice to have a few of her friends there to help!

For our lunch break, we went to this place, called Frisko Freeze. Guess it's a hot spot in Tacoma.  Some would compare it to an In n Out.  The fries were definitely better, they had a lot of shake flavors, but the burgers were just ok. And I don't think I've had so much fried food in years. Did I mention the onion rings?! those were yummy.

   After a LONG day moving, we had one of the BEST dinner experiences.  We went to this place called Tacoma Szechuan.  Sooooo goood. We walked in and there was a 45 minute wait, but we noticed a row of empty tables. When my dad asked (in Mandarin) about then, they said that there was a big group of 20 showing up in an hour.  Somehow, my dad convinced them that we knew what we wanted, and could be out of there in 40 minutes.  Not sure how it worked, but we sat down right away, had our food in about 5 minutes, and were out of there in 40 minutes. loved it. loved the food.

   Later that night, we had out own celebration for her birthday.  Our little sisters made sure dad packed crowns, silly glasses, and we even brought a cake. 

    The next afternoon before our flight, my sister arranged for a really cute photographer for a photo shoot.  Here's one of the pictures she posted on her blog. She's based out of Tacoma/Seattle area. Chelle Nicole. Really fun photo shoot, not only was it raining, but we couldn't stop laughing. Sometimes she would ask for a "serious face" and that was close to impossible. Great weekend, really quick...but always nice to see my sister and be with family.

Bitter-sweet Post

Bitter:

How do you say goodbye to a pet you've had for eight in a half years?? 

    Last night, I found a good home for my sweet dog.  There's more history behind this decision that I'd rather not share, but let's just say that she's finally going to be in a family that can take care of her the way she deserves.  I placed an ad about a week ago and had quite a few calls, but one caller the other night caught my attention. This caller already has an 8 yr old shitzu dog and wanted a friend.  All her kids were grown and out of the house, and she teaches piano during the day.  So not only would my Saydee have a new dog friend and keep each other company, but a loving family that would really take care of her all during the day.  I love my dog, and I'm going to miss her every day.

Sweet:

    After a long time looking, I found a good job.  I'm now in my 2nd week and really trying to learn all the information.  In a nutshell I will be helping with payroll.  The company handles payroll for 200+ small companies.  My employer is also an accountant that helps with the companies taxes...personal and business taxes, so I'm hoping to learn some that as well.  My favorite part so far?? my employer dislocated his ankle over the weekend and will be having surgery this week. Crossing my fingers that I can help out best way that I can and get everything done on time.  Anyway, I'm really enjoying what I've learned so far and hoping that I can catch on quickly. 

quick trip to the zoo

I had some free tickets to the zoo that expired the end of the month, so I literally went for a quick trip to the zoo. Great weather...animals were all out having fun....my sister was there with her girls....probably the quickest trip ever.  But it's always nice to just get out.

The closest I will get to one of my favorite animals, the red panda. :) With the new are under construction, I have no idea where the red pandas have been moved..or just gone. BUT soo excited for the new habitat!! I really hope they bring back a polar bear and some sea lions (at least the picture they have there depicts both the bear and the sea lions).

Just for fun...

The wolves...which my girls absolutely love. My oldest has named the white one snowflake.

Probably my favorite animal in the tiger habitat.. Dont' get me wrong, those Bengal tigers are gorgeous and playful, but something about this Amur Leopard, just beautiful.

Thanks for coming on a quick trip to the zoo with me Ams!

Cousin Party

  Not very often do we get to have a cousin party where most of the cousin can be there.  Especially when some live on the other side of the country.  Here are a few fun pictures of the kids party.

they each got to decorate a graham cracker house.

attempted a white elephant game. No one wanted to trade or take-away. They each kept the same present.

grandma with most of the kids.

