Party Time!

Tis' the season of parties and we just scratched two off the list. Both turned out great, both were a lot of work, and both were for VERY special people.

We started the day out yesterday with Mary's party!!! We have had a lot of fun together picking out the theme, choosing games and crafts, picking out what kind of cupcakes to make, ect. Mary had an opinion on it all...and I must say, she has good taste for a soon-to-be 4yr old.

Her party turned out AWESOME!!!! We invited 10 kids and 8 were able to make it...well, 9 including Sam. The party was a Jungle Safari theme. The kids made their own binoculars and camo. vests. and took off on a trek, with Ben as the leader, to find the animals in the jungle.

Getting ready to go on a jungle safari...fully equipped with vests and binoculars


The kids all showing eachother the animals they found

They also played pin the tail on the lion (Ben drew an awesome lion!)and a jungle version of hot potato. It was all really cute to see these little kids having so much fun. My heart melted to see my little girl feel so special and to see her having so much fun with her cute little friends.


Mary getting ready to blow out her candles while we all sang Happy Birthday to her.

The party was a great success, and Mary was so happy, even when her hair caught on fire while blowing out the candles. No worries, just a few black hairs, one flame and some smoke. Sure scared me, but it didn't stop her one bit!


This was taken after blowing the fire out of her hair. She blew them all out this time around.


Here are a few of the cupcakes before they were devoured. They aren't the prettiest things, but they had animals on them and they tasted great. I am way more concerned about the Little Mermaid cake that needs to be constructed for the actual Birthday.

When all was said and done, we were pretty wiped out, and of course, had some party clean up to do, but Mary was grinning and we had a really fun time.

After we cleaned up from Mary's party, it was off to the ward Christmas party. Ben was in charge of setting up tables chairs and I am on the activities committee and had stuff to do, so we all headed to the church.

Ben and his buddy set up approx. 26 tables and enough chairs to go with each one. They also moved some other stuff and got the building ready to go for our committee to come in and decorate. Good job guys..way to work those muscles!

As the activities committee (all five of us), we cut LOTS of paper for the tables (about 48 large rectangles), decorated them with the centerpieces of pine cones, paper bags and crayons for the kids to color with, we taped the paper onto the tables (rectangular paper on round tables), helped get food ready, and just did what people do to get ready for a ward party. The party was a success and all went smoothly. We had a good time.
I was able to grab some food before helping in the kitchen and refilling the water cooler about 50 times, moving the drink table down the hall, taking down tables, refilling food trays, setting up the dessert room, ect. The food was soooo good! We had the right man for the job on that one. He is a great cook!
When the party was over, we cleaned, washed a TON of dishes, got the food donations taken care of and came home. Few!
Before coming home, we rented Lost, and are now totally hooked. Great show! We were up WAY too late watching it, but it felt great to sit back and relax a little. Love it!

It was a really fun and eventful day for our family. Both parties were full of good friends and good people. It makes it all worth it.
We have more parties this week, and this time we are not in charge, so we get to sit back and relax and savor the moments. Yippee!