Happy 8th Birthday Ainsley!

Today is the birthday of my oldest child, Ainsley! I love Ainsley so much. She has changed our lives so much during the last 8 years. Ainsley is smart, funny, creative, talented, and witty. She is good at nearly ANYTHING she tries.
Here is our interview with Ainsley on her 8th birthday:
What is your favorite color? Lavender
What is your favorite food? Steak, Ice cream and Roodt Beer Floats
What do you enjoy doing at school? Art, Cursive, and music
If you could go anywhere on a vacation, where would you go? a cruise
If you got anything you wanted for breakfast in bed, what would it be? Ice Cream
What is your favorite outfit? Well, I don't actually HAVE it yet, but I know you bought it because I saw it in your closet. It's grey leggings with a plaid grey skirt. (peeking in my closet, eh?)
What is your favorite thing to do? Gymnastics.
More than soccer? WAY
TV show? ArthurMovie? Jumanji
Favorite type of art? watercolor
What do you want to be when you grow up? first a teacher and an artist. Then mayor, then President of the United States.What kind of car do you want to drive when you grow up? Limosine
How many kids do want when you grow up? 1,000 (Good luck to your uterus!)

Ainsley's Party

Saturday was Ainsley's birthday party. She decided she wanted to have a fairy party, loosely based on a book and cookbook my mom gave her for Christmas. Here are all the girls playing outside.

Of course this is a sampling of the delicious "fairy food" found in the cookbook.

Does Ryan look like he is going to smack someone? I think it was just a bad shot. The girls were all little darlings. We made cute little fairies out of silk flowers, wooden beads and pipe cleaners. hmmm. No pictures? Then we had a scavenger hunt. We hunted for the items that fairies hide. That included feathers, pinecones, seashells, and rose and gold stones (some little beads I found on clearance at Michaels.) I asked Ainsley if she wanted to make wings or crowns out of ivy. No Way. That is SOOOO girly. I'm sorry, I thought fairies were girly, but apparently they aren't.

The most important thing was that Ainsley had a WONDERFUL time. And it is one thing checked off my WAY TOO FULL plate right now. ;)

Flashback Friday

March 2004
Do you ever bribe your kids to get their pictures taken? If you look carefully you can see fruit snacks hanging out of Brandon's mouth.

A little of this and a little of that...

Ryan dressed up as Cher for Valentines Day. Wow! Yeah, that was a surprise!
Actually we had a fun day with soccer, cleaning etc. But we ended with a wonderful steak dinner and the kids loved it.


Of course I had to throw in another climbing shot of the monkey.

I neglected to add my Saturday weigh in. I lost 1.5 lbs last week. Yay!

And I wanted to share an idea I am doing for Ainsley's baptism. (Courtesy of Julee, Ryan's sister!) If any of you are having your first get baptised, I thought this was a GREAT idea! We had all the family (including grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, you get the picture) write letters to Ainsley sharing their testimonies. There are a few who aren't comfortable with THAT, but were more than happy to just write a letter sharing their love and excitement on her special day. We added pictures of them together and created a book special for her on Shutterfly. It cost about $30, but is so special, it's worth way more. We LOVED this idea Julee did for Katie and Bella, and I KNOW Ainsley will love it, too!

Hope this helps someone in need of a tradition! Have a great day!!!

Valentine Crafts

First of all, I wanted to show off Ainsley's hair. I know the picture isn't the best, but we made hearts in her hair for school today. They were really darling.




Secondly, I had this little wooden box with grand ideas. I got it at a garage sale full of musical instruments for $3. I was thrilled because I already had a crate with the instruments, so I threw them all together and voila! A ready to decorate treasure! The plan was to modpodge it for V-Day for my honey, and use it for papers, etc. on the overcrowded desk. See the cute picture of the temple?





Here's the problem. My ideas are usually not finished as I plan. What the heck? It got all bubbly. WHY did my paper bubble up? Any modpodge experts out there? I need to know before I attempt Alexa's ugly Ikea dresser.

Flashback Friday

Okay, I am feeling a bit of stress these last couple days preparing for Ainsley's party. I have SOOO many things to do, yet she has all these ideas about her enchanted forest party. AHHHH. We'll have to see how it all turns out.

So, I decided to flashback back from back when I had time and creativity.


CUTE cupcakes for school. Now...nothing. Thank goodness the school won't allow it!


Look at that cute cake. I can't believe I did that.


How much did I spend? Too much. We were richer then. ;)

Ainsley's Invitation

Saturday Weigh-In

Okay, I didn't post last week. I only lost .2, that's why! So, this week I lost 3.5 This is a grand total of 10.9. For some of you that is a lot, but I am only 1/4 of the way there. So here's to a good week!!!!

The little monkey

Alexa is our little monkey! The other day I found her on the couch. What? Yesterday we caught her climbing the kitchen barstool rungs like a ladder. Over the TILE!!! Today I was putting away groceries and when I turned around...