Colorful Carnival for Loo

For Angela's fourth birthday, I decided it was time to finally throw her a friend party. Being the third child has perks and disadvantages. I was feeling guilty because Sarah has had birthday parties since she was 1 year old - but then, I didn't have other kids at the time (when Sarah was 1 and 2) and Angela has always had built in friends (her sisters) to celebrate with.

So that mother's guilt kicked in. And this time around I decided to make things "easy" on myself and just rent a pavillion at a park to host the party. I wouldn't have to clean the house or worry about messes there. But then I started thinking about a theme. I LOVE themes. I always have some sort of theme for parties and once I got going with the theme, I can't control myself. My idea for a simple party at the park exploded into a carnival. It's not my fault - I can't help it. I have a problem. These monsters just create themselves in my head.

It started with the idea to order a colorful parachute when I was ordering preschool supplies for the coming year. I thought it would be perfect party entertainment. Then I found cute colorful paper while shopping at the craft store for invitation supplies. The Colorful Carnival idea started coming to mind and here is what the party ended up like. A little chaotic, but tons of fun . . .

This merry go round was one of the big reasons why we picked this park. Angela LOVES it. I wish I got a video of the kids screaming and squealing on it. I'm pretty sure Kaitlin burned about 4,000 caleries twirling this thing around for the first part of the party.

Angela LOVED the parachute games.

One of the carnival stations was a cupcake decorating station. Each of the kids got 15 tickets to spend at the carnival and each activity was one ticket. They could also buy cotton candy for one ticket. Plus most of the prizes for the games were candy. It was a sugar FEST.

"Knock 'Em Down"

"Target Toss"

Yummy green cupcake . . . mmmmm (o:

Disappearing Candy game - a tootsie roll was hiding in one of the moving cups and had to be found.

Face painting fun! I love how Rylan's turned out. (o:

Sarah got a big kick out of getting glasses and a mustache!

Kaitlin at the cupcake decorating station. She was my lifesaver for the party! She helped me set up, take the girls to the bathroom, twirled the merry go round, helped clean up and probably a million other things I can't remember right now. Also, you can see above my centerpieces that I was very proud of, but never got a good picture of. They were big "Popcorn" bowls filled with popcorn, licorice and a boquet of balloons weighted down at the bottom.

Tina resting at the marble painting station because she was helping me so much. Cutting watermelon, picking up parachutes, fetching this and that, keeping me on track, oh, and incubating an 8 month old fetus at the same time! What a good friend! (o:

I also enlisted Tana to come help me at the party. She was great helping set up, running some of the games and cleaning up. I had so many great friends helping and friends' kids, little sisters, etc. Everyone helped make it such a fun time!

Our fun birthday setting. We had a blast!

Kaitlin told me that while taking Angela to the bathroom, Angela said with a huge smile (as her friends were screaming and laughing in the background), "Everyone is having fun at my party!" This made her so happy and that comment made all that work worth it! Most importantly, I think Angela had a pretty great day.

President Monson's Birthday

I read this idea today and wanted to share - it's a wonderful way to celebrate the prophet's birthday. Which is Friday, August 21st. I challenged our young women to do this and plan to do something with my own girls. President Monson's entire life is such a sweet example of Christ-like service to those he came into contact with. Read below his one request he would like for his birthday. Whether your a member or not, it's a great way to make the world a little better!

Picture taken by Chuck Wing, Deseret News

During an interview for an article on his birthday last year, the Church News asked President Thomas S. Monson to describe what he would consider the ideal gift that members worldwide could give him. Without a moment's hesitation he said, "Do something for someone else on that day to make his or her life better. Find someone who is having a hard time or is ill or lonely, and do something for them. That's all I would ask."

What a perfect gift idea.

