Night with the Grizzlies

Last night we went to our first Grizzlies baseball game (Fresno's minor league team). Besides being in downtown Fresno, it was a really fun night. It started with free drumstick ice cream at the gate. Then winning free drumstick baseball bats. Once we were in the park (which I thought was pretty nice - (reminded me of smaller Coors field), we had fun with Totally 80s night. Although Fresno was stinking it up against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (GO COLORADO!), the entertainment between innings was a blast.

Some Highlights:

• They had the guy Billy Zabka from Karate Kid (the one Ralph Macchio fought at the end of the movie) made an appearance. And they quizzed him... he was pretty funny.

• They had the mascot Parker reenact the final fight scene of Karate Kid.

• They had Garbage Pail kids pictures and names on the big screen for the opposing players when up to bat and 80's teen heartthrobs (Tom Selleck, Eric Estrada, Kirk Cameron) for the home team.

• They had the Drag Kings (the guys that sweep the field) dance to Thriller while sweeping the field.

• Hannah wanting everything that the vendors walked by with. "I want cotton candy. I want water. I want lemonade. I want peanuts. I want snow cones." She wanted a lot and only got water."

• Ella dancing/bouncing to the music every time it came on. Which was a lot.

• Hannah playing pretend baseball with her new mini-bat and her dad.

• Ella drinking water for the first time from a plastic bottle and looking shocked each time it hit her mouth, but not getting enough.

All in all, it was a fun night and something I would definitely do again. I told Chris it would be fun to be on the marketing team for the Grizzlies. A lot of creativity and fun!

PS - You might not have noticed, but that is me with my new haircut. The girl cut a lot, but I think I like it :-)

Organizing can be Fun

I love Flickr. there are so many great ideas out there and Flickr is the place to find them. Here are just a few fun and adorable organizing ideas I found that can really be easy and so darn cute.

1) an old card catalog from a library sale turned into a colorful filing system. LOVE THIS!
2) a simple square shelving unit turned colorful and cute.
3) perfectly coordinated canvas boxes and wire baskets with pink... way too much fun.
4) A simple wooden drying rack holding little girl's dresses becomes the room's cute centerpiece. Adorable and practical all at once.

Go Ask Laurel

I have this cousin who is about the coolest thing ever. She is slowly but surely making a name for herself in the Young Women church market. She has CDs, participates in Time Our for Women and Girls, speaks at youth conferences all over the country and now has the coolest blog/website for young women called Go Ask Laurel.

It is a place where girls can ask Laurel questions about navigating through this crazy little thing called LIFE. Laurel (again, MY cousin!) is about the wittiest, most fun and smartest little cookie your young women will ever meet. She connects with them in a way most only dream of. Seriously... if you are part of the young women's program in our church, check her out.... the girls in your life will love her.

Especially check out her May 7th entry. I love it! That is what I try to tell all the YW I teach, she just does it in a much better way.

Congrats to all the success Laurel - no one deserves it more (and to payback the compliment... you are insanely talented too... YOU ARE TOO, YOU ARE TOO! :-)

Disney Cont'd

I think Snow White is the sweetest of all the princesses and this captures it.

This is Hannah running and almost knocking over Sleeping Beauty. She looks like she enjoyed it.

Hannah waiting for the parade to make it down the street. She kept checking to see if they were coming.

My sister enjoying King Arthur's Carousel

Hannah tried on about 5 different hats. Here is another one

I think it goes without saying, that Disneyland is a photographer's dream. So many things to take pictures of. I want to share all the parade and character pictures I took, but for now... I will post these last remaining photos (so I don't bore you). But I thought these were great and captured many moments we had on the trip. Enjoy!

A Disney Recap

This trip to Disneyland was a great trip. I think it was because my sister Jill was with us and she hadn't been to Disneyland in 20 years, so it was fun to be with her as she experienced it basically for the first time. Here are just some of the highlights of our trip.

- Jill and I were walking down Main Street with Hannah in between us holding our hands and out of the blue Hannah lets go of our hands and starts pretending like she is dialing numbers on her palm (like her hand is a cell phone) and than puts her palm to her ear and starts talking to someone. Jill asked her who she was talking to and she said, "Peter Pan."

- My favorite part of Disneyland is the Parade of Dreams. I love, love, love it. Now California Adventure has a new parade called Pixar Play Parade and it is just as good as the original. The music isn't as touching (I love the music to the Parade of Dreams), but it is still pretty darn good.

