Things About Three

Although she promised me otherwise, Harper went ahead and turned three.  A Minnie Mouse party was in the works, until Doc McStuffins suddenly and swiftly took over our lives and we all knew that we had to make it happen.

After binge watching a few episodes, I think we came up with a pretty solid Doc Mcstuffins plan.

On the menu:

Chilly's Chili

Doc McStuffins Cornbread Muffins

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doc Away Salad

Lambie-nade

Kisses For Your Boo Boos

Bandaids For Your Ouchies

"Vitamins"

....and of course my new go to, a Costco cake.

Pregnancy > Motivation to make a cute party, so it was in no way the most extravagant party ever thrown, or even my favorite, but Harper was a happy camper, which is all that matters in the end.

My goal for my next party is to actually remember to take pictures of the people who came.  I failed big this year.  Rest assured, there were in fact people at Harper's party.

Harper's birthday was similarly low key.  Early morning presents, meeting up with dad for lunch at Chick Fil A, and melting my heart by turning down an offer to go to the children's museum so that she could go to to Boondocks when Holden was done with school instead.  And ice cream.  It was a good day for everyone.

And despite all my complaining about three year olds, it's going to be a great year.  I can feel it.  And I'm practicing my deep breathing skills.

Fall Y'all (Speed Round)

I know we still technically have tons of fall left, but in my universe anything worth talking about in November gets lumped in with Christmas, so fall ends with Halloween.

Maybe that's part of the reason fall seems to fly by.  In honor of the fastest season of the year, you get the fastest blog post of the year.

Some minor setbacks and a few big decisions we needed to make caused us to bare bones things a little bit, but the State Fair is definitely a never miss.

Holden's birthday party is also a given.  Plants Vs. Zombies was the theme this year, complete with a Garden Warfare salad bar, a Pinata Party and the most disgusting looking brain jello I have ever laid eyes on.

Holden must have known the theme for Fall this year was simple, because his actual birthday request was a lot of arcade games and boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner.  Done and done.

Reo and I snuck in a couple of days in Vegas.

Before we halfheartedly celebrated Halloween and the madness that accompanied it.

P.S.  Harper was Daniel Tiger.  Which is not easily recognizable, nor can she say very well, so it was interesting.  I'm about 99 percent sure that next year she will be full blown into the princess craze, so we went with the obscureness of it all.  

We also spent a whole lot of time just living life, which is pretty good these days.  

Harper Turns TuTu

Although Harper will probably hate having a winter birthday most of her life (as those of us with winter birthdays tend to do)  I, for one am thankful that her birthday provides a break in the monotony that is a Utah winter.  

We celebrated Harper turning two with a low key tutu bash that was easy to execute and still involved a bazillion yards of tulle, so I count Harper's birthday as a success! Except for yet another cake fail.  Thankfully Kneaders came through with yummy tarts, because as my good friend Christian Bale would say, cake baking and I are officially done professionally.  

I drank about 10,000 Italian sodas (and am still benefiting from the yummy Sonic ice leftover in my freezer) so it's safe to say those were my favorite part.

It was a small crowd this year, so we Facetimed in our newly residing in Chicago peeps to make things a little more festive.

Harper loved being the star of the show and continues to sing Happy Birthday to herself every day, so I think she had fun, too.

And since I'm fully aware that when it comes to a birthday party for a two year old, it's all more for me than them, I made sure Harper's actual big day was all about her.  We celebrated with cupcake pajamas, whipped cream on our breakfast oatmeal, the birthday girl's request for "chiiiicken!!!" for lunch, trips to the children's museum and the park (since the weather could not have been more perfect), and presents and sugar cookies bars (I was serious about the no more cake thing) when Reo got home.  Even the toughest members of our family to please (I'm looking at you, Holden) considered the day a win!

Revenge Of The Fifth

Can I count my kid's birthdays as my favorite holiday?  Because if so, I am totally doing it.  Holden asked for a Star Wars party this year, which was easy peasy other than the fact that I haven't ever actually SEEN a Star Wars movie, nor did I intend to, even for birthday party research purposes. But with the help of my BFF Pinterest, and my assistant party planner Holden, I feel like we got the job done.

We decorated:

We only remembered to take photos of about half our guests, as usual.  Also, don't mind Harper's grumpy face.  She wasn't feeling great that day.  Or she had a bitter case of birthday envy:

We ate our Star Wars themed dinner:

And played my new favorite go to party game.  Seriously, I want to have more parties just so I can play this game. Who'd come?

I baked my little heart out for our Wookie Cookie party favors:

All that baking wore me out and  inspired me to take a year off from my annual cake fail.  We ordered a plain cake from Costco instead and Holden and I "decorated" it together.  That ended up being one of my favorite parts of his birthday festivities, so maybe I'll stick with that plan from here on out:

Holden's favorite part was probably opening the presents.  He is five, after all.

All in all it was probably one of my favorite parties to date. Crazy October schedules caused us to have the party a week early, so we got to spread the birthday fun out even longer than normal.  A breakdown of the actual big day is on it's way.

Our 4th

The Rundown:

We started our day with what is becoming a traditional 4th of July breakfast of champions.  Doughnuts and Diet Coke, picked up on the way to stake out our parade spot in the blazing sun, because I will never be hardcore enough to procure a shady spot the night before.  

We were joined by a whole crew of the fam this year, which exponentially increased Holden's taffy collecting footprint.

Which was good, because he spent the last week or so before the parade coaching Harper that she needs to help him clap so the people throw candy at them.

And I got a gift better than the 10,000 pounds of taffy Holden ended up with.  The news of happy hour finally within a reasonable driving distance?  Best news ever.

I mean, besides Gun Heaven.  Obv.

After the parade we brought everyone back to our house to show off our newly acquired pizza grilling skills.

The kids loved it.

What, you can't tell?

We threw in some eagle cookie decorating for good measure.  I was so engrossed in my craftmanship I didn't even notice Holden licking his spreader clean behind me.

We rounded out the day with what up until this year we have convinced Holden were "fireworks."  The snakes and pop its didn't fool anyone this year.

Which is why this was his face when he found out a couple of days later at the Manning BBQ that fireworks weren't going to be rained out after all.

Definitely going to have to up my game next year.

We finished up our patriotic weekend with good old fashioned red, white and blue pancakes for Sunday dinner.

All in all, another successful 4th of July holiday!