Mantracker Family

I crack myself up. I wish I could show this picture with my real man, and our actual family, but as you all know, part of the deal of making our family life public was to keep my mysterious husband anonymous. (o: I love this picture of the girls. We were doing family pictures at the beach during the very brief time Hank* was able to come. We got some fun ones and I chose Mantracker for Hank's* face replacement because we are big fans of his show on the Science Discovery Channel. He he. (o:

Yes, I am Still Alive

A few very kind souls who humor me and actually read my blog have noticed that I have been MIA for quite some time. Almost 36 days to be exact. How did this happen? How did that much time pass so quickly and why have I been so lazy? I've kind of been rebelling. I want to enjoy our summer without feeling obligated to document every little thing. Who do I feel obligated to, I wonder? I am not narcissistic (thank you spell check on that one!) enough to think that people, nay, fans, were hounding my blog living in deep depression when day in and day out there was nothing new to satisfy their hunger. I do feel a little obliged to keep in touch with family and friends because I love feeling connected and having them as a part of my life - even if it is in cyberspace.

No, I feel obligated to my kids and myself to be better at keeping this up. After rebelling for a while - I only planned to take a two week "vacation" - I got overwhelmed with the prospect. In case you didn't notice I take a ginormous amount of pictures and I tend to blab like theirs no tomorrow. The mountain of memories to sift through has risen higher and higher. But then today as Angela was talking about her new "banastic" outfit (she says the word gymnastics almost like "banana") and I was thinking what a cute way to say gymnastics that was and how I love her funny way of saying things. I realized, it's those cute little things that I miss when I try to recall a month's worth of memories in one sitting.

So I am turning over a new leaf. Until I fall off the wagon again. I am recommitting and ready to climb this "mountain of memories" and take you on a journey of our family summer thus far.

Beach Bums

Recently, I got the idea to try and go tide-pooling at the beach on a particular day when the tide was going to be really low at a reasonable time. (Usually, the really good minus tides are early in the morning.) I made a plan to head to the beach on that day. I invited our friends, the Halls to join us and one of my young women and buddies, Kaitlin. Unfortunately, the morning didn't go quite as smooth as I had hoped and we left later than my original plan. The weather also was not what I envisioned on our beach trip. It was overcast and "misting" almost the whole time we were on the beach. My idyllic pictures of the kids playing in the sand and setting up a big blanket to relax on did not come true.

We attempted to see if we could make low tide, but by the time we got there it was well over. There was no way we were going to sit in the wet weather on the beach, so we mostly just strolled along and let the kids run in the water and get soaked. (o: It wasn't very cold, so they had a blast and they got REALLY wet. It was fun to watch them. The only one who didn't get into the water fun was Angela. She was terrified of the waves and didn't want anything to do with the ocean. My girls have all gone through this stage at about this age. Maybe next summer she'll join in.
Cute, soaked buddies!

Kaitlin was so much fun to have on our adventure. She's such a great sport and was a huge help! We love you Kaitlin!

Angela eventually warmed up to the beach - a very safe distance from those scary waves.

Kaitlin is an elephant ear connoisseur - and apparently these elephant ears ranked pretty high. (Saturday's Market are #1 FYI) This was our special treat to make up for the lame weather and having to do our picnic lunch in the parking lot. (Elephant ears are a northwest thing - basically huge scones with tons of cinnamon sugar, we tried one drizzled with chocolate. So healthy!)

The Hall's cute (and very wet!) cocker spaniel, Dash.

The kids discovered it is very fun to run down huge sand hills. I tried it and they were right!

So even though the day didn't go as I envisioned, we had some fun memories and lots of laughs. It was fun to spend the day with good friends. And really, no matter what the weather, I LOVE the beach.

Lauren's 3rd Birthday Party!

Lauren had her birthday party at the Children's Museum this year. Elizabeth always has the funnest (even though that's not a real word) parties!
The girls had a blast.

Heidi (waving in the back and the tallest below) is the cutest babysitter ever. She came to help and celebrate and made it so much fun for the kids. Look how orderly she kept the kids in line when we moved from one area to another! She got lots of compliments from other parents. She is one of my cute young women and I think she is just awesome!

One funny memory for adults only... During a story time, the girls climbed up in a pretend tree to "listen". I'm not sure why, but there was a wooden stick up in the tree and they could poke the stick through wooden holes in the tree. Natalie was poking her head through one larger hole and then stuck the stick way out at about crotch level and was waving it around. Obviously, not having any clue what this might look like to two "older" ladies like me and Angie - my good friend who was at the party too. We were stifling our giggles like we were in Jr. High again. Pretty funny.

