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Can anyone name this song?
We played a fun new card game that took us a little while to learn and we made this fun video for the kids. I think it should be titled “Bi-Polar Date”, what would you title it? Thanks for the fun time last night honey!
Chase is playing Mini Mites Hockey this winter.
Too cute!… I mean… fierce, rough, & tough!
But don’t worry, he’s not all tough guy these days. He has a special tenderness in his heart for this little tiny sister. He rocked her to sleep in the rocking chair for her nap yesterday morning.
Chase cares about Caroline a lot. Any moment that she starts crying, he tells me anxiously that I need to pick her up! Otherwise, he takes the initiative because he can’t stand to hear her cry for more than one second.
Chase brought this drawing home from his church class a couple weeks ago, & it made my heart melt.
My parents gave Charlotte this adorable mini vanity & stool for her 3rd birthday.
Perfect for a little girl who is obsessed with stereotypical girly things! No, not with baby dolls, but with jewelry, makeup, & everything princess-y. And since Uncle Cotton gave Charlotte a big bag of real makeup for Christmas (thanks, I guess) & princess hair things for her birthday, she had the vanity drawer well-stocked in no time.
Charlotte has had a couple of friends over to get all dolled up with her. She had been very tidy with the makeup before she had this friend over… But after her friend smeared red lip gloss all over the place, I made them call it quits!!
It’s a shame that I didn’t take pictures of her & her other friend Ava, after they had done what they called “scary makeup” on each other! Which meant huge, multi-colored circles of cream eye shadow on their cheeks, and dark streaks across their eyelids.
Ah, to be young again!!
Dear friends who still have yahoo emails. Please take me out of your yahoo address books. I’m tired of getting spam from your easily exploited email provider. Even if you have already switched, I would strongly recommend you move my personal information out of yahoo completely. Thank you for understanding. P.S. Nada you have two of my email addresses in yahoo.
For those of you who haven’t or can’t come visit Caroline, she wanted to talk to you.
Happy birthday yesterday, “Aunt” Amanda! & thanks for stopping by last week!
Charlotte had her first real birthday party a week ago! I think I spent way too long on the party prep, but what can I say?… It was a blast.
Charlotte & I made these Pascal Party Blowers for the guests (idea from Disney family website). They were easy to make & they were a big hit, as I had hoped!
As we were making these, Charlotte asked me why I was doing this for her party. I told her it was because I love her! When I asked her if she liked them, she responded sincerely, “Yeah. I’m so proud of you.” Also, I messed up when I was cutting them out, and got annoyed. Charlotte came up to me and rubbed my shoulder saying in a soft, soothing voice, “It’s okay. We’ll fix it.” (I had to laugh at myself for overreacting over some wasted sticky foam.) She’s such a sweetie pie!
I’d printed out several “Wanted: Flynn Rider” signs & had Chase draw all different funny noses on Flynn, like in the movie. Chase taped them all over the house. We’d also printed sun flags & made a Tangled sun banner.
As the little guests arrived, they put on their Rapunzel hair clips (GG & Cotton had made them for me, with clips & long strands of yarn). They also decorated their own shiny paper tiaras with stickers, & drank some pink party punch (Cherry 7-Up with juice & sherbet).
I came up with these Pascal Quesadillas, which were definitely much more fun to look at than to eat. The girls weren’t fans of the spinach tortillas! I had kinda figured that would happen. But they were just so cute, I couldn’t help it! (Spinach tortillas, cheddar cheese inside, slice of hard-boiled egg + olive for the eye, licorice string mouth, & red bell pepper tongue.)
We had the food sitting on the table in frying pans! (I borrowed that idea from someone’s blog.)
I had Pace buy 3 songs from the Tangled movie & he had them playing in a loop during the whole party. And he cranked up the volume for Dance Time!
Charlotte received lots of pink, girly presents!
Casey was the star of the party. The girls thought he was so funny! He was talking like a girl as Jess braided his Rapunzel hair.
So naturally, I put Casey in charge of executing the games. He was the ringleader for “Rapunzel Says” (aka Simon Says), and for “Hide & Go Seek Rapunzel” (one girl would hide the doll & then the others would go find it).
“Rapunzel Says” was the cutest game to watch– Little girls all doing the same actions & giggling!
Everyone got party bags at the end (I had bought a pack of Tangled stickers to decorate colorful bags, & also the cups on the table). The girls got to take home a couple of Tangled coloring pages I’d printed, the Pascal party blowers, the Rapunzel hair clips, their decorated tiaras, & of course, candy!
I spent a lot of time baking & decorating this cake, so I just wanted to document it for posterity or something. I had a lot of fun decorating it & I was grateful to Gretchen & Cotton for watching Chase & Charlotte so I could get it done! I’ll describe it below in case anyone wants to make one!
I just used a regular 9×13” pan for this cake. I used a box cake mix, but added sour cream, pudding, sugar, & flour to make it more moist & dense. After baking it, I sliced it into two layers and put coconut cream pudding in between the layers. You just make it from pudding mix & use less milk so it’s thick & won’t seep out.
(I always do a thin “crumb layer” of frosting on the cake to pick up all the crumbs. After it sits in the fridge for a bit, I frost another thin layer over the crumb layer so that no crumbs will be in sight! I smooth it out by running the spatula under warm water before smoothing the frosting a couple times.)
I made the tower out of “Cocoa Pebbles Treats” (I made Rice Krispie Treats except with Cocoa Pebbles, sprayed my hands with Pam, & then squished it into a tower shape over a wooden dowel). I dipped a sugar cone in melted candy melts for the top of the tower (got that idea from Bakerella). It was a lot heavier than I’d anticipated, but Pace helped me put the tower into the cake with a little Styrofoam piece inside part of a plastic cup so it wouldn’t tip over! Yay Pace!
I bought the Tangled characters set at the Disney store (on sale)! I used jelly bean rocks (yummy!) around the bottom & on the top. The blue sprinkle river is outlined with black licorice strings, and has mini Swedish Fish inside. I used a leaf tip for the ivy leaves on the tower, and a little star tip to cover the two sugar cone trees with frosting.
It was fun and my kids loved the finished product!
See all the party photos in our Jan album