Barb's Bridal Shower

In case you didn't notice I'm finally back posting the rest of the Christmas trip and January-April. What can I say? There's a bunch there now and I'll be adding more when I finally get projects done and get the pictures taken.

So for now, I'll try to update more consistently but who am I kidding. I'm due in 4 weeks so in 3 more months I'll probably be back posting again all of May-July :) Sorry.

So Taylor comes from a family of 3 boys and a girl. His 2nd brother got married 2 years ago which was it's own drama with lots of international travel adventures. Then last summer both his 3rd brother and his only sister got engages. His brother will be married this October back in Maryland (yeah for the excuse to visit DC!) and his sister is getting married here in Salt Lake in May.

She attended college in West Virginia and has been gone the last 5 years so she doesn't have that many close friends here. So I offered to help her mom throw a bridal shower for the neighborhood, her friends, and all the extended Woodbury family (which is a lot). If you know his sister you will understand our theme.

Barbara is about the least girly-girl you could meet. Seriously she is more of a boy than her brothers are. She played rugby in college and then afterwards in a semi-pro league making it to the National Championship. She was a river raft guide for 2 summers on a pretty intense stretch of river in Pennsylvania. And while she was a guide, she lived in a tent all summer down by the river. She hates dresses and LOVES fishing, hiking, playing sports, and generally anything adventurous.

So when I was searching pinterest I had to skip all the cute, flowery, ribbony parties. It took a while but then I stumbled upon the idea to use boardgames as a theme. And Barbara loves games so it was right up her alley. We had everyone write on Jenga blocks advice for how to keep your marriage fun. And for favors Taylor's mom got little keychain games.

We used a checkerboard tablecloth and added little checkers pieces for decorations.
We used scrabble pieces to spell out the different kinds of food choices.
And Taylor's mom even found playing card toothpicks for the fruits.
We used connect 4 and boggle to label the drink choices. Of course all the food choices were the kinds of food Barbara likes- nothing cutesy or deserty- just sub sandwiches, fruits, vegis, banana bread and brownie bites. Super Easy!

And here's cute Barb and her fiance Clint.
My favorite was using scrabble letters to make a banner.
Love my die-cut machine!
For invitations we created a "Barb and Clint" game of life complete with details and events from their lives. It turned out super cute although it took forever to do! All in all a cute party and I think Taylor's mom said it correctly when she said we'd thrown a completely "appropriate Barbara party".

Easter Ties

And what Easter would be complete with out new church outfits? Sadly I couldn't even bring myself to shop for boys clothes (they're just not that cute compared to all the cute girly spring dresses!!!) but I did find a tutorial on Pinterest for how to make 20 minute ties for little boys. So 1 hour later (sewing not shopping) and 1/4 yard of each kind of fabric later I had 3 cute, very excited boys.

Here they are post-Easter basket, coming down off their sugar highs, watching a little Veggie Tales Easter show while mom and dad get ready for church. I love that even with a monster couch to spread out on, they all end up next to each other. So adorable!

Apparently I don't put them in ties often enough because they were STOKED to have ties. They kept curling them up and down and Miles kept saying "I go da work with dad?". Apparently tie means work to him. And he's happy to take a picture as long as you let him collect random golf balls from grandpa's yard first.
Here's the ties. They cost about $1 each in fabric and a little elastic and were really 20 minutes apiece to make. So easy. Just print the pattern, add on some length for older boys, sew, iron, fold the top, add elastic, measure on each child and you're done! I will definitely be making more ties in the future!

Peep S'mores- Genius!

Here's another idea I got off Pinterest that we'll be doing EVERY year (as long as it's not snowing which it often is in Utah for Easter) because it was SUCH a hit.

Peep S'mores! Yep, you heard that right. We roasted peep marshmallows and made them into VERY yummy s'mores. Doesn't he look cute all fluffy and ready to be squished!

In the summer when we do smores my kids rarely eat more than one but these they could have gone all night with. Apparently that extra bit of colored sugar makes them amazing! Can you believe it's 80 degrees in Utah on Easter???

Miles was smart and stayed back from the fire.
That's right- let dad do the roasting and you do the eating!
Ethan found a branch that had fallen off a tree with 2 ends so he could roast them double time.

