Back to School Feast

Now that school has been in for a month and a half, I want to share about the back to school feast we had this year.

This is an idea I've toyed with for a while that we'd never actually done, but I really wanted to do it this year. Planning was very last minute and I wasn't really sure if I would actually attempt it or not, pretty much until the day before, but I was able to pull together a fun night, and I feel pretty proud of that.

One of the things that I really got stuck on in the planning process was coming up with a theme. I wanted something that would be applicable to our whole family, not just the ones going back to school. (Specifically, something that would be applicable to me with this pregnancy and the upcoming birth that I'm still pretty nervous about most days.)

I had all sorts of ideas, but I started to think that I needed to pull our theme from April's General Conference addresses. I don't know if this is the same for everyone else in the Church, but I feel like there's one particular quote from President Nelson (from this talk) that keeps coming to my attention, in lessons, meetings, and personal study. He said, "In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost." It felt so right. 

I think the theme was one of the things that held me up the most, like I couldn't do the whole feast without it, so having that chosen made going forward with the rest of the planning went a bit easier after that.

I set our table with a brown packing paper covering, a vase of sunflowers in the center, and two jars full of #2 pencils on either side of the flowers. I also wrote out a few scriptures to go with our theme that we could read and discuss during dinner. And I wrote our theme quote on a full sheet of cardstock with fancy lettering to display at dinner as well as to hang in our home for the year to come.

Because pancakes are kind of the center of basically all of our celebrations, it only felt right to do breakfast for dinner, featuring delicious apple pancakes + syrup. We also had a potato + egg scramble, a rainbow fruit plate, and orange juice. It was all so tasty!

We ate and talked about the year ahead, our theme, and how we can invite the influences of the Spirit as mentioned in the quote. After everyone ate, the pencils came out of the jars and nearly everyone was doodling on our paper table top. As the evening came to a close, the kids were given their backpacks. (Normally I let them pick out their own, but due to some less than awesome circumstances, I did this year's backpack shopping solo.) Inside their packs they found a few pencils, a folder, and a notebook that I had written our theme into the cover of, as well as some ideas of how to invite the influences of the Spirit and a little message from me. 

As with most of our parties and celebrations, there was a lot I wanted to do - specifically decor-wise - that I just couldn't accomplish with our limited budget and my last minute preparations. Things like balloons and twinkly lights and all manner of beautiful ideas from Pinterest. And you can only make it look so nice with mis-matched, dingy old folding and camp chairs. Ha. But, even though it didn't look exactly how I wanted, it was still a lovely evening. I'm really hoping to make this an annual tradition.

birthday recap 1

Birthday season (June-October, for us) is almost over! While I love, love, love birthdays, I'm also really excited that we're almost done! Because I want birthdays to be special and fun, I end up getting pretty stressed out over them, which in the end is totally worth it, and is also why I'm glad we get it over and done with over 4 short months.

Anyway, because it's almost over, I feel like it's about time I do a birthday recap. Mostly because I want to show off the cakes and pancakes I made (I work hard on those suckers!), but also to have a record of my babies growing. And this year was a big one, my oldest turned 10 and the baby turned 1! (Time is a cruel beast.)

I think because there are so many of them, I'm going to break up the posts, so I'll recap the first two birthdays here, and then I'll share the others in additional posts.

First up was Z, who turned 7 in June. He said he wanted a bat cake this year so, when I made his birthday pancakes, I tried to make him a little bat pancake to go with the standard birthday number pancake. Seven. What is life?

Then there was the actual birthday cake. I ask the kids in advance what kind of cake they want, and then I spend the next little while brainstorming how to make it happen, and then usually end up winging it (ha, bat) the day of their birthday, which was exactly the case for this one. I made a 9x13 yellow cake, and then I mostly eyeballed, with a little bit of help from a make-shift paper template I created, the cuts to make it sort of bat-shaped. In the end, it worked out, so yay!

