Birthday Girl!!

While Dustin was off at the great blizzard camp off of 2010, I took the kids shopping for Sadie's birthday party. A whole three weeks early -- because I'm awesome like that. I pride myself on my amazing planning skills.I even had all the goodie bags stuffed for these cuties 2 weeks before the actual party.

Then suddenly it was back to school and all the projects, volunteering, trying to finalize our Ragnar team, planning for Wicked and the Grand Caymans, Dustin traveling, getting the fundraiser for Girls Camp put together and I did NOTHING for Sadie's birthday party. Literally, I didn't even get all the invitations out. And then worst part -- I realized Dustin would be gone for her actual birthday.

The Saturday before he left, we decided to have a little family party and invited some family friends over to celebrate with us. Sadie requested "souflalalalaflalfff" for her birthday dinner. What? Soufellalalflaf. So finally I asked her to describe what it was. "It's the chocolate cake that Daddy makes that goes up and up and up." Oooooooh, souffle. My girl's got good taste for a four year old.Even better than ONE souffle is TWO souffles. Dianelle and Shreyas are foodies who always are trying out the best recipes, so Dianelle challenged Dustin to a souffle bake off. And poor Shreyas and I had to be the judges. It's rough to be me sometimes. I mean, I had to run 13 miles that day in preparation for all the calories!

The competitors:
Poor Dianelle used a new recipe so hers didn't rise unfortunately, but it did come with a really yummy orange sauce. Dustin won (woot woot!!), but I still managed to eat all the leftovers of both. And maybe a lot of sauce and ice cream. I probably should have run 20 miles.

Then we opened presents including this fun one form my parentsYou can use it with iTune. Unfortunately, I haven't uploaded anything form iTunes, yet, so I'm still listening to the same 5 songs like, "Baby Bumblebee" ALL.THE.TIME. And it comes with a microphone. Everyone has had a lot of fun with it.

I also picked out an awesome gift from us!Did you see it comes with 130 pieces? I'm a nice mom.
It's also a big hit. And surprisingly, I haven't found too many pieces all over the house.

Saturday night was fun. And then Dustin left and Sunday night I was sitting there thinking, "I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING PLANNED FOR TOMORROW." What did moms do before the internet??? I found these cute Hello Kitty cakes and I had stuff around the house that would work.Plus Sadie had convinced me the last time we were at the store to buy the giant thing of cheese puffs. Plus we have lemon trees which always means fresh squeezed lemonade. So we had food at least.

I also had the amazing foresight to buy some games when we were out three weeks earlier. Like Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty and even better. . . a Hello Kitty DVD in case I got desperate. Which I did. One of Sadie's little friends liked my cake so much that she kept eating and eating until she made herself sick and then the poor little girl threw up. A lot. Thank you DVD for entertaining them while I cleaned up. But we survived and everyone had a good time, so that's all that matters. No one cares that I threw this party together in about an hour. There weren't any cute Hello Kitty headbands like I wanted to make or helium in the balloons, but Sadie was happy. Love that girl.

And of course the next day was her birthday which meant MORE birthday love and kisses. She kept saying, "But it's my BIRTHDAY!" anytime I asked her to do something. I think she got her birthday diva-ness from my sister. She picked Wendy's for dinner and we watched Despicable Me while we had a picnic and then I put her to bed at 7:45 because I was exhausted.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE! You are so full of spunk and personality. I know we wouldn't laugh as much if we didn't have you in our family. You always bring so much life into the room and your dimples melt my heart. Thanks for always rubbing my feet and doing my hair and coming up with the most fabulous comments. Just today you told me, "I actually won't be eating dessert anymore because dessert is not healthy for you." And I actually believe you. You love fruit more than anything in the world and rarely eat anything else anyway. I love your cuddles, even when it's bed time and you keep coming out because you forgot to give me a kiss. And then because you forgot to give me a GREAT BIG KISS! And then because you forgot to give me a squeezy bear hug. At some point you do need to learn to go to bed and that being cute and complimentary will not get you anything in the world. Love you!!

Happy New Year!

Shortly after Christmas my computer started acting funny and it ended up crashing. Dustin went to take it in and decided to buy me a new lap top. A MacBook Air to be exact. I have no idea how much it cost, but Dustin keeps telling the children that it was cheaper to give birth to them than to buy this computer so they are not allowed to have any food or drinks around it. And really -- it may have been cheaper, but did he actually go through the emotional and physical burden of carrying 4 babies for a grand total of almost THREE entire years?? Including one natural child birth in there and let's not even talk about what comes after it. Then I think he should probably not compare the cost of things to giving birth. . . but I digress!

Needless to say I was feeling really guilty about this new computer so I let it sit in a box while I decided whether or not I should keep it. It sat in that box for almost two weeks before Dustin opened it last night and *forced* me to use it (and by force I mean, it's open so it would be even more of a waste of money if I didn't actually use it now that we can't return it -- right?).

And this is a long introduction for why I haven't blogged New Years Eve yet. I didn't have a computer and I was using my phone for everything.

Our New Year's Eve tradition is to head over for appetizers and desserts at the Haymond's house. Last year we rang in the new year with Nate vomiting everywhere, so I knew already 2010 was going to be the best year yet.

Top 5 Reasons New Year's Eve 2010 Rocked

1. The company
We still missed the Maroneys but this year the Christensens were in town so between all their kids and the Haymonds (12 kids) everyone had a friend to entertain them.Also, Brenna has a sweet new baby, Aly, so Dustin and I spent the night fighting over who got to hold her.

2. The Food
All my favorites, but the best part was getting rid of my lemon bundt cake. A few days before we had a party for Jill and Noah who were in town. I wanted to use the new cake stand Dustin got me for Christmas, so I planned on making a lemon bundt cake. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of lemon juice but everyone recommended using a cup of lemon juice instead (curse you All Recipes and your reviews and all the people who have to alter every single ingredient). So "everyone" must have used store bought lemon juice and not fresh off the trees in my backyard fresh squeezed lemon juice because that cake was TART. So tart I couldn't serve it.

I was so bummed because I had spent a lot of time on that cake and I hate to see anything with sugar go to waste, but even I couldn't stomach it. I made the brilliant decision to turn it into a trifle to take on New Year's Eve hoping the pudding and cream and berries would tone it down. It turned out delicious and I felt like I had finally done justice to my baked goods.

I also learned a lesson -- never listen to anyone on All Recipes. Follow the recipe.

3. Just Dance 2
Cue the ridiculous amount of pictures from people playing the game:


We had so much fun playing this game and I love that the whole family can play! There is a continuous play mode where it just randomly gives you songs to dance to so the moms ended up doing 7 or 8 songs in a row before we quit. Between the dancing and all the food/sugar I ate, I felt ill for a good half our. Must carbo load next time I plan on playing this game.

4. The entertainment
We played Apples to Apples Jr with the kids, Craig had a pinata ready to go FULL of candy,there were fireworks AND everyone made it to midnight. . . Plus whatever games the kids played while they were off running around. The five hours went by way too fast.

5. My family
I was so grateful to have some down time with my whole family happy and healthy. Dustin had just survived the YMs campout in a blizzard and all the kids had been sick for the last two weeks. . . it seemed like we were never going to get to enjoy the holidays as a family. I'm happy to say everyone was well and happy as could be. Even Luke who accidentally gotten woken up right before Midnight.

The only way 2011 could top last year?? Better weather. New Year's Eve 2010 was slightly frigid.
I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store! Happy New Year!!