Elizabeth always spoils the kids with tons of food and treats and fun decorations. They were a happy bunch!

After the party, I stayed with my girls and we played all afternoon. We spent about an hour and a half or maybe more in the clay room making creations! We even had them baked so they can be on permanent. Unfortunately, my camera battery died so I'll have to take pictures of our creations and add them later. (o: Thanks for a wonderful day Elizabeth!

Summer Heat Wave

This summer we broke a record! A record for the longest streak of days over 90's degrees in the Portland area. Several of those days - 4 or 5, I believe, were over 100 degrees! In fact, on the second hottest day at 105 degrees, we were actually hotter here than Afghanistan, Florida and Mexico! Crazy! The next day was even hotter at 106 and almost broke a record for the hottest day ever here. (That record was 107) It was HOT and we are not used to this kind of heat! It would even stay in the 90's clear until 10:00 p.m. We got a taste of life in Arizona, which was fun for a few days, but NO THANKS! Thank heavens for AC. That's the problem though, there are a LOT of people out here who don't have AC. It's not really considered a necessity - unless you're wimpy like we are. But on those days, people waited in horrendous lines to get fans and window ACs. Hal* knows several people at work who checked into hotels to get some relief from the heat. The hotels were very nice and gave huge discounts to locals who wanted to escape.
I love this picture. This was as we walked out of a nice cool movie theater into the blast of 103 degree heat! You can see the misery in the girls faces. They were not up for a picture, but it was a moment to remember.

These pictures are from Angela's birthday at the local water fountains. Hal* and I only lasted for about 15 minutes before we decided to go get our suits on too and get in the big pool down the street. It was HOT!

The free movie on the Wednesday of the hottest week ever was especially busy because it was an escape from the heat! We loved seeing Madagascar 2 for the first time! It was hilarious AND nice and cool!

On the hottest day - 106 degrees - our power suddenly went off around 6:00 p.m. as I was making dinner. I was more worried about us boiling to death than getting the pot of water for the spaghetti boiling for dinner. I called my friend who lives behind us. Her power was still on! I went outside and heard our next door neighbor's AC running. I thought maybe we blew a fuse and checked into it. Nope - it wasn't a fuse. I walked over to two more neighbors and found out that we had a very localized problem. We called PGE and found out that just 10 unlucky houses that were connected to one transformer were the ones without power. On this particular day, these PGE guys were our heroes. It made me think of Higgly Town Heroes (the kid's cartoon). Well, these guys were heroes to me on that HOT day! It was cool watching them use the huge crane thing-a-majig to replace the broken transformer. I even clapped for them when the new transformer was put in. Thank heavens for electricity. Our power was only off for two hours, but in that heat - two hours was a long time! It didn't take long for the house to heat up.

Happy Birthday to Loo!

Great Grandma T. has a really great tradition she started for the great grandchildren when they are old enough. She paints them their very own picture! This is Angela's sweet picture. She loves it! Thanks grandma for sharing your wonderful talent! What a keepsake for many many years to come. We love you!

My LooLee bug is 4! Also known affectionately as "Loo", my baby is growing up way, way, way too fast for my taste. As cliche as it sounds, it seems like just yesterday that she became a part of our family. I was so excited to have another girl - three girls! Angela has brought so much joy and laughter to our family, I am so grateful for my little angel.
Angela's birthday "cake" came about in a round about way. The day before her birthday, we were headed to Toys R Us to get her birthday presents. Just a few minutes into the drive guess who had to go to the bathroom? Yep, Natalie's pea-sized bladder was full to the brim and ready to explode. We had to find a bathroom quick. In emergency mode, we pulled off the freeway and found a Krispy Kreme - hmmm, a potty AND donuts? I could faintly hear angels singing. After taking care of the most important part of our stop, Cedric* and I came up with a brilliant plan. We felt obligated to patronize the establishment that so graciously gave us the use of their plumbing, so we thought, "why not do birthday donuts for Angela's birthday?" Thus, Angela's birthday "cake" was serendipitous and as you can see, she was quite pleased. (Plus the mommy perk - no baking!)

