Dream Birthday Party

For Mackenzie's 6th Birthday party, we struggled to figure out what to do, and the one and only day that we could do it was fast approaching.  Nine days before, we were looking online and she got super excited about cake decorating, so of course I google it and find about the cutest idea that could possibly be out there and am determined to make Mackenzie's just as cute.  I looked on the Hostess With The Mostess blog (www.hwtm.com) - check it out for all parties.  It is over-the-top amazing!

So we did our version of a Cake Boss party and I worked and sewed and worked and sewed until the wee hours of the morning every night all week to pull this off.

The Invites...

The Decor...

 

That darn dum-dum ball took a lot of time!  And it didn't turn out right!  It was supposed to be a topiary tree, but when I went to put the stick in, it nearly toppled over since it was so heavy with 4 packages of dum-dums hooked up!  

 

I made some garland out of some fun cupcake liners.

  

Prep and Set-Up...

The cakes...

A little spray paint on some candlestick holders,

a dash of Mackenzie's help,

 

and put it all together and we have cakestands with all the cakes frosted and ready to go!

 

And a whole lot of colored icing and fun piping tips!

Next...The Attire...

I took hundreds of cute cupcake liners,

 

folded and glued them all to make...

corsages for the baker's hats!

And then I made these ruffles with velcro backs, and sewed velcro onto white aprons so the girls could pick out their ruffles and attach them in any way they liked.  So time consuming, and so fun, and so adorable!!! 

 

And Voila!

 

The Birthday Cake...

This didn't exactly turn out how I'd planned.  I was literally piping on random frosting and patterns while the guests were showing up.  But it still turned out pretty cute and they loved my messy work!

 

 

The Party...

Cake Decorating

Fondant, sprinkles, candies, and lots of frosting provided for some fun cake decorating!

 

 

And I caught her!!!

 

Games..

Next Mackenzie made her own game up.  She made 40 paper cupcakes, all colored differently, and we taped a piece of candy to each.  We hid the cupcakes outside and the girls had a cupcake treasure hunt.

 

 

Cake and Presents...

 

This little present is a Grow-A-Frog kit.  She looked at it and was happy and said Thanks without knowing what it was.  Then when we told her, she was in disbelief and so excited.  Thank you Clara for the frog kit!  There's nothing better than a live animal for your birthday, especially when your mom won't get you one. :)

 

 I couldn't have been more excited and happy about how this turned out.  Mackenzie had an absolute ball and loved all my efforts, which made me so happy!  It is sooo fun to have a daughter to do all this girl stuff with.  I had been dreaming about doing a cake decorating party where I could made all the aprons, etc and thought 8 years old was the perfect age.  But we couldn't settle on anything else and so somehow I pulled it off.  I don't know who had more fun, me or her!!!

 

First Day of School

Mr. Collin started another year of preschool, his third for the record.  It's hard to believe since he's so big and smart. :)  He's used to always being one year behind Mackenzie so it was hard for him to understand why he wasn't headed to Kindergarten now.  But he's at a new preschool with his best friend and life is pretty good for him.

My darling Mackenzie started First grade this year.  She is doing fantastic, and has an amazing teacher.  She is gone from 8:15 until 4:15 everyday (except early release Wednesdays), so she has some long days, but is doing so well. 

 

This 'N' That of the Summer

Summertime was super, super busy for us, running from a camp to swimming to gymnastics to play dates to going out of town, and the cycle just kept repeating with a lot of other random stuff in between. It was fun, but exhausting and I don't want a repeat, that's for sure! So here's a few random things from the summer.

Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney concert

We celebrated our 13 year anniversary with a weekend trip to Denver to one amazing concert!  It makes my heart happy just thinking about it, just so fun!  And Tyson and I did a lot of shopping around Denver which is always a treat coming from Grand Junction!

We had some awesome seats in the Comfort Dental suite with prime rib, shrimp and everything else yummy!  We got spoiled that night for sure!

A Little Taste of Temple Square

I was able to have a getaway with Tyson's sisters in Salt Lake City during August.  It was super fun, with lots of shopping, eating at the Melting Pot and the Blue Lemon (sooo good), a little bowling and some Temple Square site seeing.  We had a great couple of days!

Tyson's amazing sisters, Nanette and Natalie

..and his other amazing sister Shelly (and we were sad Julie couldn't make it!)

You know the clydesdale carriage ride that looks amazing around Temple Square on your wedding day?  Well, we enjoyed it as sisters on an awesome Girls trip!

 

 Swimming Lessons

This summer Tyson and I REALLY wanted our kids to learn to swim well, so I put them in an aggressive class at the college.  It was a headache getting there, but they did quite well.  But for the last 1/2 of the summer I got burnt out, so we did lessons at a neighborhood pool like last year.  By the end of the summer, they were jumping off the diving board and going down the slides in the deep end and swimming to the sides.  Mackenzie can do all the basic strokes now and I'm feeling more comfortable with her in the water.  Collin can sometimes swim. :)  He wiggles a lot in the water, thinking he's swimming, but not getting too far at all.  I have to say putting goggles on both of them and going to the hot springs a lot made a world of difference in their desire and love of the water.

 



 End of the summer swimming party.

Mackenzie and her friend Hannah.  Notice the toad in their hands.  It hopped into the pool and these two were lickity split chasing the poor thing down.  These two are quite the pair and are ALWAYS on an adventure capturing toads, bugs, rabbits, you name it!

Nothing to do with swimming...but these are two toads she had to bring home from the neighbors one day.

 

A Little Bit of Fishing

We've made several trips in the summer up to Vega Reservoir.  The fishing has always been good and its pretty close by.  The kids always have a good time playing on the beach and reeling in the fish!

 

 

 

Mini fisherman!

 

Kamryn and Kenzie playing non-stop in the mud.

 

Parade of Homes in Utah

I visited the Parade of Homes in Utah Valley and in Salt Lake over the summer.  Let's just say A M A Z I N G!!!!  Here's a few samples:

This house is double nearly of what I could fit in my lens of the camera, and it wasn't even part of the Parade, but I loved the look.

Probably my fav - 9000+ sq. ft in the very top of Alpine.  The inside was so perfect!

I LOVE this gray stained wood look!

So pretty!

Oh how I love white cupboards in a kitchen!

 

This brick floor is super sweet!

The pictures does not come close to doing this room justice.

Loved this downstairs kitchen with blue quartz countertops!

 

Different house - love this kitchen too!

This house is unbelievable.  20000+ sq ft.  sitting right above the Draper Temple with 4 master suites, a ballroom, a craft room (which I am highly upset I missed it), and every other awesome thing you can think of.  The home is made of solid limestone.  The owner is one of the music producers for Lionel Richie, Justin Beiber, Michael Jackson...you get the idea.

Their youngest daughters bedroom, complete with an amazing master bath!

Her master bath, which you can't see half of it.

 

Part of the master bath for the teenage daughter.  It was unbelievable...really!

 

The main master suite

Part of the master bath, complete with a masseuse table.

 

The upstairs kitchen for the in-laws quarters.

 

Now that's a pantry!

Downstairs main kitchen

 

And there are at least 500+ more pictures of some amazing houses. This is super fun for me!  I could dream about and look at house pictures all day, and Utah knows how to do some fantastic Parade of Homes.