Sunday, December 30, 2012

{Rainbow Party}

Happy Happy Birthday to our sweet 3 year old Olive!
She is such a silly, happy, intense little ball of delight.
People walk away from talking to Olive and they are usually chuckling because of a funny expression she made with her eyes, or something nonsense she said.
We LOVE you little O!
If you know Olive, you know that her favorite color is purple.  She is obsessed.
As I started planning a purple party for her, it became a little boring just focusing on one color, so we involved all of the colors of the rainbow!
Olive was super excited about the idea, so we went with it.

It was fun looking for all sorts of rainbow things to spice up the party.  We kept it pretty simple with fruit, veggies, rainbow jello and the cake.  The circle garlands came together super fast with just a continuous line sewn with the sewing machine.  On the clouds I just wrote,
 You are my sunshine Olive
You make us happy
everyday!

What sealed the deal for having a rainbow party were these darling favor bags from Papernook.  I instantly fell in love to have these for her little friends.  

We filled them with a few little things like a rainbow crayon, a sparkly mini notepad, gold coins, and a few other goodies.  



The cake was a trial and error process.  I filled the 6" cake pans waaay to full on the first go around.  Once we figured out to only fill them about 1/3 full, they turned out great!  To even out the top of the cake I used the dental floss method where you wrap floss around the top of the cake and overlap it.  Then gently pull it and it slices the slightly rounded tops right off to make a nice flat layer!  I used this Almond Sour Cream cake recipe  but I halved it because it makes a ton.  And for the icing I used this recipe which was the perfect consistency.  
My favorite part about the cake was that Olive helped make it all.  She helped add the food coloring and mix it in.  She sat on my lap the entire time while I frosted it and it was definitely a treasured moment for me.

At her little friend party with all of the bouncing 2-3 year olds, we had milk in these mini mason jars.
The kids didn't need any more sugar in their drink!!


On the invitation we invited everyone to wear their favorite color.  Our cute sister Kate wore her cozy rainbow socks which were a hit!





Here is an example of one of her many hilarious expressions.  She was mesmerized by this light up wand.

Olive makes everyone smile and is such a blessing in our home.  She has a tender heart and has such a contagious excitement for so many little things.
She has some sweet dance moves, pretends to read books out loud in a jibberish fashion, and is really loud like her mama.
Right now one of our favorite things she does is her bedtime routine.  She MUST give us a regular kiss on the cheek, a butterfly kiss, an eskimo kiss, and then a huge bear hug.
Melts my heart every night!
Happy Birthday sweetheart!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

best.weekend.ever

it snowed for three days straight.
2 snowmen were built, one with chalk for buttons named Frosty,
the other with eyelashes.




Hot chocolate was constantly brewing and we enjoyed sipping it with mini marshmallows.  
The power went out and we had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa Winegars where
we slept by the fire.
I knew I enjoyed the snow while skiing, but building a snowman with my little girls
may have just trumped the ski slopes!



Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Mr. Berkeley

I have been wondering why I can't find the time to blog.  I guess blogging was more of a necessity when we lived away because our family didn't get to see the girls all the time.  They weren't involved in all of the activities that we were doing.  Now that our families are living our life with us, I guess I just slack on posting about our lives.
I miss having more updates though more for the sake of our own memory book.
I love printing the blog out and having a book with all of our pictures and priceless times.
Hopefully after the holidays I will visit here more often!  This week is crazy with something every night of the week...including Olive's 3rd birthday!!

For now, meet David Berkeley.
We spent a very cozy evening with him and other friends a couple of weeks ago.
Our friends said that they were going to have an intimate house concert and that we should come.
We had no idea who this guy was, but they mentioned the buzz word of "Guster", who he opened for several years ago, and we were in for sure after that.  We also invited our cool sister and bro-in-law, Jamilyn & Nathan.

Right when he walked in the door I feel like we all had an instant connection to this laid back, chill guy.
As he set up all of his equipment, he was just talking to us about his day, why he flew to Utah...and yet he was hilarious!  He wasn't trying to be charming and funny, but he just couldn't help it.
He writes all of his own songs and they have really amazing stories behind them.  One of which is about his life abroad in Corsica.
We relaxed by the fire, chowed incredible food and listened to all of his wonderfulness.
Thank you David, come again soon!