One of Angela's gifts was this adorable, ruffly umbrella. Our girls get these a lot on their birthdays because they play with them and wear them out so much. Sun, rain, indoors, out, umbrellas are a big hit at our house.


This was not one of Angela's presents. This was what daddy found at Toys R Us while he was keeping Angela distracted. (So she wouldn't see what we were picking out for her.) For those of you who don't know - it's a gadget for the Wii game "Rock Band/Guitar Hero" - yeah, apparently it was calling his name. (But which name one might wonder? So mysterious - I'll never give it away, that is, unless I just forget and say it - which maybe I have already done . . .)

So anyways . . . (a tidbit for my fellow super Nacho fans)


Ahaa - now here's one of Angela's real presents from Grandma P. This little horse and carriage are so cute and just what Angela loves. It carries many a Polly Pocket around in style these days. Thanks grandma!! (o:

Natalie had this great gift idea for her sister before we even got to the toy store. A 3D sidewalk chalk set. It was very cool and we had a lovely time making designs in the shade on the driveway. Have I mentioned yet that Angela's birthday fell on the first couple days of the longest streak of days over 90 in Portland's history?

Even in the shade, we were getting pretty hot and decided that an outing to the water fountains would be a fantastic way to celebrate Angela's birthday. It was just great. The girls enjoyed getting wet, I was taking pictures, we were all laughing . . . for about 7 minutes. Then the heat stroke started setting in. Okay, that is over-exaggerating a smidge, but after just a few minutes there was NO way Cedric* and I were going to sit and watch the kids cool off without us. Since we were fully clothed and only had towels sufficient for 3 people, we hopped in the car to get our suits and towels. And we also had to race home because, a certain someone had to go pee 5 minutes after we arrived and there was no bathroom around.

We didn't return to the fountains, due to the heat of the day and the pride of the parents (I'm not running around a fountain in my swimsuit - at least I can hide the lower portion of my body in a pool.) We needed more water. We had a great time swimming in the huge outdoor pool down the street. Usually, we swim inside because we always seem to go on cooler days. Natalie went down one of the slides by herself (she didn't really like it though) and Sarah jumped off the diving board for her first time and loved it. She went several more times with daddy. Angela had fun puttering around in her lifejacket, but getting her face much wetter than she usually does. A great time was had by all.

We topped the night off with a birthday dinner at IHOP, donuts and singing and the remaining presents for Loo. Happy Birthday to Loo!

By the way, one of the things that Angela is most excited about now that she's four is that she will be five next! The day right after her birthday someone asked how old she was. She held up 5 fingers and said "I be 5 next!"

Some Extra Fun Time with Russie and Co.

After our totally fun and awesome trip to the beach, most of my family went home, but Russ and Tina stayed to play a little longer! (o: We were so excited to get some extra time with them and had a lot of fun together! Even going to Wendy's is more fun when cousins and aunt Tina and uncle Russie come along! (o: You can't see in the picture, but just a funny side note: about 100 police officers decided to eat at Wendy's at the same time as us. Let's just say we felt very extra safe while we ate our hamburgers and taco salad! (o: It was great!
Kaleb liked playing with these rockets! We spent a day at OMSI, one of our favorite spots to share with guests to the Portland area.

I think the boys liked it!

Natalie bonding with uncle Russie! (o:

Making music with colored water - we learned you can even play the Star Wars theme!

Which one is Sarah?

This is all we could get to come to the "group" shot! (o: Just the girls! Rachel fits right in as an honorary sister!

We also spent a day at Out of This World! Angela was very sad about this as you can see! We hardly saw the kids - they were off playing and playing the whole time! It gave Russ and Tina and I plenty of time to visit! Bonus!

Russ is very talented at carrying lots of cups!

Later that night we had a fun movie and ordered Thai Food take out with Herb*. Thanks for staying an extra couple of days guys! We love hanging out with you! And the girls love being with their cousins!