Kara bear party time!

Kara asked for a smurf birthday cake this year. She was very specific about how she would like each layer to look. She was actually able to help quite a bit with the decorating, and I think she really like that. I didn't want to make red frosting, so I bought a few cans of red cupcake icing, and had to sort of squirt it onto the cake and then smooth it out. When I started doing that, she exclaimed, "yay! a bloody entrails cake!" I have to say I was slightly shocked to hear her say that, but we had a good laugh once I recovered. I wasn't a fan of how the red frosting tasted, however. I thought it tasted like playdough smells. I was nervous to use frosting instead of fondant, but it's what she preferred, and it actually was easier than I expected to stack it and transport it. I had several backup plans in case something went wrong, but nothing did. It was one of the easier cakes I've made.      

I just bought some toys to put on the top so I wouldn't have to get too artistic. (I was particularly glad about it after the debacle of her cake on Friday) I tried to get a shot of the cake by itself, but she wouldn't stay of out the pictures. She kept saying, "okay, I'll stay out of this one" but then she'd jump in the picture right as I clicked.

She had her party at Olympiad gymnastics. It was a funny choice to me, as she isn't particularly good at gymnastics, but she had so much fun. She was limited in the amount of friends she could invite, but she really had a great time.

She is quite proud of the birthday trophy she "won"

All the other kids got medals. I feel slightly bad, that I sat in the other room chatting with the other moms, and didn't really see much of what they were doing in the gym.

She also had blue koolaid and the blue goodie bags she made earlier.

She says her wish already came true, but wont spill as to what it was.

Her BFF made her this big necklace. It was large enough for 3 girls to wear together!

She was such a sweetie, and really wants to get enrolled in gymnastics. I think she's pretty done with swimming lessons for now, so we'll have to see, I guess.

Karalee turned 8!

My biggest girl turned 8 last week. It's hard to believe that she is getting so big, while at the same time it seems like she's always been around. I love the person she is and is becoming. At the same time, I miss my baby Kara, my toddler Kara, and my preschool Kara.

I made her a bacon and pancake breakfast. She was much quicker to come down for breakfast than usual for a school day.

Lots of presents for a very loved girl!

I had a baking mishap while making the cake for her birthday party. I didn't want to waste this cake, so I decided to decorate it for her to enjoy after dinner. My first thought was to just decorate it with stripes or polkadots, and I probably should have stuck with that idea, with the cake already being such an odd shape...

But I thought I'd get artistic instead. Hehehe. In my defense, I want to say that the smurfs looked really cute when I drew them with a toothpick. It's when I started filling them in with the icing that things just went...wrong. By the time Kara got home from school, a bit of the blue gel had escaped it's confines, and run down the cake, making it look like clumsy smurf had a little accident. It was pretty funny, though, and her reaction was very gracious. I also misspelled the word "smurfy", and had to erase it, and rewrite it, but had already turned all of the blue frosting gray for the outlining, and couldn't really clean up the smudging there. But it tasted really good!

Kara had picked out a birthday crown at the store, and then refused to wear it. But her sisters were great sports. For her birthday dinner, she asked Ben to bring home Chinese, which was perfectly fine with me. Less time cooking, and more time for decorating :)

Kiersten was very excited to pick out these earrings for her.

She was thrilled to get an Egyptology book from Papa and Grams. It is a pretty cool book.

ready to blow out the "8" candle on her pathetic little cake.

Happy happy birthday to my sweet Karalee!

Sesame street and zoo

Yet another of Ben's favorite kind of picture. Evie asleep at the dinner table.

A friend of mine had tickets for Sesame street live that she couldn't use, so she was nice enough to give them to us. Evie was the most excited.

Kara was less than thrilled to go. I thought she might change her mind once we got there, but she made it clear she wasn't into it.

It was a pretty cute show.

For the past year and a half, I have hated looking at the dusty plastic ivy above the cabinets in my kitchen. It was left in the house when we moved in, and I just didn't know what else to do, so I left it there all this time.

Last weekend I finally pulled it all down, and went to home goods to find something better to put up. I think it turned out looking much better.

Of course Ben was very helpful, in helping me find good items to use. He hates to admit, but he has such a knack for decorating.

In the end I was able to reuse a couple of items I already had sitting around, which was good, since I had forgotten about this set of cupboards while we were at the store.

I made Karalee make her own goodie bags for her birthday party this year. I printed out some pictures of smurfs for her to cut out and paste on the bags. I took her to party city to pick out some candy and small items for the bags. She had a good time picking everything out.

She is pretty proud of her bags!



Kiersten and Evie were quick to lay claim to the plastic flowers that used to be above the cupboards. I even turned a few of them into hair clips for them.

(and yes, the girls are in compete denial that it is actually winter)

We went to the zoo over Christmas break, and I just found the pictures the other day. I had forgotten they were on there. So here they are!

This elephant was celebrating his 21st birthday. The girls thought it was hilarious that he was eating the cardboard box that his gifts had been in.

They were pretty happy to get out of the house.