New Year, New Beginnings!

TEN years ago, I went out with my friends for a little NYE fun. I ended up meeting this guy and turned him down THREE times!!

Little did I know it was the beginning of my FOREVER! I did finally give him my number and we've been inseperable since! 10 years down and hopefully 50 more to go :)

May you have a Happy New Year! Hope you are blessed with Love, Good Fortune, and Happiness!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you had some Christmas magic today!! And lots of family love!!

Elf on the Shelf Shenanigans

Steve our Elf only has a few nights left with us. I thought I'd share with my blog readers some more fun spots he has been the past couple of weeks.

Helping Little Lion remember his part for the school Christmas program and a note from Santa telling him how proud he is of LL for speaking in front of a crowd.
Writing a note in lipstick on the mirror.
Making a list of all the toys LL and Flower Power want.....Mom and Dad too :)
Weeeeeeeeeeeee
Making "Snow Angels"
Steve wanted to make sure everyone knew he was the Bomb!!
Elf Yourself with everyone in the family dancing including Steve!
Little Lion's favorite game. FSUopoly! Steve bought his favorite property....Steve's! Only FSU people will get that :)
Frosting and eating freshly baked cookies. Yummy!!
Checking out the clown fish in the tank. The fish were swarming around him. I think they thought Steve was food!!
Little Lion and Flower Power both got bumps on the head one night. Steve showed his compassion by wearing Band Aids and told the kids that Santa didn't want to bring them Band Aids for Christmas so be careful :)
Playing with Magnet Letters. Both kids still on the Nice List!!!
I love the magic of our Elf! LL wakes up every morning searching for Steve. He thinks Steve is super funny and into everything!! The only problem is that when Steve goes back to the North Pole in a couple days for good, LL is going to be disappointed;( Luckily, he birthday is a week away. Hopefully that will distract him!! I hope Steve has some great BIG plans to finish out his visit to our house!!!

VPK Christmas Program

Last Thursday Little Lion had his VPK Christmas show. He and his friend Hunter had to memorize a line and say it in front of a huge crowd as well as sing songs with their class. I took pictures, but Dena from Everyday Moments Photography is Hunter's Mom on as usual took wayyyyyy better photos then mine;o)So here is a link to her family blog about LL and Hunter's stage debut. Very proud of our boys....wiping tears away because they are growing up too fast!!!

SANTA!!!

It's that time of year again to visit Jolly Ole Saint Nick! This is our second year going to Downtown Disney to meet the Big Guy. We went with our friends the M family. Last year I was one week shy of delivering Flower Power and this year she gets to sit on his lap :) Our family was in Red and M's family in Green. No we did not do that on purpose!!Here are the boys entertaining themselves in line while we wait.

I was not the only one pregnant. Littlest C is 5 weeks younger than Flower Power. We call them Boyfriend and Girlfriend :)
Here are my two cuties!
Finally meeting Santa and telling him all the toys LL wants.
Look how enamored Flower Power is of Santa!! No crying here!
And my favorite! How sweet is it that Santa is holding his hand while LL talks to him!!!!
I bet both of these kiddos are on his Nice List!!!

Silly Steve

Steve our Elf has been doing all sorts of silly things around the house every night. One night Steve played soccer again an alien. He won!

For Flower Power's birthday, Steve and the Grinch got the candles ready. Steve held ONE pink candle for her!
The following night, Steve played Rock em, Sock em Robots with Max. Notice he won again!
Steve is quite the catch! Even Barbie thinks so!!!
Steve, the party animal, had a movie-popcorn party with all of his new friends.
And my favorite Steve trick, he decorated our Christmas tree with Little Lion's boxers and Flower Power's diapers!!! Crazy Steve!!!
Little Lion thought it was funny, but was a little embarrassed too and made me take them down promptly :)

I can't wait to see what other shenanigans Steve comes up with. Only 2 weeks left!!

Party Fun!!

The How the Grinch Stole Christmas First Birthday Party was SUPER fun!! If you want to see the details check out the last blog post here. Here is Flower Power getting ready for her BIG day!

For all the kids we had a HUGE bounce house with a slide. The kids loved it!! I was shocked at how much Flower Power enjoyed it as well!




Grandma and PopPop dressed up for the occasion! Flower Power was like What are you doing crazy people :)
We all wore Grinch shirts too!
There were lots of friends at the party!


Then it was time for Grinchy cake. Boy oh Boy did she like her Grinchy cake!! Yummy!!!

Flower Power had so much cake all over that her hair was sticking straight up from the frosting!! It was so bad even the flies were flying around her head :)
That didn't stop FP from having a good time!!
Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate this wonderful little girl! I'm so appreciate of the great family and friends we have in our life!!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Birthday Party!

We celebrated Flower Power's first birthday with a Grinch and Whoville Party. This blog post is all about the details because these have to happen first :) I got so many ideas from Pinterest which is a fantastic site and if you haven't joined...Do it now!!! I'm also really good at *borrowing* ideas from the internet :)

So lets start with the invitation. My husband is great at photoshop and it just so happens that we live near Universal and were able to get a picture with the Grinch.

The decorations were easy since it's already Christmas. My thought was to make the outside of the house Grinchy and the inside Who-ville. Outside was our usual Christmas dancing lights and music show which you can see here from previous years. Mr.E also spelled out Grinchmas in rope lights on the grass. Inside my color scheme was purple, pink, blue, and green with LOTS of sparkles!


I also had lots of ornaments hanging from the ceiling and the windows and twirly ribbons. Here are some pictures with Steve our Elf on a few days.


The Grinch did make a few appearances in the house and our birthday balloon wreath. I made the banner out of quilting fabric of the Grinch story. The balloon wreath took 5 bags of dollar store balloons and an hour in front of the TV :)


The back yard was Grinchy except the highchair where the Birthday girl would celebrate with goodness and whoville:)




The menu was simple! Pizza, Apps, and Cake!! I ordered Pizza, so no pics:) I made Spinach dip and a cheese/veggie/cracker tray. I found at the dollar store cute ornament skewers which I made red/green fruit patterns.
I made a Grinch cake and Grinch cupcakes. I like cupcakes for the kids since it's easier to pass out and everyone gets the same size and amount of frosting :)

Favors are always fun to plan. I started with making each family a copy of the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie. Lots of compliments about that!
I made the kids Grinch Pills. I used little pill bags to put them in and Mr.E used his Photoshop skills again for the header.
And for the adults and kids, my friend Kim made Grinch cookies.


WHEW! That's a lot of details!! Dena from Everyday Moments Photography also took some pics which I'm sure are better than mine. I'll link them up when I get them. Stay tuned for the party pictures!!