- Hannah had a great moment at the parade. The big number where the parade stops and the characters dance was the Alice in Wonderland portion of the parade. Before they started to dance and perform, Alice came to talk to Hannah. Hannah told her about her Alice in Wonderland birthday party. Alice had to leave to do her dance, but then came back afterwards to finish her conversation with Hannah. One is lucky if they characters even stop to look at you, let alone have two conversations with you. It was the highlight for me and Hannah.

- When we went to see the Princesses, Hannah would run full speed into each and everyone of them. She knocked Princess Aurora over. Snow White was by the sweetest and spent the most time with her! She even came looking for Hannah before she had to go backstage so that she could say goodbye to her.

- We were walking to Fantasyland and we noticed Cinderella's Fairy Godmother walking alone through the park. We went up to her and she took Hannah's hand and walked with her through the park to the place she greets and takes pictures. She asked Hannah who her favorite princess was and Hannah in all honestly said "Cinderella". The she asked her what the magic words are and she started "Bibbety" and Hannah finished "Boobity boo".

- I almost finished my Disneyland ABCs. I left with only 2 letters missing - the "V" and the "X".. I have ideas, but I just left the park without them. I can't believe I am that close, with only 2 letters missing. So, this project still might have to wait until later this year. Maybe in time for Christmas.

Well, I think that is it. It was a great trip and probably our last trip until September. It was kinda sad to say goodbye. It really is a fun place!

Logo for a Nutritionist

I was able to create a logo for a friend of mine from back in the day when we all lived in Boston. She is a nutritionist (and mom) and does some awesome stuff in her field. Super impressed with her work. She asked me to create a logo. Something clean and simple to reflect her professionalism in her field.

It has been so much fun working with you Christanne. Thanks for letting me create your brand!

Happy Mom's Day

I have to wish all the mothers out there a BIG happy Mother's Day. And to my own mother. I love you so much and am so grateful to have you as a my mom. Being a mom isn't the easiest thing to do, but now that I am one, I can truly say "thank you" and mean it from the bottom of my heart. I hope you have had a great day and that you know I LOVE you!

As for being a mom. Today, we received Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory covered apples in church to recognize the moms and all they do. That is always something I look forward to on Mother's day. Then finally having a kid in primary that I can watch with pride and get teary eyed over because she is so cute up there singing her heart out. I have two great children that are really the cutest things I know. Hannah told me today that "I love her when she gives me hugs". I told her "I love you all the time, but yes I do love your hugs so much". They make it all worth it. That and her "I love you too" at the end of each day!

Swimming Machine

Hannah has been taking swimming lessons this last week and what a great time she is having. She honestly loves the water (always has) and loves swimming now too. Let me chronicle the stages of learning to swim.

Day 1 - Hannah cried for 1/2 of the lesson. This school has a philosophy of immersion until cooperative. It was tough for both mom and Hannah but after many "I'm tired", "I don't want to go under the water", and "I don't want to learn how to swim", she stopped crying and basically gave in or should I say "gave up the fight".

Day 2 - Hannah didn't want to go to swim lessons, but I bribed her with ice cream with Daddy after the lesson. (It was free ice cream scoop at Ben & Jerry's). Oh, and Panda had to come with us and he watched the lesson by the edge of the pool. It took awhile for her to let go of him, but she did. So, she went in and cried for a couple of minutes and then enjoyed the rest of the lesson and started to get into it. After the lesson the first thing she said is "Where is the ice cream?"

Day 3 - She runs up to her teacher Andrew and jumps right into his arms. She is all smiles and does everything he says. Every time she would swim to him with her flippers on, her little bottom would stick up through the water. It was so cute to just see this little bottom bobbing in the water.

Day 4 - Hannah learns to float on her back, starts to learn to roll over and jumps off the diving board to her instructor. Again, all smiles and loving every minute of it.

Day 5 - Hannah is a swimming star... not a care in the world while she is learning to swim. Each day this week when the lesson ends, she has to walk to the side of the pool where the statues of Snow White and the 7 dwarfs live and say goodbye to Grumpy ... each and every day.

We still have 5 more lessons so I will have a final wrap-up in a few weeks.

Giving Teachers the Love

It is Teacher Appreciation this week. So, while at Target (shopping for Hannah's birthday) I picked up these cute water bottles. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. But I knew they were cute, practical and knew that one of Hananh's teacher walked a lot, so maybe she could use it.

