Beauteeeful Fairies

I think my ward has some creative people in it! I love the parties I get invited to - this last one being a Fairy Party!! A real nice lady I know LOVES fairies and dragons...which, coincidence!!!, so do I!! When she found out I wanted to do a girl's nursery in fairies, and then my baby boy's nursery in dragons, she told me about her fairy party and I got a cute little invitation not too long after!





A lot of work goes into a little party like this, there are so many fantastic details, such as her table and all the flowers, fairy quotes, china and party boxes.






It was so much fun watching all the different fairies arrive. Our hostess had pretty dragon fly wings and a homemade costume to match. As you can see from the fairies below, there is a Japanese fairy in her kimono, a punk ballerina fairy, a flower fairy (who won the Best Costume prize! - if you look super close you can see all the flowers in her hair and on her wings) and a stylish fairy in turquoise:



The only wings I could think of that I had access to were my sisters black fairy wings from a Halloween costume several years ago. So I borrowed them and dressed my eyes and hair up rock n' roller style, grabbed my studded heels, 'leather' leggings, a skull n cross bones tee, my long black feather earrings and some hardware on my wrist and I went as.....something. I dunno. Naughty fairy, Punk fairy, Evil fairy...whatever works. But I had a lot fun with it. It's been a long time since I have been able to get dressed up - and I love dressing up!!!





My wings are kind of hard to see but the curl up at the tops and also down below. I like them:

When the party got started we all had to sign into a guest book and then pick up the 'program'. Inside was some trivia games, a fairy search game, insturctions to awarding the best costume and making fairy crowns. The fairy search was really hard!! She had figurines like this places all over in her garden and flowers and we had to try to find them. Not. Easy!! I don't know how some people found so many!!! The most obvious ones weren't even on the list to find!!! LIke this knight:


And some were very camouflaged or very VERY tiny and very well hidden!:

After a fine feast of a delicious spread of food, our hostess read a fairy tale.

And when the sun finally went down, it was the perfect setting for chatting and laughing with good friends! I had so much fun sitting with the girls at my table. Jill and I played with some camera apps and we came up with some silly pictures:

You will never see a sexier lady than me:


And me and Teresa (who went as a shimmery little elf with awesome purple eyelashes) looking a little twisted:

See!!! Told you I get to go to some fun stuff 'round these parts. I love it!!

New Years

I don't have any fun pictures of New Years Eve, unfortunately. But I did just want to jot down a few things we did around that time that were very fun:





1. Paul and I hadn't made any plans to go anywhere to bring in the New Year. I wasn't feeling well and we have spent more NYE's in than we have out so it's kinda just what we do. Becky and Judd joined us last minute - lucky for us that their plans fell through! - and so we had Paul's homemade enchiladas, some random snacks, and Becky and Judd made nummy cookies. We played card games and then ended up having never-ending Tetris competitions. We were so in to it, in fact, that we noticed there was less than a minute left til Midnight! We hurried and switched the tv over to a station to watch the ball drop - just in the nick of time with only 15 seconds left! - and then went right back to Tetris :) It was seriously fun for me!

We also had some fab friends in the hood throw a pre-New Years Party (sans children). They rented out the game room at Noah's and we spent the night playing all sorts of stuff and watching football on the big screen. It was super cool.

2. We went out to dinner with Amanda and Spencer, something that we haven't done in a long time. It was so nice to get out and we went to Tepanyaki and enjoyed fantastic food! I had a lot of fun laughing together and I wish I had ten bowls of that salad with the amazing ginger dressing to take home!





3. The following night after Tepanyaki, all of my siblings met at Bonzai - the exact same food and type of restaurant as Tepanyaki. Our cook was especially funny and with 9 crazy kids we had a blast. I stole my husbands salad so I was able to eat 2 ginger dressing salads!!! We also pretended that it was Amber's birthday. At Bonzai they bring over a gong and - somebody please help me out...what's the name of the little round thing that has bells all along the outside and you smack it while you sing?? I can't remember!!! - to play as obnoxiously as you want and we sang to her in the very same fashion we do at home - ha ha ha....I think people thought we were crazy! - and then they take your group photo, print it out and you get to write on it and hang it up in the restaurant. Oh, and everyone gets a little cup of very good ice cream. It was a fantastic night.





4. We had a fun night with our friends Teresa and Paul and a new couple in our neighborhood. We had cheese fondue, great appetizers, a fantasticly yummy warm drink and Teresa made us little desserts to top it all off. We played a game called Wits and Wagers and had a blast getting to know our new friends...all thanks to Teresa's wonderful planning!

5. As a family, we attended the latest Chronicles of Narnia. The funny part of us going to movies is that when it's over, someone goes and refills their popcorn bucket and we stand around eating it and goofing off for awhile. :) We also sort of make a mess.

My nephews found this poster quite fun and here's Aiden pretending he's Rango:

Happy Faja's Day

Father's Day was laid back and chill - my kinda Sunday!!

