Brady turns 6

Happy 6th Birthday Brady
Brady's birthday was last week July 5th. Besides having a party all Brady wanted to do was go to the pool and eat at McDonald's. Done. A pretty easy and low key day.

My kids love cheesecake especially when I make it. Chocolate cheesecake with strawberry sauce all over it. Very RICH but very YUMMY!

We spent the day at the pool with Brady's best friends Grayson, Thatcher & Jonah. Only Grayson isn't in this picture I think he's further down. Alex loves Jonah. Anytime he's around she plays mommy.

We brought McDonald's to the pool. I am not a fan of McDonald's but sacrificed for Brady's day. It was hard let me tell you :)

Brady is all about Legos. Here he is with his lego watch.

Here's Brady with his best buds...Grayson & Thatcher

Now for the birthday party. We did his party about 10 days earlier being that his birthday falls the day after the 4th of July & it being summer.
Of course, a Lego theme. Now I got a lot of my inspiration & ideas off the Internet and also using a friends blog. She did a lego party for her son & I used a lot of her ideas, Thanks Jadi!!!

I wrapped two big boxes with blue and green wrapping paper & then glued the same colored plastic cups on top to look like giant legos. They turned out pretty cute. I made Lego head pops and a lego cake.

These are the lego head pops. Super easy. Marshmellows dipped in melted candy mix from Michael's with lollipop sticks in the bottom. To make the top little piece of the head I just cut out circles from a marshmellow. I should have used mini m & m's. That would have been easier. For the faces I let Brady and Alex draw them with edible cake pens. Very easy but time consuming. I wish they were a little more smooth looking but I think they turned out cute.
If you like marshmellows then you will like these. Oh and to make them stand, I turned lego pieces over and put the sticks in the holders and layed legos all around to support the sticks.

I ordered lego plates & napkins online. For the goodie bags, I used colored bags and cut circles out of the same colored paper glued them to the bag to look like a lego. I put brick lego candy inside with a free lego magazine, lego stickers and a lego toy (that we all put together during the party)

I made these cute lego cracker snacks. Just crackers, cheese and cream cheese. Really cute.

When everyone got to the party they each got a lego toy to put together.

The kids had a good time putting these together. I was glad to have Joe there to help because I am not a lego mom. I can barely follow the directions and put together. But the boys all had directions to help put together. I was impressed because they were really concentrating and going as great job building the toy.

Here's my lego cake. The top pieces are marshmellows, of course. Brady's favorite color is green so we colored it green. I tried making it a darker green but couldn't get it dark enough. I was impressed with myself because I am not a cake decorator but I think it turned out great.
Brady loved it.

We also played a few games, one was lego toss.

Not a great picture but these are ice cube brick lego pieces and lego guys. I made them with kool-aid so they tasted pretty good. I had the kids put them in sprite which made them fizz. It was pretty cool. They kids loved these. After pulling these out of the freezer it's all they wanted. I think each kid had like 6. It was a hit.

Of course, it wouldn't be a party without jumping on the trampoline.

My big 6 year old.

Another group shot.

Dinner was pizza, chips and fruit.

It was a great party...I really loved planning this party and decorating for it.
Brady loved it as well. I will never forget his face when he saw the lego head pops, the cake and the big lego boxes. I think he was amazed that his mom could really do this. Brady loves legos so much that in his spare time whether its 30 minutes or 2 minutes he sits on the floor and puts together legos. He loves the ones that have directions. Its an engineer thing!

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY BRADY

2nd time around

This blog entry has nothing to do with July 4th so before I start let me say
Happy 4th of July

Anyways, so last Saturday my wedding ring broke. It has been partially broken or should I say damaged for a while. The band was bent. Like its not a circle anymore but an oval shape. Not sure why this had happened but it did. Its not like we picked it up in a $.25 machine. So anyway...The broken part is the band. There was a crack that pulled the band apart. So a few days later, I think it was Tuesday, Joe told me that we were going out Saturday but it was a surprised. He had even got a babysitter. I of course asked many questions but the only thing I new was that I had to be ready at 6:15pm and be dressed up. Of course, being the smarty pants I am kept saying if you are taking me to Denny's or Costco for dinner could we just skip the dressing up part and wear my jeans and flip flops. I continued during the rest of the week to ask questions but got nothing. So Saturday came, the babysitter arrived and we left.

We pulled up to a restaurant; The Chop House that I have never been to or even seen before. Joe had been there with a few friends before so I just figured he wanted to take me there because it was so good. It was a fancy place with fancy food. By this point I knew something was up but wasn't exact sure what it was. After sitting down at our table, Joe said he had to use the restroom. Probably to much information for you readers but its not unusual for Joe to do this. He drinks too much water :) but he was gone a long time which made me wonder. He finally returned and we ordered dinner. Before dinner arrived at our table, Joe said, "let's get dessert." Of course, I said sure because I love sweets and had no problem with that. But it was very unusual for Joe because he usually doesn't want dessert. He doesn't really have a sweet tooth like me. It was a little odd but I went on with the evening. So dinner is done and we are ordering dessert. Dessert is taking a really long time. That's when I knew something was really up and the thought of him getting me a new ring. I didn't say anything to him but I kept looking around the restaurant just observing. I do notice the Waiter is talking to the hostess and looking at our table a lot. Then they are both over at the dessert bar. As I turn back, our dessert is coming with our Waiter, the hostess & someone with a camera. I'm thinking a little werid but they put the plates on the table; the dessert we ordered and a separate plate with a cream filled strawberry with raspberry sauce drizzled over it with the words, "I love you" written in chocolate with powdered sugar sprinkled all over it. Oh and my new ring sitting on the strawberry. It was very sweet and romantic. I was really surprised that Joe bought me a new ring but more surprised on how he gave it to me. Maybe even a bigger surprise that he took the time to go out and pick out a ring on his own.

So why he planned it this way.........................we don't have a romantic story for how we got engaged. Not that you have to have one. Most of our relationship while dating was spent apart. We dated almost 2 years before getting married but only lived in the same city for 5 months or so. We met in San Diego, then Joe went up to northern California to finish his last semester of college and then got a job in Idaho. We say each other a lot during the time apart but it was very difficult. He kind of proposed over the phone about 2 weeks before he was coming out for a visit. He said he wanted me to have time to think about it because he would only be in town for a few days and wanted to start planning it then. Of course, being that I said yes. What he doesn't know is that I had already been thinking about it and could have given him an answer right then! So anyways he figured since getting me a new ring that he should do it the right way.

Let me just state that I never felt short changed about how we got engaged...just in case Joe reads this :) It was never an issue. But he definitely did a good job and pulled it off. Oh and the ring is gorgeous. I absolutely love it. Nice Work hubby,,,,

Now I have that romantic proposal only 13 years and 11 months later :)