Well, last night I was brainstorming and this is what I came up with. It was the best I could do.

Teachers are great and Hannah has great teachers that show her so much love. As our first experience with teachers and school we couldn't be more blessed!

Also... like life hasn't been hectic enough, we are taking off for the rest of the week and heading down to So. Cal for a few days of swimming, Disneyland and a day with having to come up with something to do besides Disneyland (maybe Universal, Knott's Berry, San Diego... we will see Any suggestions?). But I will be back next week, so have a great week!

Wonderland Party

I feel like life is back to normal after weeks of preparing for Hannah's Alice in Wonderland 4th birthday party. It was a great success and everything worked out as I had hoped. Hannah had been talking about her birthday for weeks before it actually happened, so when the day final arrived... she was more than thrilled. Friends started to arrive and she told them "it is my birthday party".

The guest decorated mad hatter hats and decorated cookies in the shape of hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. At the last minute I threw some chinese yo-yos into the mix and the kids went bonkers over them. They started by trying to hit all the lanterns with the yo-yos and then decided to chase Chris with them. We then had lunch and sang Hannah "happy birthday". She was so excited when she saw the cake and we started singing to her. She blew out each candle one by one.

We then opened up the gifts and each kid was so excited for Hannah to open their gift... they all helped her unwrap them (it was over in a flash).

I just asked Hannah what her favorite part of the party was and she said "eating the cake".

I have to talk a bit about the party favor goodie bag. Each one was tied together with a "take me" tag with Cheshire the Cat. Inside, I had these little glass bottles that I almost throw away, but then I thought... perfect for a little "drink me" potion (or kool-aid) and the adorable brownie cupcakes individually wrapped with "eat me" along with a sucker and a silly straw. It all came together so well.

Some YW left-overs

I was sorting through some old boxes and I came across a bunch of YW handouts and activities from years ago. I saved them for future reference and realized I would be better off if I put them on my blog (so I could access them with the rest of my YW lessons). And I thought maybe they would be useful to all of you. So here are some more YW ideas.

The paper had "50 ways to serve" and listed 50 acts of service (big and small). I am not sure how I tied it all together but it could be something like "Get an appetite for service" or "Help yourself to an extra serving of happiness - Go serve." The possibilities are endless.




The spool as an invitation to New Beginnings that had the invite and information wrapped around the spool and a match and string binding it together. The theme was about "Women letting their light shine."




This was an invitation to a Personal Progress retreat we had. The retreat's theme was "Divine Secrets of the Personal Progress Sisterhood." At the time the book was a big deal.




This is probably my favorite idea. I didn't come up with it, but I will definitely use it someday if I become Camp Director. The girls received these beads all throughout the week as they accomplished certain things like making a new friend, participating in the midnight hike, doing an secret act of service, etc. Earning these beads were a BIG deal and the girls treasured their necklaces very much (as do I).




I made these as handouts on a lesson about feasting on the words of the scriptures.




This was a cute mutual night activity. A modest fashion show - Truth or Bare?

Cute, fun and Easy

I wanted to share the cute ice cream cone cupcakes I made for Hannah's preschool class to celebrate her birthday. I made these once before where I poured the batter into the cones and baked them. They didn't turn out that well (looks and taste). But this time I followed this recipe and they were great.

So fun and easy and kids love them. But one little downside.... they are impossible to transport. So, something that was easy became a bit more difficult because I had to individually wrap each cone to get them to her classroom. Oh, well... they were still cute and Hannah loved them.

Another Great Song

Apple of course has done it again. I love their latest ipod commercial. These are my favorite. The commercial features a new great song titled "shut up and let me go" by the Ting Tings. So, of course I have already downloaded it from iTunes.

7 Days of Baking

I am not sure I will won't to look at another stick of butter, a bag of flour or crack another egg. I will have baked something every day this week. All of it to prepare or celebrate for Hannah's birthday. It started with sugar cookies for her party and to say thank you to those that helped us move. Then ice cream cone cupcakes for Hannah's preschool class to celebrate her birthday. Then these adorable cupcake lollipops for Hannah's birthday party and of course, I almost forgot her birthday cake. And the other items for the party itself. I can already feel myself gaining weight! Here's to hoping each dessert turns out and I get it all done.