Along with his bat-shaped cake, we splurged a bit and got him the Lego Batman movie. His face says it all. I love his explosive excitement. Also, that bedhead that he rocked all day. Summer break is the best. (Who am I kidding? He goes to school with crazy bedhead most days. It's fine.)

This was also the first birthday after we moved back to Utah, which meant we were able to invite cousins to come hang out and celebrate with us! Hooray! But I didn't get any photos of our guests that time! Not hooray!

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In July, I became the mother of a 10-year-old. What the actual crap? I decided I would be funny about it, so I made a special hashtag. You know, because we do that with our brand new babies - #babysfirstbath #babysfirsttooth #babysfirststep - so I came up with the hashtag #babysfirstdecade. I know, I know, I'm hilarious. C was not impressed.

This year, he kept being a sassafrass about me not having him on the 4th of July. Because I was in total control of when he was born, you know? Kids. Anyway, it meant that he wanted this super patriotic birthday, so there was that. I decided I wanted to make it a little extra, so I ran to the store first thing in the morning looking for some 4th of July themed mini M& M's and some whipped cream for inside and to top the pancakes. Except no matter how hard I looked, there wasn't a single bag of patriotic M&M's left in the store. So I grabbed a regular bag and had C separate the reds and blues from the rest while I made the pancakes. #childlabor

I kinda decided, on a whim, that I didn't want to make giant, digit shaped pancakes for double digit numbers, so once my kids hit ten and beyond, their pancakes will be the standard round shape, with the full number on them. I made him a regular one and one filled with M&M's. I liked the look of the plain one better, he preferred the candy-filled one. Whatever. We covered them with syrup, whipped cream, and more candy, so who cares?

Pancake party!!

To go with the whole wish-I'd-been-born-on-the-4th, patriotic theme, he decided he wanted his cake to look like the American flag. Fine. Adding the sparklers was my idea. I'm so clever.

I thought it would be such an easy cake, but let me tell you, it was kinda tedious. Like when I got that bottle of pastel-multi-color star sprinkles and poured the whole thing out so I could pick out the white ones... But as I was sweating over trying to get those red and white stripes, without turning the whole frost job into a marbled pink, I was still happy. Because making a cake that makes my kid feel special feels, well, special.

And would you look at that, a picture with some party guests! I'm telling you, each party through this birthday season has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. We're having the final party, to end birthday season, this Friday, and it's probably the biggest one yet. I'm pretty excited and also super hopeful it doesn't end up being lame. 

first birthday flamingle

Last year, the wait for our baby girl to arrive was overwhelming. I'd been hoping for a girl, honestly, with every baby since miss E arrived. I have 6 sisters, and always imagined I'd have a house full of girls, but it's been boys, boys, boys. So, finally, I was getting another girl, and I just wanted her here. I mean, I had a timeline, of sorts, because I'm weird and want things to be orderly and patterns and I'm weird. And then she didn't come, was too cozy, each day that passed felt like it was taking forever, each night as I climbed into bed I hoped it would be the night, and each morning I'd wake after a full night of sleep and little miss wiggling around inside and feeling like she'd never come. But she finally did, with some coercion, but she came. Nearly two weeks late, but she came! All that waiting was finally rewarded with a sweet, tiny, perfect girl.

And then I blinked.

Now she's a year old.

And walking like a pro.

She is beautiful and bright, a little ray of sunshine, and a bit of a sassy-pants too, if I'm honest.

I knew the day was coming, but I still kind of let it sneak up on me. Thankfully, not so much so that I couldn't pull together a super cute, flamingo-themed first birthday party.

Number one in my vision was a matching headband and cake topper from one of my absolute favorite bow shops, Fancy Free Finery.

I especially loved how quickly they arrived, especially being a custom order, and as soon as I opened the box I died. They were exactly as I had envisioned, completely perfect. I felt like, no matter how anything else turned out, I would be happy with how the party turned out. Dorky, maybe, also totally true.

(PS - Not sponsored, I just seriously love this shop.)

