My Nerdy 30!

This is a big year for folks like me, born in 1983... I kept going back and forth about whether or not I should throw something for myself and had kind of settled on not.  So I owe a big thanks to my older sister Natalie for deciding to come into town for a few days because she was the catalyst for this event that turned out super-fun!  I thought I could provide a way for the family to have an excuse to all be in town, while she was here, and so as many people I love as possible could be all together for my birthday :)

And how cute is it to celebrate my 30th on the 30th (even if it's not the real day...)

I, of course, needed to have some kind of theme.  I thought about "30 Flirty and Thriving" from that movie I love, "13 going on 30", but I don't really think of myself as flirty and nothing was coming to me.  So, I started thinking of other things that rhyme with 30 and, well, Nerdy was the obvious choice, if you know anything about me.....

I knew I wouldn't have time to do much, so I just picked a couple of things to tie the theme together.  I was trying to find a cheap, plaid table cloth, to no avail, and so decided on making my own argyle ones by cutting up those cheap $1.50 ones from Zurchers.  I admit, as soon as I thought of it, I was super excited to have an excuse to buy my own test tubes and beakers to put flowers on the table.  I obviously had to dye daisies (and then Costco had them, so I didn't have to dye them at all!)

I wish I had thought of this for our wedding!  Test tubes are CHEAP!

I was so excited to try out a recipe from a book my mother-in-law had, and I coveted, that Jay just got for me for no reason, in July (he needed to buy one more thing on Amazon to get free shipping.  Thanks for thinking of me, hun!) but we've been off sweets since we got home from our Mass trip and so I have held off, with much difficulty.

Do you know what my cake says? ;)

I knew one cake wouldn't be enough for 26 people, so I also made cupcakes using part of my birthday present- Demarle muffin tins and heart shaped pan.  Their nonstick bakeware is awesome!! Notice, my cupcakes have no papers on them?  That's because they came right out without them!

I've wanted to buy cute straws for some time now, and I finally had a reason to.  I hot glued little "bow ties" on them so it would look like you had one on when you drank from them.

i *heart* this picture

and it kinda worked...

Cousin C went to Hogle Zoo while in town and had a little giraffe-souvenir clutched to her side much of the party

plaid napkins!  I'm a big fan of fun napkins.  If your napkins are cute, you must be celebrating, to me.  (Which is funny, since their sole purpose is to get dirty...)

And my favorite- I got cheap sunglasses from Oriental Trading and popped out the lenses to make some awesome...

nerd glasses for all!! (PS like my owl earrings? Already had those...)

And finally, I had Jay look up a bunch of trivia questions whose answers were all "30" or "1983".  I was born in a pretty cool year!! Were you born the same year as the chicken McNugget and the original Nintendo Entertainment System?  Yeah... I was....  Oh yeah, and now I can be a senator.  So, be watching for that....

And, I obviously needed balloons.  Duh.

I grilled chicken and hot dogs and let everyone else do the rest.  We had soooo much food!  And it was all really good! :)

There were 13 Kids all under 8, only 4 of them were girls. There's no telling what may occur with a crowd like that, but it was actually really fun and not as crazy as I expected.  I had a great time!

I forgot that the easiest way to hang balloons is to tie them to the string and so we threw the ones we had prepped before on the trampoline.  (As soon soon as all the kids got on, they didn't last long...)

Eve decided to dress for the occasion

Retainer and all! :)

It's hard getting a picture of John when he's not pulling a face, so I thought I better post this for posterity's sake- Uncle John can actually look pleasant after all! :)

Thanks, Natalie, for being my photographer!  I know the event would not have been properly documented, were I also in charge of that!

The kids loved the Izze's.  I love that they are not sugary like regular soda.

binary candles

Nate prepping the gigantic bucket o' ice cream!

Wouldn't be a family function if John didn't do something to try and bug me... ;)

Uncle Nate saving the day and pulling grass out of a dropped cup cake :)

boys bein' boys

Melibindsay- making the nerdy librarian look good :D

I had so much fun celebrating my birthday!  Thanks for coming everyone!!

Kid Conversation

"Look mom! My belly button is a nose!"

Happy Birthday Peach!

I can't believe it but last 2 Fridays ago, Peach turned 3!!!  I'm not ready to hand her over to preschool, entirely, so a few of my neighbors and I are going to do a little co-op preschool amongst ourselves.  I'm really excited!

She said she wanted pink cupcakes with sprinkles that taste like strawberry, so I made cupcakes with sprinkles for her, and made a mini cake with the other half of the recipe.  (I admit it was purely selfish- cake is so much faster than cupcakes, and I don't enjoy sprinkles...)

You can see, The Frog wanted to put the candles on (after Peach picked which ones she wanted) and he shoved the 4-inch candles in so only 1 inch was poking out... I tried to "fix" them- hence the frosting smear on their bottoms.  Probably I should have just left it alone.

I love this picture!

I think this is the first birthday cake I've made since The Frog was born that he didn't try to help blow out the candles.  Both of them are getting so big!

Grandma and Grandpa both came down for her birthday dinner of Macaroni and Cheese (which I tweaked with some addable, shredded, raw zucchini- I really liked it!) but I was too busy to take many pictures...

Anyway, I asked her and asked her about what she wanted for her birthday, and all she would say is, "A baby, but Nanie is getting me that!" And did she ever...

Happy Birthday Peach!!  Your humor and sweetness are needed additions for our family.

Summer is Ending!

Well, today was Labor Day.  To me, this means Summer is over.  For most people going to school, if it hasn't started already, it probably will tomorrow.  School supply sales have come and gone, and it's time to put away my white shoes.  (is that old fashioned?)

Hazel is lately becoming much more mobile and thus, more motivated to get out in the world, and less content by being a spectator in my arms.  I'm realizing that this oddly makes it more difficult to get pictures of the latest.  One might think with arms free, it would be easier, but it turns out, my eyes are in much greater demand than can be satisfied through a lens.  

Now I know why moms are required to have eyes in the back of their heads- I can't wait for my second set to sprout!  any time now...

with that preface, the older kids were invited over to have some awesome water fun at a neighbor's with a large tarp and a fantastic hill!  This is the only shot I got...

They had fun though, trust me!

And then, the other day, The Frog noticed how we so completely matched (and he was actually right this time!) that I thought we should get a pic.

Today, we took the kids up to Bridal Veil Falls and it was just gorgeous weather for it! Note to self: always bring extra clothes in the car.  You will need it as long as you don't have it!

It's birthday season around here, which is the excuse I'm giving for the scarce posts, but I hope to get more up soon.  Pictures are up, but I've been waiting for uninterrupted time at the computer (which seems to be even more seldom than my posts as of late.  I'm sensing that it may only get worse...) but I am realizing I must start taking matters into my own hands.