After church, we had Paul's immediate family over for some dessert. Paul's dad loves Key Lime Pie so we had that with hot Applie Pie and Vanilla Bean ice cream. Super yum!!! We sat out on the patio enjoying the nice weather (and the occasional annoying gust of wind) and chatted and had a nice time.

Soon after they had left, Paul and I headed to my parents home for dinner. He grubbed out and had some seriously good food and homemade strawberry ice cream - Double Yum!! My grandma had joined us which was really fun (she's a riot!) and it was so nice to have her out with us finally! We ate out on the patio and then, guess what?? Sat around chatting and laughing!

We had my dad open his cards full of gift cards. We always try and get the funniest cards and then laugh at them together. We all have this attachment to Hoops & YoYo and so it has come to the point where we have to coordinate with each other when we buy cards: "Fyi everyone, I bought the card with the plunger" etc etc.

Me and Hubband:

My mom nearly spitting out her ice cream. We have so much fun making her laugh:

My niece- always posin' for the camera:

My bro, Morgan, imitating The Rock, quite well I might add:

My dad is currently laid off (big shocker, right??) and so he is working down in Roosevelt for a friend of a friend doing track hoe work all week. I am so glad for every weekend that he makes it back home safely and for all he does to provide for his family. He, like so many amazing dads and husbands, has always sacrificed himself to give his family a good life. Great dads are such a gift! I'm glad I have mine :)

A Small Family "Reunion"

Saturday was a super crazy day. My grandma had scheduled an overnighter 'family reunion' at Heber Valley Camp. Unfortunately, half the family couldn't make it. It was quite the dive. Hence, why I felt I needed to go even though I had a million things to do and I had to cancel on a few primary gigs. I wanted my grandma to feel like we cared to make it. So while everyone else had headed up on Friday night, I headed up Saturday morning after my friend had left from staying over after Bunco. I got a late start (due to said friend) and then had to pick up my niece and her friend on the way up.

I have always loved the drive up to Heber for some reason. I used to go there a couple times a year to rodeo and it's still a favorite place of mine. Heber Valley Camp, I learned is a LDS camp where a lot of Youth Conferences and Young Women Camps are held. I suppose for them it could be quite fun but for me, it sucked.

We had to do these Challenger Courses, which was equally awkward/dumb and funny/fun. We had lunch and then went to the lake for our scheduled hour. You can't swim, you can't wear swimsuits and all you can do is either paddleboat or canoe for an hour. There are reasons, I'm sure.

I snapped a few pics at the end because I wasn't really in the picture taking mood.

My niece and her best friend, Katie:

Me, being all tired and ornery cuz I didn't want to go out on the paddleboat but my niece is so obnoxious at times:

My dad giving his nephew (left) and a niece's son (middle) a ride in the canoe:

And that's all folks. We went back to clean up the site and bathrooms, have inspection, say goodbye and head out. At least going made my grandma happy and that was enough for me. It would have been better if 80% of the family hadn't been missing, but whatdya do?? I'm next time will be a blast.

Game Night: Bunco With The Crazies

It's been a long while since Paul and I have played Bunco with our Bunco group. When one moved away to Colorado, it seemed to disintegrate. Hopefully we will get together again soon though.

In the mean time, we haven't had a sibling game night lately either. The holidays and then busy schedules has been the culprit. So Paul and I hosted it at our house this time (Sat. May 1st) and I thought it would be super fun to play Bunco with them.

I was right! It was a crazy time. We had tonz of fun and got out of control. It was awesome!

Lots of laughs and yelling: we are a very loud family.

Half of my bro/sis' are on diets and so I had everyone bring their own meat (since I knew everyone could at least eat that) and we did a barbecue and had corn on the cob, yummy salad, snacks and sherbet. Mmmmm....I haven't had sherbet in forever!

One other good note! My computer parts arrived that day and Morgan brought it over and put it together!! Yay! Our laptop is so bogged down and slow now. We were going to get a new one around Christmas but thought it better to wait a little bit. Now we have a super kick A brand new one built my super geeky smart bro!! Super excited! And it's pretty cool to have a computer tech in the family :)

Roommate Reunion!

Later on Saturday, after we came home from camping and took care of some 'Saturday things', we had all my roommates from college over, except one, who we missed greatly. I was really excited however because Brindee was here this time and we never get to see her because her and her fabulous family currently live out of state. She is back here with her three kids visiting her family on a very long vacations while her husband is out working hard for our wonderful country!

We had pizza and yummy brownies from Schmidt's (thanks to Amanda) and homemade oatmeal banana cookies (thanks to Brindee). I was finally able to use my patio for a social event, although my backyard isn't very attractive right now. It was still nice to sit outside and catch up and socialize. Amanda just had a baby. Ashley and Alan just moved to Logan and were back for family pictures. And Brindee is going back home very soon and gets to see Ty at the end of October!