The only other thing that I was super set on was making a birthday tu-tu for my girl, just like I had for E's first birthday. Of course, procrastination meant I was up until 4:30 am on her birthday making it and was a glitter monster by the end, since I'd gotten glittery tulle, but I got it done!

From there, everything else just came together. Along with sitting up and making a tu-tu, I blew up some balloons and hung them around the living room. Then there were birthday pancakes, once I was awake. A number 1, and a baby flamingo, naturally.

The rest of the day was spent somewhat frantically, as I tried to get a cake and a bunch of cupcakes baked and decorated, as well as ensuring that the house was in shape for guests. It would not have been possible without the help of Boss and one of my wonderful sisters. Not to forget the contribution of food in the form of pizza from another awesome sister. (You guys, sisters are the best. ...I need to have more girls!!)

Most everything was ready by the time our guests started arriving, so I was able to chill out a bit and enjoy the company. And every time I walked in the kitchen, I couldn't help admiring how perfect the cake looked with that beautiful cake topper. Like, I just cannot believe my baby is a year old, how could this happen? But everything turned out so perfectly, so it was hard to feel upset. Haha..

My aunt even got her (us? haha) a pair of flamingo moccasins from Freshly Picked! And grandma Rosie made her a super cozy flamingo blanket. And we were surrounded by family and friends, not everyone, unfortunately, but like I said in my last post, after 6 years away, it just feels magical.

But seriously, why/how/why, why, why is my baby girl already one?!

birthday recap pt. 2

July is extra busy because there are actually 2 July birthdays. C is at the beginning of the month, and N is later. This year, he turned 3 and, because he has been obsessed with Magic School Bus (thank you, Netflix!), he really wanted a Magic School Bus cake. Thankfully, it was good enough to just make a cake look like a bus, and not like the actual bus from the show. Even now, months later, he still talks about his Magic School Bus birthday, so obviously, I did a good job. 

We get a break in August. Sort of. Because we have our anniversary in August, but nobody's birthday. But before I knew it, September had arrived and we were celebrating S turning 5. 

His birthday was pretty exciting because it happened to coincide with some very special visitors. My grandparents were able to visit from Costa Rica, and while they weren't able to make it to his party, it did mean that we had family come up from California, and they were able to party with us.

S wanted a lightsaber birthday, and I'm all about complying with birthday requests. We went with cupcakes, instead of a bigger cake. Not my favorite, because I felt like it looked sloppy, but to my boy, it was perfect, so hooray!

I super love having friends and family over to help celebrate all the bossling birthdays, it was hard to be away from siblings and parents as my children reached milestones and never stopped growing, no matter how nicely I asked. So having all these gatherings with friends and family has been by far one of my greatest joys since moving back to Utah. 

an afternoon at wheeler farm

We were in Utah nearly a month ago, for my 30th birthday. (...Um, wut? How the crap am I 30?) One of the things that I decided I wanted to do while we were there was to visit Wheeler Farm. I love Wheeler Farm. I can remember going there on field trips in elementary. It's one of the places that comes up nearly every time we talk about what we miss about living in Salt Lake.

We met up with Boss's cousin Bellinda and her two boys. I love Bellinda more than I love Wheeler Farm, and it was awesome to get to hang out with one of my favorite people at one of my favorite places.

Now, here's a million pictures (and one gif) from our day at the farm:

grati-tuesday // 1

Weekends aren't usually my favorite. Mr. Boss works most Saturdays, so normally we don't do much. Plus, even after almost a month into the new school year, I'm not  feeling recovered from summer break, so weekends are mostly hard. This weekend, though? It was pretty spectacular. It was very full and busy and so fun.

I want to tell you about our fun weekend, and I want to do that by sharing what I'm grateful for. Actually, I want to  start a new, regular gratitude feature, where I share the things I've been feeling thankful for recently. This idea was inspired by the {gratitude lately} feature on Today's Letters, and kind of goes along with last week's post, as I try to incorporate expressing gratitude in my life a bit more.

