Moving so quickly

Ever feel like things are moving to fast and you don't quite know how to slow them down?  That's me lately.  Juggling family, work, activities, home, sleep, health and everything else just sometimes gets the best of me.  Where do you give your time too?  Addi loves to dance and do ballet but the classes all fall at the worst time for our family...3:45 in the afternoon.  Plus the new studio is across town way out of our way.  But she loves to dance and it makes her so happy.  What to do.  Participating in that activity puts a strain everywhere else.  But we always signed Will up for everything when he was 6.  Parenting decisions are so hard.  I read a blog every once in awhile when I stumble across it and the gal wrote this one simple quote 'life is long' that seems to apply to things like this.  Yes in fact, life is long and there is time.  If we miss dance this round, there's always next go round.  And really, there's always next go around for everything isn't there?  Always another chance....

Kenedi's Baby

This little one loves here baby!

Kenedi sleeping

Kenedi is a big girl.  She loves her some food!  I hold her and know that she's heavy but this picture really shows just how BIG she is!   We have a camera over her crib that lets us watch her in bed.  Man!  technology has improved since Will and Addi were little.  We peek in on her at night, when she wakes up and really, have the camera up on the computer all the time.  I captured this picture after a long day of playing. ... She's so long!

Bye-Bye aunt lyndsey

Tonight aunt lyndsey took off for Ashland.  Good byes are never fun but she's off to do amazing things like learn how to be a nurse.  She likes blood and needles and science stuff.  we're pretty proud of her around here...OHSU program... pursuing a dream that she has worked real hard for.  But man, will we miss her.  she's my little sis...so in a bon voyage fashion...I'll send her off with our favorite pics of her!

 Lyndsey always is up for a counting crows concert.  and she gets our own little dance party going at each one.

 She'll make you wait 90 minutes for Adam to come out of his tour bus for an autograph....

 She'll sing karaoke in front of a HUGE group of people and even get on the ground for effect.  (i would never do this)

 Her, my mom and I get confused as siblings all the time...I gets its only confusing that they think mom is a sister.....

 and she's always up for snuggles with babies.  

your going to do great down in ashland aunt lyndsey.  we're just a skype session away!  love you!

Harry Potter Party...Will's 8th Birthday Extravaganza

Months ago my baby boy turned 8.  It's taken me 6 months to finally get pictures up of it.  It was a great party.  Harry Potter style all the way.  My mom helped with the costumes and all of the prep and Grandma Taylo was in town to help with the party happenings. I was so THANKFUL for extra hands.  Man, 10 8 year old boys is a lot of work.

Here's a play by play....

Invitations looked like this.  I printed each one individually with the boys' name on it.  For the kids that lived in the neighborhood we delivered with an owl (a balloon that we drew and owl on).  For boys at school, I just delivered the envelope.

We had three parts to the party:  Potions class, wand making + spells, and care of magical creatures.  The boys walked into the house through a brink wall (a sheet painted by my mom and dad) with a 9 3/4 sign above them.  Here's what it looked like:

When they came inside, they grabbed a gown (my mom hand made them all...) and a blank wand (bamboo piece form our bamboo tree).  The first step was to pick up their spell book (I put these together with spells, puzzles, and stuff) and then decorate their wands.  My sister in law was there to help with hot glue and putting pieces together.  I had feathers (dragon tail pieces and beads...which I can't remember what they represented) for the boys to decorate wands with.  I thought they would think this silly but they actually got into it.

Blank wands waiting to be decorated

Spellbooks to keep the young wizards occupied

The gowns

I made this sign by having my great friend cut out the letters with her Cricut machine ( i want one) and then gluing them to pages of a Harry Potter book that I found at Goodwill.  It was great.

Here is the cake that my mom made which was amazing.  My dad made the wand for will and that's a Gryffindor scarf.  

The first activity after everyone arrived was spell class.  ROb, who dressed up as Snap, took everyone out on the driveway and they practiced spells.  The spells were in their spell book so they kind of just read through them and played around.  This gave us a chance to get potions class set up.  

Here's Rob as Snape...which required a trip to the Halloween shop which is a place Rob loves!

The kids had fun in spells class....But they really LOVED Potions. 

 Here was out menu of potions.  One of the links below has all of the specifics.  Let's just say we had a lot of dry ice, baking soda and vinegar.  And the table cloth was a must have.  It was MESSY.

 Potions class was messy, bubbly and poppy.  And by far the favorite.  Even Snape enjoyed it.  This was a really 3 adult job.  The kids needed lots of help with the dry ice and switching out potions.  I had everything set up and ready to go ahead of time (lots of little glass jelly jars) but it still took 3 of us to pull it off.

 Then it was time for butter beer and cake.  We also played a game where I combined jelly beans and berties bots jelly beans (the nasty tasting ones).  There would be two green ones that looked a lot alike and the boys had to choose one to eat.  Some got nasty ones (like Will's booger one below) and some got yummy ones.  It was a hit.

 Then we played a care of magical creature game where I hid (Rob did maybe?) plastic animals formt he Dollar Store out in the yard and they had to find them.  Based on the number of animals they found, they could go to Diagon Alley and fill their candy bags (our take home gift too).  This was also fun but by this point I was exhausted and Will was just hanging on (more about that later).  So, I don't rememerb much of it.  But here is what Diagon Alley looked like

LOTS OF CANDY. and cute signs.  I just used a buffet area in our house.

Here are some close up pictures of the table and the windows.  It was a lot of decorating which I think made it so much fun.

I got most of my ideas from the internet and a friend at work who had planned a HP party for her husband.  She was a great resource.  My mom was a huge help too.  Would I do it again?  6 months later, maybe.  It was a ton of work.  I think birthday parties like this come every two years!

And since a friend is planning one of her own Harry Potter party, here are most of the details....

Here are the details for Harry Potter Extravaganza~Hope this helps Jill!

Invites:

I got the idea and wording here.  I used the fonts on our computer but you can download Harry Potter like fonts here.

My dad cut a sign for the 9 3/4 platform.  Idea came from here and I download the font/image for the letters from here.  I painted the sign bright red and ran a ribbon through it.

My mom made the capes for the students.  We originally wanted gowns with hoods and sleeves but at $12+  cape, we decided on just capes. 

My mom also made the red brick wall.  Idea for that came from here.

I pulled down some of our dead bamboo from the back yard and cut pieces out for wands.  The bamboo was perfect because it has a hole in the center.  The boys were able to choose feathers (dragon feathers) and small jewels to put in their wands.  I glued the ends up so the magic powers could stay in.  

All of the fonts for the signs were from here

I picked up the templates for the labels here and here

Butterbeer labels here - I had to modify them to fit the jars.  I bought the jars on amazon.com

Potions class

Labels were from here 

The start to school

 It's for real.  We have two school aged kids.  Addi started FIRST grade today and Will entered the world of THIRD graders.  It was a LOOONG night trying to get Addi to sleep and then an EAARLY morning when everyone woke up at 5:45 ready for the day.  Needless to say, all persons under 4 feet tall are snug and asleep in bed right now.  

Here we are walking in to school with back packs bigger than the kids.

Addi has a window seat with Teacher Cassie who seems super sweet.  Right next to the books to keep her busy.  Will was off like a flash back in with his old buddies so I couldn't catch a picture with im.  I was lucky to get a good bye kiss out the door.

And Kenedi is off to Katie's house all by her lonesome.  She'll grow up before we know it.