Summer Parties

Hello there Glitz fans! With summer in full swing we have been crafting decorations for my daughter's 14th birthday party. I can hardly believe that she'll be a high school freshman in just a few months! Time continues to march on! 
 

My daughter asked for a up-to-date version of shabby chic decor. As the hostess of the party, I wanted to keep things simple and fun. The invitations were made by sewing a sequins filled vellum pouch, then layering a variety of "Brightside" papers from the 6x6 paper pad. Cutting strips allows for making several invitations with the same design but different patterned papers. 

I added a few party supplies by adding washi tape flags to straws, wrapping a little patterned paper around a favor box and taping a sentiment to a framed mirror. The garland included pom-poms constructed from white cupcake wrappers, and die cut butterflies. In just under an hour I was able to make all of the decorations we needed for her party.

"Modern Shabby-Chic Birthday Decor" supplies:

Glitz Design "Brightside" paper: Plaid, Chunky Chevron, Bits & Pieces

Glitz Design "Brightside" 6x6 paper pad

Glitz Design wash tapes - mint chain & cherries

other: kraft card stock, vellum, sequins, baker's twine, mini clothes pins

thankful

I often think about the things my parents passed onto the girls, the little unseen gifts in hobbies, habits, memories and the like. Knitting was one of the little blessings mom left with the girls. She took the time to teach them, and to pass on the love of a hobby. Just a little something I am thankful for today.

We ordered some stand-outs from WHCC the other day for our living room wall. They arrived yesterday afternoon and we set to arranging them last night, with this as the final result. 

“It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.” 

–G.K. Chesterton, The Coloured Lands

{eleven}

Today our sweet baby girl turned eleven. The past year brought many heartaches, growth in body (7 inches) and in spirit, blessings and moments that reveal the soul. She has a simple, pure heart and self-giving love that is truly beyond her years. There are few greater honors than to be blessed to say that I am Emma's mom. Happy birthday baby girl.

“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. 
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
- Franz Kafka

the big day...

for weeks the girls and i have been busy making signs and buying out flags from every walmart and target in driving distance! last night we got the front of the house all set up with the big banner signs hung... we are ready! not that we wouldn't be ready without 100+ flags, but anything we can do to show stan just how much he's loved, missed and appreciated... well i would have a million flags if i could to say that.

so if i go under the radar for a few days... just know we are enjoying that special family time with our very own big strong hero who is home with us again!! thanks for all of your prayers along the way. we are so blessed!

God bless America

i've been wanting to post but...

i'm going to give this a quick try. my internet is giving me all kinds of grief... well, i think it might be my computer that's giving me internet grief. either way, there is grief and internet involved. i wanted to update my project 365 pics here, but we'll see if i can get that to work!

wow! so far i've got things moving, so i'm going to go for it. here we go for the past few days worth of pictures.

for starters... on thursday my baby girl turned eight. oh man, i almost wrote seven just now. anyway, eight. now let me share a little confession with you. my birthday is two days before christmas {hence the whole noel joy bit}. growing up my birthday always felt like a shaft... do you hear the middle child in me there? hee hee. no really, who has anytime to come to a birthday party so close to christmas? even when you have it earlier, people are so busy. you get the combined christmas & birthday presesnts... and often feel lost in the hubbub of it all. there's the background, now for the confession. i now {sort of} know what it was like on my parents' side, and just how much you desire to do things that are, at the same time, very overwhelming at times. you're the one in charge of christmas, and all the fabulousness and busyness that goes with it in your house. it's busy. it's hectic. it's fun. it's tiring. and sometimes you just don't really feel the birthday love in that grand mix.

this year we arrived home, after our 22 hour drive & little snow plow incident (see post below) on sunday, january 3rd. at which time me and my pre-planning self remembered my baby's birthday, and figured i'd better get something planned. but oh, how everything in me just wanted to take the week to relax. of course, somewhere in me, that just-before-christmas-birthday little kid in me thought better of it. after a few quick calls & some facebooking, i had a family and a friend party set up. it didn't slow down the rest of the planning and party what-not's that follow, but it committed me to them. for a major procrastinator, like myself, deadlines are a good thing.