   Always nice to have family over! Definitely missed the older grandkids (teenagers....too old to play with little kids? lol ) and of course our other cute little cousin that is on the other side of the country, he was missed very much. maybe someday I'll finally be able to see him again. :)

Zoo Lights

   For my kids grandma's Christmas weekend, she took them up to see the zoo lights.  What a great light display, but wow was it freezing cold. All of us (my sister and her family, my mom, my kids) were all bundled up as warm as we could get. Loved the heaters they had around the zoo.   Here are a few pictures of the lights they had on display.

my girls with the elephant

the awesome water fountain light

i liked this one.

they had vintage carolers

the mommy kangaroo

dragon!

Nana and my girls

1st Dance Recital

   My oldest had her first ever dance recital.  We wanted her to do something for the winter season, and she's never really tried a dance class.  She's apart of a little jazz class.  My daughter loved that she could wear makeup. but note to self: do not use non-waterproof mascara on daughter. You'll see in the picture that she has a mascara streak on her cheek from crying before the dance started.

   Still very proud of her and what she did. Takes a lot of guts for any kid to get on stage and perform in front of all those people.

my Kindle and a Lost pet.

   You know I love to read.  It's only taken a month, but I finally figured out HOW to put a library book on my new kindle fire.  Rick Riordans The Lost Hero was finally available from my library and ready to transfer to my kindle. yay!! I'm still new to the kindle and how it works, so I'm learning from mistakes...reading q&a online...asking my brother in law (haha)..anything to figure out what I need to know.  Sooo nice to have something work! and I can't wait to start reading library books on my kindle.

and then there was my daughters lost pet....

   Earlier in the week this cute little ferret decided to take a trip outside the house.  Honestly, I thought she found a comfy hiding spot and took a long nap (it has happened before).  By the next morning there was still no trace of her.  Now I was getting worried.  There's always a chance that the ferrets will sneak out of the house when the kids are going in and out playing with friends, but usually we catch them before it happens.  Out of our 2 ferrets, I would not have thought the white one would actually leave.

    Luckily I got an email from a friend less than 24 hours after I last saw the white one (not 24 hours after I thought she was missing). She got a message from another neighbor saying that they found a white ferret, but unfortunately she didn't get the message in time before they called animal services.  The moment I got that message I was down to the house where they found my ferret.   Of course I was upset to find out that animal services was already there and my ferret was gone the night before.  I didn't stay to chat, I literally ran home to call animal services to check on my ferret and to make sure she was there. me = emotional wreak.

   To make a long story short, we went down to the "animal jail" where we had to bail out our ferret. Did you know that ferrets have to be licensed in our city?! learn something new every day. I'm just happy that we have her back. She is a very sweet and shy ferret, and I wouldn't know what would have happened with our daughter who is really attached to her ferret.

Turkey Day Feast!

What's Turkey Day without some fun HATS! My big sister made these AWESOME turkey hats for everyone, and I mean everyone. AND we all wore them, the entire dinner. Loved it. Loved the Turkey hats. Kids got a kick out of them too. Above is the picture of my dads little family, my sisters kids, and my kids all wearing their turkey hats in the leaves.

Here's my sister making/sizing the turkey hats for everyone.

Sisters...Sisters....in our turkey hats.

The dessert plate. Now I'll point out that this is my dads plate, he tried a bite of everything!! Remember the mini pies? There they are. My mini apple, mini pumpkin, my sisters mini chocolate, my hubby made the pecan pie, and my dads wife made the banana cream. Sooo good. I love turkey day.

Here's a picture of the kids table. You know how we were always at the kids table when we were kids? I totally understand now!! So nice to have the kids in one place, it was quieter, they were happy, we were happy.  Makes perfect sense now. We gave the kids coloring pages, candy, their own food table...they loved it. Once they were done with the food, they were outside playing in the leaves, and the adults were able to eat kid free. Love the kids, but love the quiet too.

Such a nice Turkey Day. Thanks Dad for hosting!!

on your marks...get set.. go!

Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, 10k, 5k, and 1k

Turkey Day started early for my family.  My big sister flew in from out of town and decided that it would be fun if everyone in the family ran a race. So... me, my twin, and big sister signed up for the 5k, my husband signed up for the 10k, and my dad and his little family (and our kids) signed up for the 1k. Everyone was signed up and surprisingly worked out perfectly.

This is the sunrise we saw on the way up to the morning race.

Most of the kids ready and waiting for the 1k to start.  The 5 and 10k runners went first, and the 1k started after most of the other runners got back, so we were able to run with our kids too in the 1k. :)  They loved it. So glad it was a kinda warm morning and no snow/rain/ice in sight. Oh and they really did have a guy dressed in a full turkey costume that started the races. hilarious.

Since I had the camera for our run, I took pictures. This is my big sister stopping to tie her shoe, and my twin dancing around in her zumba pants chanting (I should have gone (fill in blank) before we started this race). hehehehe. Ahh...too bad the Arctic Circle wasn't open when we ran by.

my crazy sisters.

We were definitely haven't fun on the run, just something we could do together, wasn't keeping track of time at all.

yay!! everyone gets a medal. (the colors don't mean a thing)

Here come our 10k runner!! He is fast. just saying.

My jog is his walk, his run is me on a bicycle.

hehehe love ya handsome.

Wish I had taken a picture of all the kids running in the 1k.  We were all split up with 9 kids and 7 adults...all of us on the 1k. Each adult was in charge of a kid in the 1k.  They all did great and they LOVED getting a medal. My girls have them hanging up in their room.

End result? I actually enjoyed this 5k. Maybe it was the company? or the fact that I'm in a lot better shape than I was for my last 5k. Either way, I would run (sorry..not run, more like job/walk) a 5k again with my sisters. Fun way to start your turkey day! and burn some calories before the turkey feast.

My Big Girl Birthday Party!

My daughter and her cousin both have September birthdays  9 days apart.

   My oldest had a 7th birthday party over the last weekend.  I've been planning this party for weeks.  With her just starting school, with new friends, and new faces, we decided to have an all girl pink pink pink party.  We invited the 2 girls her age on the street and then all of the girls from her class, and most of them showed up.  Pink everywhere! Pink decorations, pink birthday cake, pink flowers, pink balloons, pink bracelets, and pink necklaces.

   Above are the pictures of her giant cupcake ice cream birthday cake. One with the giant cupcake liner that I made and the other just before we cut the cake.  She chose a devils food cake and on the inside? pink peppermint ice cream. My favorite was actually making the the icing on top! I used a tall can of white fluffy frosting and a tub of cool whip, then added pink food coloring. Soo good. 

   Here's the pink party area .  The giant cupcake is a pinata filled to the top with candy. On the table we have different beads and we let the girls make their own bracelets.  Have you used memory wire?? best ever for kid bracelets. 

Here's an example of the bracelet beads, I made this one for my daughter.

   Here's most of the party group after they hit that pinata down in seriously...4 hits!

 

   Girls eating their yummy birthday cake!

the inside of the birthday cake! I think it turned out really well.

  The party was a lot of fun.  When the girls first came in, I handed them necklaces I made with their names on it...(kinda like a name tag, but they get to keep), then they got their fingernails painted! They got to choose from a lot of different glittery nail polish.  The hardest part was trying to figure out who would be first to get their nails done.  Next time I need to just pull names out of a hat instead of play the number game.
   After that the girls started to make their own bracelets, which I thought went a lot better than expected.  I even introduced the girls to the ferrets, which they thought were pretty cool.  After that, my husband set up the pinata in the garage. These girls are strong, we only got through 2 girls before they tore it open and the candy came pouring out. Tons of candy.
   When the candy was finally picked up, they went inside for ice cream cake! and last of all...open presents before the parents came to pick them up.  The party was fun, hope they all had a good time.  I think I'll wait a few more years before I throw a party like this again....