Paul chilled with Brindee's boys for the most of the night. It gives him an excuse to act his age :)

Hattie showed us her beatiful peepers...

Becky showed us how scary she really can be...

I was really bummed that I forgot to get a group picture of us girls. I forgot the last time, too, and it makes me really angry with myself. But we will hopefully be getting all together again within the year. I was so happy to see Brindee and have all of us girls together. We all met at college in 2001 and became the best of friends and have stayed very close ever since, which is something I really cherish!

Kenny's B-day

K so I have some serious catching up to do. I have been quite lazy and haven't been up to posting about certain events and now a month has passed but I still want to get these up so I have them in here. Anyhoo - this particular event is Kenny's birthday.

My sister, Amanda, had arranged for a huge party to go and eat sushi at Takashi's on the day of Kenny's birthday, April 4th. However, there was a major miscommunication there and they could not and would not seat a party that big at this place. So while Amanda and Kenny and a few stragglers were still making their way through traffice, Paul and I went to Shogun's, which is right by Takashi's on Main Street, to see if we could get in there. Not easy to do on a Saturday night but they were able to split us into two groups right next to each other (which even Takashi's wouldn't do). It took awhile to get all these arrangements together and Amanda was getting pretty bent out of shape because, well, she wanted everything to work out for Kenny. She was finally able to breathe a little when we were all seated!

(That would be Amanda and Kenny there in the middle standing up.)

Paul and I hate sushi, as does most my family. Morgan was brave enough to try it for the first time - some he liked, some he didn't - but the rest of us all went with teriyaki and tempura. We get a lot of crap for that from Amanda cuz she doesn't understand why anyone doesn't like sushi, but come on. It's raw fish. How hard is that to understand?

Anyhoo! We had a grand ol' time in the restaurant - it was pretty chaotic with our huge party and another huge party right next to us. It was really fun though and afterward, most everyone went over to Kristauf's for drinks and dancing (we went for the dancing, of course, but there wasn't much of that so we left soon after).

We also got together on Sunday for dinner and cake and ice cream, this time with the parents and the young'uns. Kenny got a proper 'Madsen' birthday song and we all laughed and had good times.

(Clockwise from top: Benny giving the thumbs-up, Kenny and Amanda laughing at the birthday cards, everyone squishing in together for family bonding, and Gaven gracing us all with a little Jack Johnson.)

And finally, Amanda and Kenny became officially engaged that same Sunday, earlier in the morning. We learned that poor Kenny had the whole thing planned out to propose to her the night before at dinner with all of his family, her family and their closest friends together in one place. But when we couldn't get in to Takashi's...that changed everything. And then we were seated in two groups at Shogun and he didn't want to propose at only one table when the rest of us were near but not really in superior hearing and viewing distance. And he had one last hope for Kristauf's but it was so crowded and loud in there by the time we all were in that it just wasn't going to work out. I felt super bad for him - it would have been really cute! Instead, he proposed while they were alone that next morning (Bronsynn had slept over at my mom's, of course) and she came to dinner with a friggin' paper weight for an engagement ring. Seriously! it's over 3 karat's! It hurts your eyes, it's just that shiny! And it's very, very pretty. She's a lucky (spoiled) girl!

Bowling - Yeah I Got Nothing Clever This Time.

Last night my family got together to do some bowling. I love going bowling with my family. We go to the All-Star Lanes in Sandy and get two lanes and my parents treat us with the alley's pizza, nachos, fries and drinks. Everyone has a smorgasborg and we have so much fun goofing off, being competitive and chasing the kiddies around.

My hunny pie on the left and my bro Morgan on the right:

My brother snapped this beautiful photo of me - gorgeous, yeah?:

I love the look on Aiden's face!:

Amber and Bronsynn gettin' their swing on:

And a few others of my fam:

This is sexy Benny. Actually he's really just a part of the family. He's my brotha from another motha fo' sho. He's at all our family get togethers. If he's not there, everyone asks where he is.

The girls in my family are constantly trying to get a good photo of my dad, as I have stated before. Tonight was no different:

Attempt #1

He thought he was clever by picking up his cup in a hurry.

Attempt #2

Not so subtle attempt to hide this time.

Attempt #3

You have to enlarge the picture and look between the laughing ladies.

As you can tell, it did not go well.

I was so sucky by my second game, which usually happens for me, so Aiden and I bowled together until I could no longer persuade him to stay and bowl with us. He wanted so badly to go to "Chuck E. Cheese" Chuck E. Cheese is next door but what he meant was to go to the arcade in the bowling alley. So I took him down there and we played Ski Ball till we had enough tickets to get him a prize. He was so freakin' adorable when Bronsynn earned him his last eight tickets by getting 300 points on Ski Ball. He was so excited. I just love that kid. He's my favorite little boy, I must admit.

I had such a great time. It's a chill way to spend your Monday night!