Surprise!!!!

I've been working on it for weeks! We pulled it off and had a great time! Last night I threw a surprise birthday party for Eric. He was very surprised!

I asked Eric's brother to keep him away from our house for the afternoon. Ryan was awesome and I couldn't have done it without him! Thanks Ryan!

Everyone was waiting for Eric when he got home. He said he didn't suspect anything until he saw my balloon wreath on the door....that tipped him off.

Eric's Mom and I have been gathering things for weeks for this party. I wanted to display as many pictures and things that are meaningful to Eric as I could. I think we came up with a pretty good spread. A huge thank you to my awesome Mom-in-law for finding great pictures and memorabilia for me!

Some of Eric's favorite things....BYU football, The Godfather, Les Miserable, traveling, Pink Floyd, languages, Psych, and Heart of Darkness

I tried to display as much as I could. He has done a lot in his 30 years of life!

We had tons of yummy food! Tessa liked the frosting!

I was so afraid no one was going to come-so thank you to all who came! It wouldn't have been any fun without you! We have wonderful family and friends!!

He blew out all 30 candles!

Happy Birthday Eric!

I had many requests for this....it's my new favorite thing!!

I will post instructions on my food blog this week.

The Big 30!

Eric turned 30 yesterday! We tried to make his big birthday special. I spent the morning baking cinnamon rolls to take to work for him to have for brunch with his co-workers. Adam and Tess drew him some birthday pictures and we delivered everything with some birthday balloons to him at work.

We went to dinner at his favorite place....Tucanos! We left very, very full! But it was worth it!

Every year Eric asks for my praline and caramel cheesecake for his birthday. Since I knew we would be having a big dinner, I made him a mini version. So yummy!

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Husband and Daddy! We love you so much!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today we wrapped up our Dr. Seuss activities. We still have a few more books to read tomorrow, but since I work all weekend, we finished our activities today.

We read about eight Dr. Seuss books today...I don't think my tongue will ever be the same! Talk about tongue twisters!!

After we read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish", we made our own fish bowls. Tessa ate her fish as fast as she could glue them on. That totally grossed Adam out!

After reading "Bartholomew and the Oobleck", we made some Oobleck of our own! What a hit!! They played with it for an hour.

They probably would have played longer, but when I turned my back to fold a sheet....my kitchen floor was suddenly covered in Oobleck. Luckily it was only cornstarch and water. Adam was covered in Oobleck as well, so we cleaned up and took a lunch break.

After lunch we read about Horton. We made elephant ears and had some quiet time while we watched "Horton Hears A Who". They laughed and laughed through the whole thing!

Our two monkeys acting like elephants!

We have had a fun Dr. Seuss week! This will be something we look forward to every year!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We started our day with Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast! Tessa (our VERY picky eater) won't touch eggs. She had a mickey mouse shaped pancake....not very Dr. Seussish, but whatever! At least she ate. Adam thought eating green eggs was very cool!

Most of our activities planned for today had to be postponed due to a dead camera battery. I want these fun days documented!

We did get a few things in before we lost the camera. Two of the books we read today were, "The ABC Book" and "Fox in Socks". We pulled out all of our alphabet cookie cutters and Adam worked on spelling words from the books. Tess was as helpful as a little sister could be. She liked stealing the letters from Adam. She has been kind of a pill today:) Shocking, I know!

We made Cat in the Hat cupcakes. I really wanted to make Thing One and Thing 2 cupcakes, but the kids voted for Cat in the Hat. Here is our creation. The kids love decorating cupcake and cookies!

Adam asked me yesterday how Dr. Seuss was going to blow out his candles and open his presents if he is in heaven. I laughed and told him our present to Dr. Seuss was going to be reading as many of his books as we can and making a yummy treat to share with our friends. He was okay with that answer!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today kicked off Dr. Seuss week for us! I had a list about 2 pages long of different activities to do with the kids for Dr. Seuss week, but for my own sanity, I limited myself to 3 activities a day. Today we started with a Cat in the Hat breakfast. I made the kids pancakes to look something like the cat's hat. Nothing great, but the kids loved them. (Tess gladly handed her strawberries over to Adam. It was worth a shot!)

After Adam finished his worksheets for Mommy School, we played a Dr. Seuss matching game. Adam would play matching games all day long if I had that kind of patience.

We made Cat in the Hat hats! I think they look more like something the Pope would wear, but we had fun making them and Adam can't wait to show his daddy!

I have every Dr. Seuss book I could get my hands on for this week. We cleaned out the city library, our own family library, and my parents library. We are hoping to get through them all. I have about 30 written just by Dr. Seuss. Some I have never heard of and several of them have words I can't even pronounce! What a creative man! We are excited to spend the week celebrating his birthday and creativity!!

(My constant battle with Tessa is getting her to smile for pictures!)

Wedding #2

My little catering business is doing fairly well. I get a job now and then and that is just how I like it. I now have a partner...my bff Jodi. We both love to cook and I needed some help with this wedding, so we decided to make it an official partnership. We have worked together on and off for 10 years, so she's knows what she is getting herself into. We catered a wedding luncheon for 100 people this weekend. They asked for a 4 course meal, so we had our work cut out for us. We had nothing but compliments and a few people ask for our "information" so they could call us for other events. Yahoo! It was a lot of work and poor Jodi's 6 month old was admitted to the hospital for RSV in the middle of it all, so the day could have been better. All in all, things went well though.

I didn't get a chance to take many pictures, but here is a glimpse of our layout.

The menu:

Minestrone Soup

Italian Salad and Creamy Italian Dressing

Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken

Breadsticks

When I got home I had a cute sign waiting for me. A great surprise to end a big day!

Fourteen Days of Love (Day 13 and 14)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We combined day 13 and 14 for our Valentine's Day celebration. We had a fun Valentine's day, but my favorite part was our lovely dinner. I made chicken cordon bleu, mashed red potatoes, roasted asparagus, spinach salad, homemade rolls and Shirley Temple's. It was delicious and I was so happy to have our china handy to use.

After dinner we watched a romantic movie....our wedding video. The kids loved it and Eric and I couldn't believe how young we were! I am happy to say we love each other even more than we did 6 1/2 years ago!

For our valentine's dessert we had fondue! The kids went to town with the chocolate and by the time we had finished, the kids had more chocolate on them than inside them. But it was fun! Happy Valentine's day to my wonderful man and 2 sweet babies. I love you!!!