Pony Party for Annalise and Ava the Birthday Girls!

Lots of Pictures of the FOUR parties we had to celebrate our girls! Sorry they are not in order - something is wrong with blogger so I can't move the pics in the right order! Ava and Joe at their bday party.

Joe enjoying the last of Shirleys cake!

Ava eating her edible bracelet.

All the kids got to make bracelets.

The cute cake Shirley made. It was yummy. She's so sweet to make cakes for them. It's become a tradition that they remember and ask for her cakes every year. Thanks Shirley - you are a wonderful friend.

The long line for a pony ride!!

The Darling Birthday Girls!

What a fun day!

We are blessed with two beautiful daughters whose birthdays are just a month apart. Annalise turned 5 and Ava turned 3. Actually we ended up doing about 4 parties - one for Annalise with Joe's parents, another later that day for Annalise with MY parents, one for Ava with family friends and the big joint party in between their actual birthdays! Whew! We decided to do a joint party for them and go all out and get ponies! They were soooo excited and had such a wonderful time at their party. All the kids loved the pony rides too. My good friend Shirley made the rainbow cake and it was as good on the inside as it looked on the outside. We forgot to get a good picture of it before the first piece was served though. I made the other pony cake - although half of the marshmellow "fence" got taken down before we got that picture too! I was nervous that one cake wouldn't be enough so I made an extra one just in case. Boy am I glad I did! The day was wonderful with lots of family and friends. Also, the birthday for Ava was also celebrating Joe's bday (Happy BDay Babe). I made a yummy Lemon Poppyseed cake with strawberry filling and a white chocolate frosting. Holy Cow was that worth every calorie! Thanks to all who came and Happy Birthday my darling daughters! We love you!!

Sweet Annalise

I had to blog this so I didn't forget.

Tonight I made a dinner that Joe and I love - it's very healthy and kind of a "raw" dish. Well, tonight I decided that the little ones would try it for the first time (usually I tweak theirs to be more kid friendly) but I was cranky and tired and didn't want to make two dinners.

They tried it.

They tried to be gracious.........Well, Annalise did. Ava immediately spit out each bite she'd take. Finally she settled on just eating of few of the veggies raw - w/o the rest of the meal.

After trying and trying to get them to eat, Annalise comes to me and whispers, "Please Mommy, can we not eat this?".

I looked at Joe - the look that says, "Okay, I give up, they don't have to eat it". I put my head down on the table - I wasn't crying or anything - although I thought about it. I was just sad they wouldn't eat this healthy meal and again - I was TIRED. Joe - being the rock star he is - jumped up and said, "who wants eggs!".

Annalise after seeing my head came and asked me what was wrong. I told her I was sad because they didn't like my dinner.

A few minutes later she whispers in my ear, "I know what will make you not be sad.... I will clean up the whole play room and surprise you!". I smiled. She cleaned. Joe made eggs. They ate them willingly. Then Annalise brings me a present to make me feel "even more happy". It's a necklace that I had given to her when I was cleaning out my jewelry last year. I was re-gifted by my 5 year old (yes, she's 5 now and my next post will be about her awesome birthday party).

Joe then leaves to do Elders Quorum visits. I start the dreaded kitchen clean up of 2 meals, plus banana bread I made earlier. I sent the kids outside so I could clean. I'm still tired.

After a few minutes I check on the girls. They are swinging together on the glider swing and no one is yelling, fighting or crying. I tell them thank you - this is a big thing in our house. Annalise tells me I'm the "best Mommy ever for not making her eat that dinner". She checks on me again, asking if I'm still sad. She says, "Mom, I'm very sorry I didn't like your healthy dinner." I smile and say it's okay.

Sometimes that little devil can be so sweet and considerate of my feelings. I just had to write it down so I'll remember the other 95% of the time! :-)

PS - are you wondering where all these fantastic photos of my family have been coming from? Trevor Dayley Photography. He's stellar. Seriously. Amazing. Like a miracle worker for my children. Go check out his blog and if you mention I'm your friend he'll knock off $50 from your session, photo shop select images AND give you all the digital negatives. He's seriously awesome. Plus, you'll get to see many more of our families photos - we're all over his blog. Yeah, I'm pretty much famous. :-) http://www.trevordayley.com/

My Beautiful Mother

Dear Mom,

Do you really know just how much I love you? I hope so! As Annalise would say, "I love you all the way to Jesus and back - and nothing is bigger than that!". We've had a lot of memories together over the past 29 years! (I'm especially fond of your laughing episode at the Chinese restaurant! What ever happened to that rag anyway!? :-)

