Caroline's First Birthday

You're Invited!

To a Mothers and Daughters Tea Party in Honor of Caroline's First Birthday!

Saturday, May 16, 2009 at Four O'Clock

She wore her Birthday Dress from Grandma Scott, her tiara from Sister Knight, her "Nursery Princess" bracelet and adorable (magnetic) earrings.

So many of our friends came to celebrate with us. Luckily, they are all very tolerant of my "girly-ness"!

Our Little princess. She likes her "tea" a lot. She asks politely for another cucumber sandwich!

Caroline and Bekah enjoy the birthday cup cake!What an adorable cake. Who could have made such a thing? It was me. All me. I did have a practice run that didn't go so well.
Todd didn't mind though. That man loves his cake! He made a "cake sandwich".
She loves her birthday chair from Mom Mom. Notice the adorable blanket that Nanny Jenny made for her, as well as her cute bathing suit from Nonna! The bear on her lap is from Parker.

It was quite an Event! Although, I think I confused a new member of the church who is from Bolivia. She asked, "I'm confused. In the United States... are Mormons allowed to drink tea?" I had to clarify that while we were calling it a "Tea Party" our cups were filled with harmless lemonade. Perhaps I should have put a disclaimer somewhere on the Invite!

Speaking of the cups, Jenny, Liz and I spent a few hours one day painting them with cute little flowers and swirling vines. I thought I should put some sort of glaze on them before I washed them. I glazed them and they smelled so bad I thought for sure they would poison anyone who drank from them (frankly, I thought a poisoned tea cup would make for a perfect, dramatic end to a princess tea party but probably not worth it in the long run...) Anyway, I decided to wash the stinky cups and of course all of the cute paint came off. So now my tea cups were stinky, foggy and no longer adorably painted. Next time I am just going to buy a damn tea set. Can't wait until next year!!!

Little Miss Sunshine

I know, I know. I seem to be favoring Caroline but really it's because she's the only one of my kids who will sit still for any length of time...and I'm sure that won't last much longer!She's cruising along the furniture now and trying so hard to walk on her own. It won't be long before I will only be posting pictures of her as she runs away from me, just like her brothers!

Mom Mom's Mother's Day Surprise

So, we didn't get to see Mom Mom on Mother's Day and I didn't get much of a break on Mother's Day because Todd had lots of meetings and a Finance Final to complete and the Elders showed up to call their Moms. Anyway, we decided that we would have a special Day-After Mother's Day Surprise Celebration!

Parker and Bash and I worked hard on the cupcakes, as you can tell from the last post. I also worked hard on dinner as well as keeping my kids and house clean all day until Mom came over. It was exhausting, as well a lost cause... but such is a Mother's life!

My Mom feigns surprise at her gifts... a salt and pepper shaker to replace the ones my kids had broken at Easter! Yea! She did get a bonus matching butter dish!

And she reads the cards the kids picked out for her. If it were up to my kids all cards would be those singing cards. Those things are like five bucks though, so we reserve them for out-of-town loved ones who don't get to see us very often!

Caroline enjoyed the cupcakes as well.

We all enjoyed our Mother's Day dinner and I enjoyed not cleaning up! Thanks honey!!

I'm pretty sure Mom Mom likes getting the kids all riled up before she leaves. I think she thinks of it as a small piece of revenge for my teenage years!
This was us attempting to get a cute pic of the kids with Mom Mom. As usual, Parker was the most difficult of the bunch. (See Parker's introduction post!)

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, Mother in law, Sisters in law and all my Mom friends!

How to Make Mother's Day Cupcakes with Parker

Find Parker and ask him to pick his favorite cake mix

(he will definitely be more interested in picking out the icing)!

Parker picked yellow cake and chocolate icing. Add cake mix to mixer.

Crack the eggs for him before he adds them to the bowl!

Add water and oil.

Mix!

If you can't understand him Parker says the mixer goes "round and round and round and round... in circles Mommy!" When I ask him who we are making cake for he says "delicious!" I love the look of anticipation on his face. At the end he says "It's done Mommy!" Parker LOVES cake!

Make sure the batter tastes good!

Next we fill the cupcake pans. We like mini cupcakes. What a mess.

Now we get to lick the bowl. And the Spatula. And the scooper.

Caroline wants to taste too! Let's check on the cupcakes! "Mmmmm! Mommy I think they are done!"

Now we have to wait for them to cool. And wait. And wait!

We let Bastian help with the icing!

Pure Heaven...

Strange Visitors from the West...

Ok so it was just Todd's Aunt Donna and Uncle Ray but we had fun and it made us really miss California and all of our family and friends there!

When Bash was a baby he couldn't say "Donna" and always called her "Nonna" which Donna liked because it's sort of like the Italian term for Grandma.

Anyway, now all my kids call her "Nonna". Cute!

Here are some cute pics Nonna took and a few that I took.

A trip to Target can really make our day! Thank goodness our town was finally civilized enough to get a Target (6months ago)... since then my quality of life has gone WAY up!

Caroline in one of her tutu's. It just felt like a tutu kind of day! She seemed to agree. She likes to put it up to cover her face, showing eveyone her little bloomers. Yea!

The boys are enjoying the gifts that Grandma sent along with Nonna. We sure miss Grandma and Grandpa Scott!

Caroline is modeling the new swimsuit she got for her birthday from Nonna. So freakin' cute!

She is really trying to enjoy her apple with all 6 teeth! I think one of her brothers gave her a head start. I think she looks so much like her Mommy in these! Adorable!

We can't wait to see everyone at DisneyWorld in October! We miss you guys!