My "School's Out" Summer Cake

We had a party for all the neighborhood kids on my street last Wednesday for the last day of school. Ricky and Alyssa, the kids I watch after school till their mom gets home from work, had been asking if we could make a special treat for the last day of school. I saw this cake in one of my Family Fun books and thought it was pretty cute, so I decided to try and make it. But then I got thinking, this is too much cake for just us! I need to invite some more kids over! So then it just blossomed into a big party. We played water games and had a water fight in my back yard and the kids at popsicles, cake, and ice cream. It was pretty fun! Madeline and Jax loved pretending to be one of the big kids. The cake turned out cute, don't you think?

It's beginning to look a lot like summer!

Here are some shots of the kids, right before we left to go the splash pad.

Splash Pad Day with the Kids

A few days ago we went to the Fairfield splash pad with a few other friends. Madeline was uneasy about all the sprinklers at first but eventually started to like it. Jax wouldn't go near any of it. Silly kid.

I just got a new lens for my camera and I can't believe how much better it is than my old one! I'm actually enjoying taking pictures again!

Fancy Schmancy Girly Tea Party

Madeline's Tea Party


Sofia sharing with Madeline
Tea party in action
Madeline loves flowers!
Isn't this a great shot of Hanna?

Beautiful Sofia

Sweet Brynlee!

Cute Cassidy

Tea party from above

Lydia is a lady to be reckoned with

The girls

Madeline playing with the tea set she discovered when she woke up this morning.

One of the vintage teacups I got off Craiglist

Today I hosted a "Fancy Schmancy Girly Tea Party" for Madeline and five of her girlfriends in our ward, Hanna, Brynlee, Cassidy, Sofia, and Lydia. It was so sweet. The girls arrived all dressed up in their fancy dresses, necklaces, and guzzy-up accessories. They looked so darling! First we all decorated hats with flowers. Then we had the tea party with all the moms acting as waitresses for the little girls. We served them the tea (pink lemonade), ritz bitz sandwiches, peanut butter pinwheels, grapes, apples, baby goldfish, cookies, and mini cupcakes. Finally, after it was all over, we helped the girls all paint their nails together! It was so cute!

Thanks to all the moms who helped make this possible. Tawna donated her lovely teapots to my assorted mismatched craiglist teacups (such a find!), Kristi took a bunch of the photos here and did such a great job, and all the ladies helped with the food. You ladies are the best! Truth be told, I've been wanting to do a tea party ever since I found out I was having a baby girl, so this has been a long time coming! I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as I did! I'm pretty sure it was a success for Madeline, because she's been playing tea party all day ever since waking from her nap and asking if we can have another party. And speaking of naps, I think we must have worn her out with all the tea party fun because she actually asked if she could go have a nap afterward and went up to bed all by herself!!! Now that is a first!!!!

Lisa

A few pics

Madeline's new best friend, Hailey.

Jax eating!

Jax is really coming around in his eating! It's been so frustrating trying to feed this meal after meal and have him just purse his lips, turn away, and spit everything out - for months! Anyway, he's about to turn 9 months and I've been planning to talk about all this at his 9 month appointment with his doctor, but then he suddenly wolfed down two jars of food the other night! And not only that, but he seemed just ecstatic about it in between each bite! I was so excited I had James get a little bit of it on video. You can hear Madeline in the background too. This was a big moment for us!

Matt - The Undateable

Ha! This is so perfect. So my brother Matt is going to be in a new book coming out called "The Undateable." The book is coming out in February 2010 and is apparently going to be a humorous book about the things men do, wear, and say when it comes to dating/attracting women. My other brother, Mike, took this picture of Matt and had it posted on his Flickr site. The authors apparently saw the picture and wanted it for their upcoming book so they contacted Mike and asked for permission to use it. Mike, of course, said yes. A million times, yes. I'm sure all my brothers could have donated many other pictures to the cause. Congrats, Matt! What an honor.