Kyla's 3rd Birthday

Kyla turned 3 on January 25th and we had a party!  I remember when Kyla turned one, we had our whole family over to celebrate.  Even though it was just our family, it was about the maximum capacity our house can hold.  At the time I said, oh, we'll have a party for when she turns 1, but then no more "party" parties until she's older and has friends to invite, etc.  WELL, four months ago Kyla went to her friend Julianna's birthday party and it was SO fun!!  From that day Kyla started talking about HER birthday party, we even started talking themes and who she wanted to invite and what she wanted to do at her party!  She choose "Mermaid Under the Sea" as her party theme and never looked back!  SO glad SHE is decisive!  It wasn't until mid December that I actually decided to go through with this!!  It was going to be pretty low key, only cousins and two friends...   then... THEN I was introduced to the world of PARTY BLOGS!  Here are some pretty sweet parties, check em out!  Carnival party How FUN is that??  How over the top is that??  Even a simple Lollipop theme can be classy and elegant.  This is one of my favorites for a boy, be sure to check out part II!  I was introduced by my friend Sarah (Julianna's mom), she was super helpful and mostly responsible for the awesomeness that was Kyla's party : )  She found the inspiration (TI) and I went with it!  Enjoy!

I made mermaid tails (wrap around skirts) for the girls.  I used Kyla's "treasure chest" from her room to hold the party favors for the boys which were beachy pails with shovels, filled with candy, bubbles and crazy straws.

The girls got a mermaid story book, jewelry, candy and bubbles.

The food table

Fruit platter, spongebob yogurt, capri sun, goldfish crackers, nemo and shark fruit snacks, pink marshmallows (a favorite of Kyla's), cupcakes aaaand

'sushi rolls'

Nutritious and delicious!  While they are, I really just thought it was an adorable food idea

Get the deets here!  From TI

I used my pink PB Kids tablecloth I use every year for Kyla's birthday, then got a yard of shimery, see though fabric and folded it up under the edges for the center.  Put the 'center piece' behind the cupcake stand, pearl strands on the table and felt sea animals hanging from our chandelier.  You can also kind of see in the background, we made a 'curtain' out of a plastic blue tablecloth and hung it behind my curtains to give the room a blue, underwater effect.

Now.  These guys were a labor of love.  I found felt animal cupcake toppers on etsy for a million dollars each and said to myself, "self.  I can do that!"  So I did.  And each one took about an hour to make and then I knew why the price was so high... and figured the demand must also be low.

But they're cuuuuuuttee!  And I love them.  And each one is my baby.

Luckily I took some pics with my phone since I did not get pictures of all the felt sea animals at the party.

Okay.  That's enough of that!  But only because that's all the pics I have of those : )

The creator of "The Inspiration" sells downloadable files which include the invitations, thank you cards, cupcake toppers, center pieces, chocolate wraps, and a picture to color.  I was all about that!  And the cuteness, of course.

Just printed on card stock, cut out and stuck to a stick.

Silver and gold nuggets

The kids played a fishing game.

We hung the shower curtain from Kyla's bathroom at the top of the stairs.  Each kid took two turns (with Stephen's help) tossing the fishing line (with clip attached) over the curtain.  I was on the other side and attached a felt animal to the clip and the kids reeled in their catch!   The weeks before the party, as I was making the felt animals, Kyla assigned each animal to a friend and every day she would talk about them and who they would go to!  So, I made sure the animals went to their rightful owners ; )

 I thought it was a cute game, though the curtain could have been much lower for the kiddos : )

The CAKE.

Okay, so Kyla is obsessed with volcanos.  When I post a blog about her love for them I'll add the video I have of her describing the cake she wants for her birthday.  In short, she wanted a volcano cake.  I was like, um, no we don't need a volcano cake, plus, I really wanted to do cupcakes.  Stephen was like, it'll be easy, we'll just stack up some round caked and cut a hole in the middle and shave down the outside.

1.  I don't even have a round cake pan.

2.  If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right and use the bundt pan.

Wait... I thought we weren't doing this.  Well... I'm not doing it without practicing first.

SO, the weekend before Kyla's party we borrowed a 10'' round from Kelli, I happened to have two different chocolate box mixes, Stephen made one, I made the other and after they were done we stacked the bundt cake on top of the round cake and wa-lah!  Volcano!  Well, Stephen 'shaped' it and frosted it, then wa-lah!  Volcano!  We decided to put coconut pecan frosting on it because if we were going to eat cake for three weeks straight we were going to like it, gosh darn it!

