Happy birthday yesterday, “Aunt” Amanda! & thanks for stopping by last week!
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Author: Joy
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
Christmas came and went a few weeks ago; maybe I should post a thing or two about it! It was nice to hang out here with Pace’s parents & brother, Cotton. This year was our year for establishing more of our own Christmas traditions. It was about time we decided what our traditions are, since Pace & I have been married for 7 years now!
We had a big, delicious Christmas Eve dinner:
We also watched The Nativity movie & Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, which makes me happy! Some other traditions we have for the Christmas season are: Going to see the temple lights, taking treats to our neighbors (Chase loves that one), watching The Grinch, and secretly taking a big box of gifts + food to someone we know who needs a little extra Christmas cheer & then driving around to see some Christmas lights. That is my favorite tradition!
We all got tons of gifts on the big day. One thing we do to help limit the presents is that each child gets 3 (because the Three Wise Men gave 3 gifts to baby Jesus). But then they get other gifts from relatives, too! Here Charlotte is enjoying the real makeup set that Uncle Cotton gave her. Isn’t Chase a great makeup artist?
On Christmas morning, all the adults were up before the kids were! There’s a first time for everything! We woke the kids up at 7:15 to open presents. We opened all the gifts & made it to our 9am church on time!! So early. But it was wonderful to have church on Christmas Day! I had put together one of the musical numbers for the program—4 of us women sang Mary’s Lullaby from the Children’s Songbook. It was fun to get up & sing! The whole program was simple & special. We came back & got our stockings & hung out the rest of the day.
One highlight of this Christmas was that Pace surprised us all (he’s always full of surprises!) by borrowing our neighbor’s trailer for his parents to sleep in when they stayed at our place on Christmas Eve. It was a pretty nice trailer! The next night, Gretchen, Chase, & Charlotte slept in there.
This picture makes me laugh! Pace feeding apple strings (from peeled apples) to Chase & Charlotte at the McGrandparents’ place!
They also love taking baths there in the fancy jetted tub (just like at the TGrandparents’ house).
So anyway, I LOVE having the Christmas tree & decorations up… But by the end of the month, I’m over it. All the clutter must be put away, ASAP!! I actually started taking things down on Christmas night after the kids had gone to bed. Bah humbug! On Dec. 26th, Chase & Charlotte were saddened by the news & tried to protect the tree so it wouldn’t get put away. It didn’t work!
There’s kind of a sad feeling in the air when Christmas is over & all the excitement of the season is done, but at the same time, it’s always a relief to get back to normal life & back to the regular basic home décor, too. Like when you go on a trip—It’s always nice to leave, but then it’s always nice to come back home, too!
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Caroline at Four Months Old
Here’s Caroline!
In a week, she’ll be 4 months old.
She is 15.5 lbs. and is now into her 6-9 month clothes. She can’t wear leggings because her tummy is too big!
She’s been doing “tummy time” & doesn’t like it that much.
She likes watching her older siblings and smiling at them. She loves when Chase bounces & spins with her. She gets overwhelmed by Charlotte because Charlotte still gets right in Baby Sister’s face & squeaks at her.
She “talks” to us sometimes, especially when she’s getting a diaper change.
She’s starting to be interested in toys & grabs/ holds things and brings them to her mouth. She’s pretty drooly lately.
And I kiss her approximately 400 times per day.
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Scattered Pre-Christmas Update
This has been an exciting time of year! Our only Christmas party was our church party at the very beginning of the month, we got our shopping done early, we didn’t do Christmas cards, and we’re not traveling, so it’s been a very chill time for us.
One thing we’ve been up to is this: We’ve been eating tons of sugar. TONS. Especially Yours Truly. I think we’ve had a record number of treats from neighbors this year, and most have been brought over within the last week… So you’d think that we wouldn’t be baking any sweets. But of course, we love to make treats! We made lots of decorated sugar cookies to hand out to the neighbors. And here’s Chase, making some delicious No-Bake Cookies. He did it all himself and I just told him what to do! And then I ate most of them afterwards!
The picture below is NOT very cute, but it’s one I took recently of all three kids together! I love them. All three have blue eyes. How did this happen? “McCulloch Blue is dominant,” as Granddaddy would say!
We got together recently with Becky & her kids, plus her nephew. Between the two of us, we had 8 kids running around at the Del Taco play place. Awesome! We always get together around our birthdays in December (the rest of our December birthday roommate group has moved away). The original plan this time was to grab some lunch, then take all the kids to a jumpy place, but this play place was fun & FREE so we ditched the first idea & bribed our kids with treats.
I love Becky. She was in my church stake back home & we’ve been friends ever since we met when we were 12. She is just a wonderful, talented friend & mom and I like to hang out with her not only because she’s fun, but also in hopes that some of her awesomeness will perhaps rub off on me!! (Photo courtesy of Chase)
My birthday was great! Pace took the day off work, which made all the difference. Among other things, we went ice skating in the morning as a family while GG held Caroline. Pace is just so hot when he speed skates with ease and does some of his old hockey tricks, like the hockey stop. I just love it! As for Chase, he is doing really well at ice skating & is almost ready for hockey! He practiced with us wearing hockey skates, which were more slippery, but he did just fine.