What we learned though is that you can't catch them on fire- it's actually almost impossible to do it. They turn into a creme brulee and the sugar browns all over the peeps before he even will actually catch fire. So less of a hit if you like the blackened crust marshmallows.
So yummy! Actually had to drag them in when the supplies were all gone. And they still wanted more! Next year peeps! We're buying more!

Here Comes the Easter Bunny

Again it was nice to stay home for a holiday because I felt like I had more time, energy, and even a little extra money to spend making it more memorable. And again I found my ideas on Pinterest (love it!) so if you want to copy just look in my Easter Board. Seriously can I just extol the virtues of Pinterest a little here? You get to save fabulous ideas somewhere they're easily organized and I don't have to print or do anything until I'm ready to actually do the project. It's genius! So some woman created this fabulous basket hunt and I just printed it off, cut out the feet and added my own clues. So easy!

The Easter bunny left paw prints taking you to the first clue.
We left out carrots and MAGICALLY they disappeared!
4 clues later the kids arrived downstairs at their baskets. So much fun! And yeah for afternoon church so they kids could enjoy a little candy and some toys and not be totally unfocused or hyper at church.

Dieing Eggs

Of course with Easter dinner the next day, we HAD to die eggs so they'd be beautiful for our deviled eggs. The previous year I'd found this box of "no mess" dieing things for 90% off so it's been waiting for us for a year and we finally decided to try it out. Waste of money! Glad it was only 30cents.

The kids enjoyed dropping the eggs into the color but getting them out was impossible and actually more messy than just using a cup and a spoon like normal.

Fun to shake around though.
And of course they're always impressed with the white crayon effect.
Since it was just us for Easter dinner we only colored a few (cause we can't eat more than that many deviled eggs!) but with 3 little boys, that was all their interest in dieing anyways so it was perfect.

The Easiest Egg Hunt Ever

The end of spring break required no planning on my part to entertain these boys. Saturday morning there were literally 4 different local egg hunts I thought we might hit up. Last year we went to just one and it was a little crazy- a free for all where they blew the whistle and if you didn't get eggs or candy in the first 15 seconds, then you got none. So I was thinking maybe we'd need to try a few of the 4 local ones to make everyone in our group happy. But I was wrong. The earliest one to start was at our local grocery store with free breakfast and free cookie decorating so how can you pass that up?

Once we were stuffed on doughnuts and juice and cookies we headed off to the isles by ages and found this. Seriously? Candy just dumped on the floor with some eggs mixed in. Does it look like Isaac is disappointed though???

And it was perfect for Miles. I guess I was thinking they'd stick eggs on the shelves and it would be an actual "hunt" but that would be more work for them to restock since I'm sure things would get knocked off. So in the end my kids made out like bandits. There were seriously so few kids there- like 4-5 per age group that nobody actually picked it all up.
See? A ridiculous amount of candy! Not that these boys would agree with that.
And the part that I was most excited about??? The plastic eggs mixed into the candy had coupons for FREE products on them- puddings, fruit snacks, soda, popcorn. So not only do we have candy that will last until Halloween (sheesh!) we also are getting almost 15 dollars in free groceries. Fun!
And since I hadn't told the kids we might go to more than one hunt, Taylor and I decided we didn't need to. Easy peasy- done by 9am! And the kids were hopped up on sugar and happy to play together the rest of the morning!

Help My Sister Adopt!

You may have noticed the cute picture and link on the left side of our blog. That's my fabulous sister Kelli and her hubby Dana. We love them and wish they lived closer to them. They live in a cute little town in Washington State surrounded by farms and amazing produce. Dana is Taylor's favorite brother-in-law mostly because they both love golf and board games and video games. And Kelli is amazing. She is funny and smart and writes fiction books in her spare time. She's the one we all call for financial advice in the family.
Sadly, they've been married now for 6 years and are having a hard time starting their family. So they've signed up with LDS Family Services and are hoping to adopt soon. They've been told though that their best chance of getting a baby is by getting the word out. So I'm going to keep their blog link up on my blog and if any of you knows a girl who's looking to adopt maybe you could give her the link.
We know Kelli and Dana will be amazing parents. They are great with our boys and our boys LOVE them! We can't say enough good things about them. So spread the word!