Then, we decided to freeze it, save it for the party and just not eat it... just make Kyla's wildest dreams come true and eat cupcakes.

Here it is!

I put a small bottle down in the hole and Stephen frosted the cake up around the opening.  We put pieces of dry ice in the bottle and added a little hot water, the effect, while not realistic, was AWESOME!  

Kyla and I were in LOVE.  She couldn't stop staring and I... well, you had me at dry ice : )

And then we ate it!  Haha!  And it was wonderful : )

 The German Chocolate actually worked out really well, it looked dirtish, or earthy or whatever... and I didn't have to eat five pounds of straight sugar.  It was five pounds of pure sugar with coconut and pecans... yuummmm : )

Lastly, the outfit.

I knew she wouldn't wear the mermaid tail for the entire party so I asked her what she wanted to wear for her party.  She said, "A mermaid tail... and... shells (while pointing)".

I didn't know what would go with a mermaid tail anyway so I decided to make a t-shirt with a 'bikini' style top.  I loved the idea of a summer pool party, but January in Colorado... it's never gonna happen.  I sewed on the stars (same sequin material as tail) and use rick rack trim to go up and around her neck.  I also sewed the rick rack into the seams under her arms and tied it in a bow in the back...

Like this:

I thought it was the perfect mermaid outfit for a 3 year old without being too costume-y (remember, this was a simple party)

The party was so fun, I'm glad we ended up doing it after all!  The thing I learned from this is that I really like being able to add the special details.  Even if I don't have a ton a money to spend, I do have quite a bit of time that I can make a lot of things that go into making the party unique (well, with others' ideas!  I'm not kidding anyone... I am NOT creative!) BUT I am detail oriented, so it was fun to add those.

Okay!  Colby's 1st birthday is in April!  And I already have a theme!  ... but it's gonna be simple ; )  I'm gonna keep telling myself (and everyone I know) that.

*Sorry so long!!  But really, I read blogs longer than this in my sleep ; )*

School

Stephen:  Mom's going to read you a story tonight because she went to college.

Liz:  Dad didn't go to college, so he needs practice reading.

        You're going to go to preschool, then elementary school, then middle school, then high school then college!

Stephen:  You're going to go to preschool, then college.

Kyla:  I don't want to go to college.

Liz:  If you're going to be a doctor, you have to go to college.

Kyla:  Okay, I will go to college.



Good, I'm glad we have that settled.

Happy Sloth

I don't even know what to say anymore, as I've already forgotten what I came here to talk about.

Ummm, so this is where trying to be clever took me, so I'm just going to come out and say it:

I've been losing weight at an agonizingly slow pace, but how can I complain?  I'm still losing weight!  How slow?  Oh, about 3 lbs a month, which averages to about .5 to 1 lb a week, for the past 5 months.

Arrrrrgggghhhhyyyyeaaahhh!

I think a sloth might make that sound when he's happy, you know, because he has to try so hard to get the sound out and it takes a little while.  yeah.

SO, while I'm talking about my weight (meh.) I WILL say that I don't diet, I don't want to go on a diet and cut out carbs and stop eating ice cream and pizza and taco bell just so I can drop some weight.  Because I know some day I will go back to my sweet tea drinking, caramel light frapuccino WITH whip cream sipping, Dr. Pepper loving ways, and the weight will just come back.

So I'm sensible, but I have what I like.  And I like that.  Oh, and I like butter.

And to not stop before the finish line I'll have to add that yesterday I realized that my number is 28.  Probably not my lucky number, I wouldn't say its UNlucky, just my number, my age, my jeans size, my weight... well, with a 1... and I don't weigh 281lbs ; )  Well, for now at least, we'll see if I keep losing!  What a fun game!  I mean, ya know, maybe this summer we'll see some change, or something.  We'll say 28 was a fun milestone : )

This is my way of being excited (finally) about something about my body since having Colby.  The jeans I'm wearing right now, as I write this, I honestly never thought I would wear again, even 4 months ago (when Colby was almost 6 months old!)  The same jeans I bought a couple weeks after Kyla was born!  And let me just boast one more time... they are NOT the stretchy kind : )

Fads: Flamingo Edition

On our trip to south Florida in the late fall of '07 Stephen and I picked out a Flamingo beanie baby for Kyla, who was 10 months old at the time (gah!!!  seems like last week!)  Little did we know, that flamingo would be just the beginning of an interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal! (A fad.)

