Macey turns 6.

My oldest baby turned 6 on March 3. Per her request, we threw a "Sugarplum Fairy in the Land of Sweets" party. :) It ended up being more of a "land of sweets" party because I didn't have any ballerina or fairy ideas... but Macey didn't mind. I did make ribbon wands and have them dance around to the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy music in the basement. That was a major hit. So therein I succeeded with the theme.

I know I say it with every party, but seriously, it was so cheap. I figured with EVERYTHING (decorations, party favors, cake, treats) it was $40. Not too shabby for entertaining 7 girls. I like to make things myself and use what I have around the house so it ends up saving me big time. It does NOT save me time, however. That was an opportunity cost I was willing to take. Like how I threw some Econ 110 in there for ya? Thank you, BYU. You did not fail me. DeVry? We'll see.

Since I am finishing up with school and am interning right now at a hospital I decided to keep it as simple as possible... as I could let myself. Obviously I got a little carried away with some things. The ceiling decorations are just $1 table covers cut into strips and then hung with push pins. A novel idea, really. $6 made this party a success and had little girls in awe. But I may or may not have yelled several swear words while hanging them up, and practically did the splits when stepping from the table to a stool (the stool started to sliiiiiide). Damn you stool, I couldn't walk right for a week. But it was worth it. I used sheets for the table covers and then the same table runner and happy birthday banner that I always do. The treat table was fun. Since we only invited 6 girls (one of every year you are old), I didn't want to go overboard on the candy. I'm glad, because I've we've been eating leftover sixlets and cotton candy for a week! I found everything at the dollar store or Walmart in their Easter section, and I made some jello parfaits to make them feel extra fancy. Randy found the awesome huge lollipops at Walgreens for $1 each, the lady threw in the box they stand in for me, too. Sweet. I just covered it with some wrapping paper.

My favorite part of throwing birthday parties is the party favors. I love seeing the girls' faces light up! Macey also loves this part, it's the fun little trinkets for her that makes life worth living. She is a major people pleaser, too. This is what everyone got to take home in their pink bags:

• pink heart drink glasses (come in a pack of 2 at the $1 store, but I got them on clearance after V-day for $.50! Sucka!)
• ribbon wands (I made, had everything on hand)
• Belle squinkies ring (this was the favorite, I totally scored at Walmart and get them for $1 each, they are regularly like $5 each!)
• Rainbow colored pencil (pack of 8came from Target's dollar section)
• Heart notepad (pack of 6, Target $1)
• Scratch and sniff cupcake stickers (pack came from Target's dollar section as well, I cut them up so each girl got 4. I think that is the definition of cheap skate.)
• Those cute candy erasers that you see everywhere that you can take apart. Each girl got 2. (Bag of 12 from Walmart for $2)
• Ice cream cone bubbles (came in pack of 3 at the dollar store)
• One big lollipop from the treat table
• Any candy they wanted from the table (this replaced a pinata)

 All in all, it was a great little party for my Macey Moo. After it was all said and done, the first thing I did was upload pictures! I was beyond furious to see that I had it on some weird setting. All the pictures are fuzzy and dark. I tried my best to fix it, but you can tell they are very edited. Booo.

Happy 6th Birthday, Macey! We sure do love you!

Christmas Decoraysh.

I took down the decorations today. I already miss it. Of course I took pictures so I can come back next year and see what I did. This year was my favorite to date!

The nutcracker tree.

 Our 2010 addition.

 My favorite glass ornament. I will cry when it breaks.

A very special bookcase. :)

My improved buffet decoraysh!

 Randy's mom gave me these nutcrackers. They are the real deal, very nice, so they are not allowed on the tree. :) Randy remembers them growing up. I *love* heirlooms like this!

 The banister with stockings. I'm so mad I didn't get one at night! What the heck!

Another fun addition: the felt mitten tree. Macey loved helping me make them.

The landing. One of my favorites to put up. I love that lil' Santa.

The kitchen is one of my favorites this year. I don't usually do anything, but this year I spruced up the lighting and hung a real wreath! It smelled so good and brought a lot of cheer into the room!

 This is a huge candle, it looks tiny in this picture.

 Christmas/Anniversary flowers. Oh so pretty.

