Lex Got Married

Quincy's niece Alexa got married to Tim on October 5th. This summer she had asked Dianna and I to help with the decorations. We said of course but little did I know that I was going to get a new job that didn't allow me to help as much as I wanted to. Good thing Di is a natural wedding planner since she did most of the decor and it turned out awesome.

 

Lex was a beautiful bride and the whole night turned out wonderful except for my pictures. I think Lucy has been very helpful putting some new setting on my camera. Here are a few that did turn out.

 

 

 

 

Di and I made 20 of these little pomander balls. They only took our whole labor day to make, but they made the aisle look fabulous and that is what we were going for of course.

 

 

 

Di made this huge picture for them from one of those engineer prints that you see people use on Pinterest. It was fabulous too! I was asked to make some banners for the wedding. I guess it is my specialty.

 

 

 

 

After a delicious dinner we hit the dance floor to show off our moves. Kev didn't disappoint with the worm and some weird fist pump that he does in every picture. Brittany even came from D.C. for the party. It was a great night with great memories for sure.

 

 

 

Red White & Blue

This July fourth our little family was on our own. That hasn't happened since we got married. We didn't know how the day would turn out but by the end of it we thought we did pretty good.  

We debated with ourselves if we really wanted to go to The Summerlin Parade to start the day. Quincy and I both would of rather slept in then get up at 7:00 to be at a parade, but we knew the kids would love it. And love it they did. Especially Jensen of course with every single car and truck you could think about driving down the street.

Now this parade was quite the upgrade from our three minute parade we watched last year in Alamo. We barely sat down and got situated and it was over. This year we watched at least 2 hours of entertainment.

For being rookies to the parade we thought we found a pretty good spot. We weren't on the main side of the street where the parade goes down but in the end I liked that better. That way I wasn't worried if one of my kids ran out into the street and the sun wasn't in our eyes.  We also found a nice shady tree to watch the parade by. I had been warned that we might melt in the hot Las Vegas heat but actually the morning was overcast and we only needed our shade from the tree the last half hour of the parade.

Also right across from us was this crazy co-ed (had a BYU hat on) parade fanatic. He looked like he had been saving seats for a week. He had red, white & blue banners up and decorated the trees with crepe paper next to his spot. The best part was he had this sign that said "Parade Stop Here". That way when a parade entry was going by they did their routine right in front of him (which was right in front of us too). He was getting people to do all sorts of stuff like honk and rev their engines (Jensen appreciated that one), girls dance, football players acting out plays and made the big balloons do 360's. He was quite entertaining!

Lucy kept asking me if the balloons had candy inside of them. She thought they were big pinatas.

 The kids were disappointed that they didn't get any candy but they did get stickers, frisbees, and
yo-yos.

Lucy waiting for more big "pinatas" to come.

 These were some of our favorites.

The parade was a hit but Quincy and I are both trying to forget the melt down by both kids to get back to the car after it. We headed home for lunch and a much needed nap for everyone. After we were all well rested we headed out for our second activity of the day. The 51's baseball game which had a carnival for the kids before hand.

Since we went to one of these last year we knew where to head first, the bounce house. Lucy surprisingly went right inside to jump but didn't like everyone else bouncing her. She sat by the edge and even got out early.

The next time she waited patiently while her brother jumped in the mosh pit.

 The kids did do some carnival games too. This is them with their bags full of prizes. Their favorite was kicking a soccer ball into the net to win these crazy gold madallions.

Future Dodger players

After the carnival we got some dinner and returned to the park for the game. This was the place to be since they were having fireworks at the end of the game. We were keeping our fingers crossed that the kids would make it through all nine innings.

Jensen going up to Cosmo and giving Papa John's pizza guy high five.

The kids did make it through the game. Bubbles, snacks and suckers were a big help in that. Lucy insisted that she have a jacket before we left the house. We told her that she didn't need it but she wouldn't give up. She put it on for the fireworks even though it was a wonderful 90 degrees.

The fireworks were two thumbs up and was the perfect ending to such a great day!

I am not sure why, maybe it's because I have never been home for the fourth, but I didn't have any Fourth of July decorations until this year. I thought our house looked pretty bare so I saw something like this on Pinterest (of course) and thought I could totally copy it. So copy it I did. Best part I had all the materials already at home. The star came from my upstairs bathroom and the wood was a sign that I repurposed. So easy and cheap.  

I thought I needed a banner too!

Over the Hills & Through the Woods

Mom let me in on a little secret of hers about two months ago. She wanted to throw a Little Red Riding Hood party when I came to town next for all the grandkids. With this knowledge I decided that for Mother's Day the perfect present for her would be a party package complete with invites, tags, banners, candy bar wrappers and other party items. I designed them all on Photoshop. Oh, how I love thee. It was more fun for me to make them than to see mom open up the goods. I didn't do too good capturing them at the party, but if you look close you can see some of them in the pictures below.

The Invite:

The party was at my parent's cabin in Provo Canyon. The perfect place for such a party. I haven't been there in a long time. In fact neither of my kids had been there before. Jensen loved it of course, so many things to explore. We will have to make more of an effort to visit it when there isn't snow on the ground.

The Decor:

Mom had sewn each grandkid their own cape. The girls were of course Little Red Riding Hoods and the boys were Woodsmen.

The tables were set with cute baskets to eat our picnic dinner out of.

Yes, that is the Lion House cake for dessert. I'm sure you can tell I didn't make that one. :)

Before we could really party we had to have a photo shoot to show off these cute capes and kids.
 

Grandma Cindy is always trying to get a picture with all the grandkids. It is NEVER an easy task and still wasn't tonight. They were all posing and somewhat cooperating until. . .

 . . .the Big Bad Wolf came.

All of the little girls and one boy named Jensen was afraid and it took a long time to get them to smile again. Ella was done for good. Sorry Grandma, no picture of all of them.

Dinner:

Dinner consisted of Woodmen's logs (foot long sandwhiches), Wolf Whiskers (celery or chips) Granny Apples (they actually got left home), and Forrest Juice (Rootbeer).  We also had watermelon and pink grandma cookies. And don't forget the chocolate cake because I sure didn't.

Activities:

Grandma Cindy had coloring books that she had put together for each child to color. The kids also decorated a frame to remember this fun night.

She also found a book at Hallmark that she recorded her own voice telling the classic fairy tale. All of the kids enjoyed listening to it too!

Grandma went all out and made her own wolf pinata which would make any party even better. Jensen laughed the whole time he was hitting the poor wolf.

Grandma also had a photo booth with signs that I made for it with classic sayings from the story. I think some of my siblings should use them as Christmas cards.

This girl didn't want to miss out on the fun either.

And that my friends is another Grandma Cindy party!
She amazes me!
Wonder what the next party will be, because you know she is planning one.