and so, the week of birthday fun started late wednesday night when i was going to make cupcakes for emma's class. the oven was preheated and the ingredients were laid out... until i realized i was out of paper baking cups. crummy! off went the oven, and onto plan b. after taking the girls to school, i zipped to the grocery store and had the very nice bakery lady frost some cupcakes in plain white. then headed home to make some quick toppers. it was nothing that my big shot, some toothpicks and a stapler couldn't solve. dang did they turn out super cute! they even made it to class in time to be devoured by her hungry little second grade class of cuties. there's a couple of detail pics here.

friday was quiet, which was wonderful. i caught a quick picture of torrey doing what she loves, reading. right now she's in the middle of the 39 clues series.

saturday the whole family came over for a spaghetti lunch {emma's favorite}. she and i had made a big pot of super veggie-filled yummy sauce. how lucky is she to have her cousins, grandparents and great grandparents all at her party?! the only one missing was daddy. he did get a present in the mail that even arrived in time for the party. there's not a lot of shopping options where he is... but a little teddy bear and a tactical flashlight were more than enough to melt a little girl's heart. i have a bunch more pictures from the day here.

stan also sent both of the girls a little something extra special. he picked up american flags for them, which he then flew, in his plane, on a combat mission on christmas night. then made a certificate signed by his entire crew. in each box was a letter to each of the girls too. i'm want to share emma's letter... that way it's recorded, just in case it ever gets lost.

Dear Emma,

This is a very special flag because it was flown on a combat mission by me and my crew on Christmas day. This flag and certificate are a token for you so you will always remember why your daddy had to spend so much time away from home.

Keep this flag and certificate in a safe place, and when I come home we will build a special box together to put thiem in and hang on your wall. I love you so much.

Merry Christmas.

Love,

Daddy

sunday, after church, we had a party with some of her friends. with inspiration from a baby shower theme i saw posted on hostess with the mostess. {i heart that site!} we went with a "sugar, spice & everything nice" theme. i posted lots of party decor pics here. what did we do before there was photoshop? :)

tonight i was running low on umph to get a picture. but i did manage to snap this quick shot, although it's not my favorite, i thought the expressions were keepers. the girls and i have been watching the dean martin & jerry lewis show (from the 1950's) on netflix lately. it's so fun to watch the girls die laughing at jerry lewis and his crazy stunts. so this is them, waiting to see what will happen next.

a week flies by

so here i am behind on posting again! so once again, i'll do a quick sum up of our week with project 365 pics...

spent most of the week just keeping busy with daily life... scrapping, family time and the lot. we're down to the last few weeks of having stan at home, so we've definitely been packing in every moment of family time possible. playing yahtzee, having breakfast together, reading together, wrestling around... you know, just the perfect little moments that make everyday life wonderful.
 

saturday we all slept in & stan made one of his yummy breakfasts. lucky us! we never eat as well when he's away! after breakfast emma and i headed downstairs to brush our teeth. while we were downstairs i checked her little wiggly teeth. those babies were definitely ready to come out. so i pulled them out for her & she ran upstairs to show daddy her new toothless smile. there are a few more shots here. good thing the tooth fairy had some cash on hand for her visit.

after the toothy excitement had waned a little, we pulled out our boxes and boxes for christmas decorations. yes, i know it's not even halloween yet, but well, we're celebrating christmas a little early this year. on deployment years, we always put up our christmas decorations before stan leaves. by the end of the day the tree was up & decorated. by sunday we had most of the garland up and ornaments hung from the kitchen ceiling. it's beginning to look a lot like christmas here! all of this early decorating does add to the sadness a bit... knowing that it's all up because stan's not going to be here. still, i'd rather decorate and celebrate together. just something magical about the whole thing.