Crazy how many pictures I have of her with the Flamingo from this trip and want to post them all!

  This is the sunrise on Key West.

Here's where we got the Flamingo : )

Shout out to my West Palm Peeps!

Spring of 2008:  Bought Kyla some new pajamas that were light weight for the summer, size 18m

Fast forward to August 2009... still wearing the "Mingo PJ's"

November 2009:  Kyla is *still* wearing her mingo pjs.  Shorts are getting shorter, belly starts to hang out.  Becomes increasingly difficult to get arms in and out.

December 2009:  eBay to the rescue!!  The ONE and ONLY pair of Carter's 'you make me blush' Flamingo pajamas left in the world are in a size... 3T!

December 2009:  Purchase 3T Carter's 'you make me blush' Flamingo pajamas for $1.99

New Mingo pjs come in the mail!!   aaaaand... Kyla wants to wear the OLD ones!?!

Stephen makes the switcharoo and all is good.  Kyla thinks she has the old ones, but her belly isn't hanging out anymore.

see?

Okay, so that was me sneaking sweet Colby-man in there... but still, no belly shot ; )

Here she is in all her Mingo pj glory!

aaaannd... the Flamingo pose

I don't make her do this stuff folks.  She comes up with this all on her own.

It was my fault, I curled her hair and she turned into a supermodel.

See?  Flamingo, again!

Those pj's are cute too ; )

TMI

So I've been putting off blogging for awhile... like since Thanksgiving.

I was reminded scared to death by the reality that anyone can read this blog.  Here's some background...

It happened the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, Stephen was working in Breckenridge for the first night of many that would continue through the holiday season.  This scenario isn't new to me, I put the kids to bed and hunker down with my laptop in front of the tv and relax.  I was on facebook and made a comment (after a status update) that Stephen was out of town, I didn't think anything of it until our house alarm went off at 12:30am.  I jumped out of bed and ran to turn it off since I didn't want it to wake up everyone, the code on the keypad said that our basement door had been 'breached' or whatever.  I called Stephen and he called our brother-in-law who came over and checked out our basement.  Everything was fine, but I was not!  (though I did delete the status update and all 13 or so comments... another story for another day!  controversy!) That night and every night that Stephen has been gone since, I barely slept and when I did eventually fall asleep every little sound would send me waking up in a *panic*, running to the windows to check things out.  Stephen was a champ about working through nights that he was gone to make every minute count and even commuting all the way to Breckenridge for just a days work, getting up at 3:30 in the morning if necessary all while plowing snow (here in town) through the night on a couple occasions.

I share all this to say 1.  I'm SO glad that job is OVER! and 2.  I've been extra sensitive to what I put out on the interwebs for all to read.  Don't get me wrong, I like blogging and being random and it is therapeutic (hello!  right now!) and I do like that if my family and friends want to catch up on some details of our life they can.  I've always seen 'those' people on facebook that share 'too much information' (TMI) or share every detail of their day, what they did 2 hours ago, what they are doing right now and what they need to get done the rest of the day... EVERY day!  Or how about the:  yeah, I bet you do hate your life... I can't stand listening to you complain about it every. day.  Or how about the pictures??  The pictures!!  I love to hate it ; )  BTW, if we're still friend I'm still 'cool' with you (or I've blocked you ; ) ; )  BUT I've always taken special care with 'those' in mind not to over post, over complain or even be overly sarcastic, because really, while I do NOT friend anyone and everyone, not all of my facebook friends really know me, and I don't want people taking things the wrong way.  Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, BUT I know I won't be sharing any extra info, especially concerning our current plans or plans for the future.  Because let's face it, even though .3 people comment on my blog I'm sure millions are reading ; )  ; )  Actually, that's not even the point, it only takes one crazy reading anything, and I SEE YOU and I'm paranoid READY!  haha ; )

Actually, being in complete fear like a little girl in my bed I literally had to remind myself again and again of Who is really in charge here and Who my protector is.  I believe with all my heart that whatever happens God in is control.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters,

He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.


2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.





AMEN!