And this brings us to our downstairs tree. This is my favorite tree because it's my sentimental tree! I started a tradition to make silhouette ornaments of my kids every year and I *love* it. Macey also adorned it with an ornament she made for me for Christmas at school and it just melted my heart. I got this tree on clearance for $7, so don't mind the Charlie Brown factor. It was the right price. :)

Our Christmas lights. Red and green. You can't see the green lamp on the other side of the garage.

And of course Collin's BYU football tree! I don't think I have any of these ornaments left. He had lots of fun playing with them and breaking them.

Macey's tree. She went through like 3 sets of ornaments this year.

This was on Macey's door. It started at 12 chains. She thought taking multiple off at a time would make Christmas come faster. Poor thing couldn't handle it!!

My house now feels very bare. Macey is already asking for Valentine's Day decoraysh. She cried when the pink tree came down and had to say goodbye to each nutcracker tonight.

Christmas.

Santa stayed up 'til 2 AM putting Christmas together. Luckily the kids slept 'til 8:30! I had put an alarm clock in Macey's room and said she has to wait until AFTER the 5 to come out. I ended up waking her up, her eyes got huge when she looked at the clock and said "Mommy I don't think it's time yet!!" Ha.

The first thing we checked was to see if Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the milk- sure enough! He had! Also, the magic reindeer food we put out just for Rudolph had been all gobbled up as well! It was time!

We made the trek downstairs to see what Santa had brought us... he did not disappoint! Even Tugger got in on the fun!

Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve. We read Twas the Night Before Christmas and then Luke 2.

Macey asked Santa for a doll house.
Collin asked for a "moster truck".
Randy got a deep fryer and hexbugs.
I was surprised with a smart phone ringing in the tree on Christmas morning!

I made both kids blankets and hooded towels. I also made Macey a nutcracker charm necklace and made a cupcake box to put it in. Christmas isn't Christmas without some stuff being homemade!!

We had a great Christmas! I love the magical feeling on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning!

Holy Behind, Batman.

And I'm not talking about butts. I am behind in blogging, way bad.

Looking back I realized I didn't blog about my Grandma Judy passing away in September. And I'm pretty sure I didn't take any pictures. Sad. My sisters took pictures that I'll have to steal and post. I was so happy for Grandma, she had been a widow for over 25 years. It was time. But it was still hard to say goodbye. She was my last living grandparent, and such a special woman.

I also noticed I didn't blog about our dog Tugger that we adopted. He's a yellow lab, 3.5 years old. His family was moving into an apartment and couldn't bring him so we adopted him. What drew us to him was that he was older (potty trained) and lazy. We like the lazy. Our last dog was so insanely hyper we just couldn't keep up with him. My only complaint about Tugger is that he's really hairy, but he can't help that. I just vacuum a lot more... and don't wear fleece around him ever. He is big, but Randy wanted a big dog that he could take fishing. He hates the little yappers. The kids absolutely love Tugger. Macey's highlight of coming home from school everyday is opening the door to a VERY excited Tugs. He is part of the family, hair and all. He has some awesome tricks that make up for his hairiness and he also puts up with my constant teasing, so he's a keeper. This picture is totally out of focus, but he's still cute.

And lastly, Thanksgiving 2011. We spent that at Randy's parent's house. Again, no pictures. My poor kids are going to ask me what we did with our lives these last couple of years and I will yell I WAS IN SCHOOL AND STRESSED OUT OF MY MIND, LAY OFF ME. ;) I am always really bad at taking pictures when we go to family functions, I'm always busy talking someone's ear off whether they like it or not. Thanksgiving was fun, and I am glad to say we didn't really do the Black Friday thing this year. There wasn't anything that we just HAD to have. But of course I couldn't handle not going at all since the stores opened so early... so Randy and I went to Walmart just to people watch at eleven PM. We were there to witness the electronic madness. Oh, it was so worth it. We found ourselves running to the madness just to see what everyone wanted so badly, and if there was something left, we'd grab it, just because. :) We ended up putting almost everything back, but some hot wheels for Collin and a barbie for Macey. Haha. So worth it.

And that brings us to Christmas. I actually have pictures of that, so I'll start a new post.