with the tree and lights up, i figured it would be a good time to mess around with my lensbaby & the creative aperture star-shape thingy. (it's a cool little disk that slides into the lensbaby and changes the lights into star shapes.) the picture above is an ornament my great grandma made for me when i was in junior high. when we were decorating the tree together, i was telling the girls where all of the different ornaments came from... i was thinking, man, i'm the only one who really knows where all of these came from! note to self: take pictures of ornaments & tell their stories at some point.

well, i'm now all caught up... well at least for another 29 minutes until the clock strikes midnight & i'm behind again! lol.

one crazy awesome week

birthdays, parties, holidays, celebrations, visitors, fun & vacation

holy moly! it's been one crazy week of fun and business. so i'm going to do a little backwards recap of the week as i type this from a hotel in montana on our way to yellowstone. stan got a new truck last week to replace our minivan. he's feeling very manly now. lol. so we got our annual pre-trip picture with the car all packed and ready to go. i will say, i am liking how little it makes the girls look. :)

we had some old friends visit for the weekend from out of state & brought their four sweet little darlings with them. this was our first time meeting their youngest two. tons of fun, lots of laughs & bbq'ing. the kids all bunked out in torrey's room (except baby maximus). i'm pretty sure they didn't get to sleep before 11:30pm any of the nights. too much giggling going on.

i got some runky red streaks put in last week too. just to change things up a bit for fun. we spent the 4th of july at a big bbq at the fuentes family's house. i think it's our first year we haven't camped there too. (just too much stuff to try to squeeze that in too). next year! they, of course, know how to throw a fabulous party. tons of families, fireworks and celebration of our great country.



on friday, after the jewetts rolled into town, we all turned around and went right to a wbc staff reunion bbq. the kids put away some hot dogs and hamburgers while the grown ups visited. it's always fun to see lots of families and kids you don't get to see very often all playing together. emmy, the jewett's youngest girl, was so dang cute sporting her little jane fonda 'do...

i loved that we had all of the party bag making supplies on hand at home! hurray for scrapbook supplies & lunch bags!

on thursday, we had back to back parties. from 12-3pm we had a bunch of fabulous 4th graders over for torrey's 9th birthday. i'm not really sure how she's 9 years old now, but she assures me she is! lol. we made a homemade 50' slip & slide out of clear vinyl, and a soaker hose, and had it going down one of the hills in our backyard. we even grabbed a couple of bottles of baby oil to really make sure they'd fly down the slip & slide. the girls had a blast, and went home with oily, grassy bodies... hopefully with not too many bruises to remember the day. :)

then after a quick clean up we had a 60th anniversary party for my grandma & grandpa. how cool is that? 60 years! the whole family was there. they brought their high school year books (yes, they started "going together" in high school) and their albums of pictures. we all took turns looking through the pictures while they told us stories about them. what an amazing legacy... plus they're just so darn cute. darn that none of the pictures turned out well. when we get back from vacation, i'd really like to do some portrait shots of the two of them. just a reminder of the blessing they are.

ooo! stan also took down a beehive that morning, i've got a couple of pictures of that, but i'll have to post them later. i'm trying to be speedy so we can get back on the road, and i may get in trouble if i take too much longer. lol.

wednesday, we spent the entire day running around trying to get all of the last minute things done before the parties & company came in... then we bought the truck. i'd left my camera at home, and it was the first day i nearly missed getting a shot for project 365. but as we tucked the girlies into bed, i snapped one of torrey's last day of being 8. loving her big eyes & silly look.

on tuesday the fuentes family came over for some relaxing fun in the sun. the kids played in the hose while jennifer and i visited. man, time gets so busy sometimes. when the kids were littler we would get together 3-4 days a week in the summer... now we're lucky if we get a couple of times a month in. thank goodness for good friendships that can handle the ups and downs and time constraints of real life.


there it was... a quick (or maybe not so quick) recap of our crazy week of fun. i better get this posted so we can get back on the road for our crazy week of vacation madness. hope you are having a fabulous summer! {{hugs}}