I'm so grateful for a sweet friend from church who threw me a baby shower on Saturday. And that my mother in law sneakily surprised me by coming up for it. (Also grateful to her for watching our kiddos Friday night so we could go out for our 10th anniversary. We were only a week late.) ♡

Grateful for temples, that we were able to stop and admire the (tiny) Snowflake, AZ temple on our way to visit my cousin and his family on Sunday. I'm grateful for the time we were able to spend with my cousin. Our kids had so much fun together. ♡

I'm grateful for the time we got to spend as a family on Monday, thanks to the holiday. Mr. Boss wasn't feeling very well, but the fresh air did us all some good. ♡

I'm grateful for the sweet vendor we met at Art in the Park who, after we had moved on, ran over with a little gift for our family. A handmade, wooden "peanut butter" knife. ♡

I'm grateful for the beauty that can be found everywhere, if you just look. (Like the shadows cast on the side of our van as we were loading up to leave the playground). I'm also forever grateful for our van, that made all our adventures this weekend a possibility. ♡

What have you been thankful for lately? 

my baby is 2

Isn't he just so handsome?!

So, I'm a tiny bit behind on posting about this cutie's birthday that was almost a month ago... It's mostly because I was waiting until I'd gotten him to open his birthday cards from his grandmas, but he hasn't yet. Not that I haven't tried, he just hasn't been interested in them whenever I have, and it's been so long I figured it was time to just write about his day and stop worrying about those cards. We'll get to them eventually.

Saying goodbye to aunt Becca. ♡♡♡

For the almost 2 weeks before his birthday, we had one of my younger sisters here visiting and helping me out with the chaos that was summer break with 5 wild kiddos. She went home 2 days before his birthday, I just had to share this sweet picture of their goodbye hug. I think he really liked having aunt Becca around. Even now, on occasion, he will ask where Becca went, or think someone he sees while we're out and about is her.

First move after I slid the pancake in front of him was to stick his face in it.
Not really surprised.

Okay, on to his actual birthday. We started the day off with none other than a special "2" shaped birthday pancake. All he wanted to do was eat it, I was the mean mommy who kept stopping him so I could get a few pictures, kind of like last year. It reminded me of a certain other bossling who has always preferred to skip the pictures in favor of digging right in to the food that was set before him. Funny babes.

We tried to distract him from tearing apart the pancake by giving him an apple.
It kind of worked and kind of didn't.

Being silly with daddy.

Because Boss was working that day, we waited until he was home to do the cake and candle. Before that, though, they spent some time together being silly outside. The kids had left a rubber snake in the yard, N picked it up and kept shoving it into his dad's face, Boss would exaggeratedly recoil and let out fake shouts of terror, which made our special little birthday boy crack up.

The cake had been a tough one to come up with. Generally I ask the kids what kind of cake they want, but 2 is a hit or miss age. Some of them knew what they wanted at this age, some haven't. N didn't seem to get what I was asking, he just wanted cake. (He's very much my child in that regard.) I finally thought we'd settled on a monkey cake, but then there started to be talk about a dinosaur cake, so that's what we went with. I hopped on google to get some ideas, and finally landed on this cake. There was a link in the recipe for a template, I don't have a printer, so I just had to eyeball it, but I think I did pretty well. I used mini, regular, and peanut butter m&m's for the spots and toes, which was a little different than the suggested candies, and I made our dinosaur smile.

The birthday boy seemed really pleased with his dinosaur cake, and was especially excited when we lit the candle and started singing to him. It was another windy evening, but we had better luck with his candle staying lit than on his big brother's birthday. Then he blew that candle out all on his own, like the not-so-little boy that he is. My baby is 2, and only a month away (give or take) from officially becoming a big brother. Time flies!

The cake.

He was pretty of obsessed with that snake all evening.

He was so excited by the fire.

Happy Birthday, Baby Bear. ♡