This is my cousin Leann & two of her three girls. Her oldest is 9! She just had twins as a surrogate mother. Surrogacy is a controversial topic, but I was so amazed by her decision to help a couple have their very own children, when they couldn’t do it on their own.
We visited Leann in the hospital when she had the twins a few weeks ago, & I choked back tears to meet the couple and to see them showing off their twins (girl & boy who were 5 & 6 pounds. Healthy & adorable)!
We haven’t had much snow at all around here so far. But when we do, here is what our front walkway generally looks like. Sometimes I make them clean it up, & sometimes I just do it myself. And when I walk over to put things away, my socks get wet from the snow that has been tracked in the house. Someday I’ll miss this!
Random photo. I just love reading books with my kids! I get this from my mother. Kids’ books are a lot of fun and I can actually focus through the whole book, unlike adult books! They love that book that Chase is holding, Tikki Tikki Tembo. Weird book. But they love to shout Tikki’s entire name as I read it: “Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo!!!” Good times.
And a funny picture below from a while ago. Just had to post it!
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The Siblings
Cute sisters
Chase is such a great big brother to Caroline! He loves to carry her around & make her smile. (He’s wearing his karate uniform in the photo above. He’s loving those karate lessons!)
There are some shining moments when Chase & Charlotte get along well & play together these days, but most of the time, they fight! SO MUCH arguing, screaming, & crying lately… At least everyone gets along with Caroline! I’m so thankful that they adore their baby sister.
Showing us the mints in their mouths! Funny little story about that: They were both sucking on the mints for a long time, so the mints were getting tiny. Chase said, “Mine’s mini.” Charlotte quickly said, “Mine’s Daisy.” Haha! I loved it.
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Thanksgiving in Chilly Idaho
For the Thanksgiving Break, we visited our good friends Bracken & Katie Abrams, who were visiting family in Idaho. It was wonderful to see them. We really, REALLY miss them now that they live all the way over in Arkansas! We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Katie’s grandparents’ cabin out in the middle of nowhere.
Bracken & Katie with (our) baby Caroline.
The highlight of Charlotte’s life! Getting Glitter Toes!!!
The Camo Buddies. They got the matching hats at an Army Surplus store there in Idaho.
They went out on a Man Date to The Museum of Idaho, which had a World War II exhibit going on.
As a family, we went exploring in Idaho Falls. Not too much to explore, but we enjoyed ourselves! Our kids like to open their mouths wide for photos for some reason. Can’t get a serious picture!
Idaho Falls Temple
We stumbled upon a real World War II cannon! 
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Christmas Time at Temple Square
Last night, we went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see the Christmas lights. We loved it!
We got there a little before 5pm, which was nice because it was just getting dark, & we also found free parking on the street. Then all the lights came on as we were unloading from our car. Perfect!
I loved that there was NO snow! Almost December and we’ve only had like 3 snow days! Yessss! Keep up the good work, Utah.
The Salt Lake Temple took 40 years to build (most temples take more like 2-3 years to build). Lots of hard work & sacrifice went into this beautiful building.
Baby Caroline was present as well, but she was all cozy in the stroller, so I opted not to disturb her just to snap a photo.
Chase liked leaning back & pretending he was falling in the water. My photos of that were all blurry, so I won’t post them! We were glad he didn’t actually fall in.
Charlotte loved this Christmas tree in the Visitors’ Center. It had shiny pastel ornaments, including her favorite colors which, of course, are pink & purple.
We also saw the Nativity outside & listened to the story from Luke 2, we saw the beautiful Christus statue in the North Visitors’ Center, we looked at some paintings depicting some Old Testament prophets, and we heard a high school choir perform some Christmas carols. It was a great evening!
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Tea Pah-ty
Charlotte’s favorite pastime lately is to have tea parties. She asks me to have tea parties with her about 5 times a day (she actually asks, “Do you want to have a tea set?”). Sometimes I’m able to oblige, but sometimes I can’t! So I finally showed her how to have a tea party with her dolls (so that I could be off the hook, at least this time).
She raises her eyebrows & asks in a high-pitched, feminine voice, “Would you like some teeeeea?” We’ve tried to get her to say “hot chocolate” rather than “tea,” but apparently it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, because it hasn’t stuck yet!
Side Note: My mom bought Charlotte this tea set a couple months ago when Caroline was born. Charlotte later told me that she wished that the cups, etc. had faces on them, like the ones in her current favorite book, Penny Loves Pink. So I quickly drew some silly little faces on them with a Sharpie. Charlotte was delighted! She calls the teapot “Mrs. Potts,” of course.