All of these memories have taught me many lessons. I've learned patience. I've learned humor (karate-kicks :-)). I've learned loyalty to your spouse. I've learned hard work - boy you were always busy working and keeping the house in order. How the heck did you always get everything done AND have dinner ready for Dad at 5pm? I've learned kindness. I've learned unconditional love - you still love me after all :-). I've learned humility. I've learned service - you were always there helping us into the early morning hours with our school projects. I've learned to "shake things off". I've learned to be a friend. I've learned to be a wife. And most importantly, I've learned to be a mother too. And I must say, I've learned from the best. I love you Mom. Happy Mothers Day.

Love,

Alisa

While the Cat is Away...

Okay, so some of my closest friends (and others who cared to hear me complain) knew that Joe went out of town for two and a half (don't mock the half) weeks. A long time for a mother of two busy girls. Before he left he said, "I'm afraid to think about what project you are going to do..". You see, Joe remembers back to the time when he left me with our newborn - who had pneumonia at the time - for 3 weeks! I remodeled our bedroom that time. But now we're older, and I felt I needed to up my game. Poor Joe - literally poor Joe, b/c I'm making him broke....just kidding, but not really.

Since we moved into this house almost three year ago, I had a vision for our front room. It's supposed to be a dining room - too boring, and I disliked how you could see right through to my kitchen. So, I decided to make it a library. Sounds fancy right? I like fancy. So the quest began for furnishings. Little by little, I bought the small items -hid them from my husband like any good wife and started my master plan. I just needed my man to go on a trip to complete it!

The time came.

Here are the before pictures...kind of before....actually the beginning of the redo, but I wasn't fast enough to snap the true before pics; just use your imagination.

Notice how you can see right through to my kitchen. Not the best.

Hard at work. Too many numbers to crunch if you ask me!A quick weekend trip to my parents to break up the construction mess.

Starting to come together!!! ............................................

...........................................................................

........................................

.................

......

..

.

Voila!! The room is done (minus the new piece of glass I need for the little table, draperies, and a reading lamp by the leather chair, but it's close)!The inspiration for this room was this gorgeous bookcase from Razmataz. I've waited a long time for you my pretty!

My reading chair - did you hear me kids? MY reading chair!

-----------------------------------

And, let us not forget that walls have two sides. Here's the before back side:
And the after - I'm still choosing which family picture to put in this frame.

So, I think it's safe to say that Joe won't be leaving me for any long trips any time soon! Darn! That bathroom redo will have to wait! :-)

Going Private ... sorry!

This is not the post I promised below, - that one's coming next week - but I wanted to announce that I'm going private in about a week, so please send me your emails. Send them to: joenlarson@qwest.net. And if you blog stock me and I know you or kinda know you, send me your email too! I'm not afraid of all you stockers - heaven knows I'm one! Thanks!

Joe's cheating on me with his garden......

Yes, it's true - I've been replaced with a veggie garden! I'm not joking, but I'm not sad either. I mean who doesn't love fresh lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, herbs, broccoli whenever their heart desires - which is a lot? This is our first attempt at gardening and I must admit - my man delivered. First and foremost, the garden had to look nice, so Joe built me a retaining wall. I'm very proud of this task alone. Then he followed the "Gardening by the Square Foot" method - which rocks! And now we eat fresh veggies every day. These pictures were of our fall garden and now we've extended it even more. Now we have lettuce, radishes, blackberries, strawberries, snap peas, green beans, tomatoes galore, cucumber, zucchini, yellow squash, mystery plant (some seeds fell out and starting growing, we don't know what they are yet), bell peppers, and jalapenos. I hope I'm still happy about our garden when it's 115 degrees!! BTW - any of your kids who want a little summer job by watering our garden call me. We go up to the cabin and to CA a lot during the summer and we'll need a little helper to water the garden and feed the dog. The waterer must not be afraid of dogs! :-)

Anyway, good job Babe, I love the garden and YOU too!!

PS - And for those of you who don't think I update my blog - just wait till you see what I post next week! Here's a teaser...."While the cats away, the mice will play....."

Thanks Friend

Dear Friend - the one who just bought a bouquet of yellow tulips,

Thank you for your kind compliments today. They were much needed. Thank you for your sincerity and friendship. I'm so glad you're in my life and it's good to know you feel the same way.
Thanks again for the extra boost today.

Love,
Alisa