PB&J's for The Wedding reception!

It would be impossible to find two more selfless and wonderful people on this planet. Look. I dare you to prove me wrong!

Will Nicholson, one of my husbands best friends and his fiance Leah Bogen who recently got engaged, have begun planning their June wedding. Where most couples would be penny pinching to make it the best day possible and not willing to sacrifice anything for their big day, Will and Leah have decided to donate 25% of their budget, which was for their reception - to the crisis in Haiti. Even stating they will be serving PB&J instead of the traditional meal choice to make this donation work for them.

The Pioneer Press had this to say about Leah & Will and their conversation about making this choice:

"She totally blew me away," said Nicholson, a University of Minnesota Duluth graduate. "I'm still in awe. I was very impressed. How do you say anything but yes to that? It's such a selfless and thoughtful thing. It's hard to get excited about planning a wedding when other people are having such a terrible time.

She [Leah] made a decision right then and there to donate the money they planned to spend on the reception dinner — 25 percent of their wedding budget — to people in Haiti. Her fiance didn't need any convincing."

To read the full store please CLICK HERE

I am so proud to call these people my friends, and will gladly help them make PB&J's for their wedding reception! As a mom, I have mad skills in that department!

To make your donation to Partners in Health, the orginization chosen by Will & Leah, CLICK HERE even if you can only spare a dollar, every little bit helps!

Photo by Kari Layland www.kariphotography.com

Scrappin' Away!

Initially, when I thought about scrap booking for Ellison I was turned off at the idea of doing it digitally. There was just something about it that wasn't "right" to me. I put hundreds, even thousands into Paige's scrap book. It's so big it barely closes, each little element chosen for each page sepreatly....it was a labor of love.

As Ellie's 7th month approached I realized soon I was going to be totally out of time to catch up on her pages, and money being tight as it is dove into my files and folders filled with digi-scrap items and started on her scrap book, still with a bad taste in my mouth about the manner in which it was coming to be.

After the first page however, I was pumped! It looked AWESOME! I started whipping out pages left and right. This is so much faster, and it's still just as personal. Each Paige is color coordinated to "flow" through out the book and has a simple layout that focuses on the photos and not the scrap elements. Here's the first 3 pages! Let me know what you think!

I'll post some more of them over the next few days :0) They are really looking good, in my opinion anyway. And soon my first printed 12x12 page will arrive so I can check color and quality. I'm trying 2 different places for printing www.mpix.com and Creative Memories, as my aunt has an account with them.

Updates.

Things have been crazy busy around here, I let the blog slip entirely. We are all alive and well so no worries on that end! Here's what's new from us.

Ellie is now 7 months old, almost crawling and just your general very happy little girl. She's eating baby food, but not liking some of it, and prefers her Farley's Rusk that Nanny got her from England. Here's a few shots of Ellison over the past few weeks:

Paige has also been doing well, loving school and Girl Scouts and Gymnastics. She's looking forward to turning 6 in April and asked for a Wizard of Oz birthday party.

Over the next few days I'll post the scrapbooking pages I have made for Ellie so far and get up some more photos! :0)

Just To Add Humor To Your Life...

I have a new favorite blog to read, and shockingly enough it has NOTHING to do with Twilight. Well ok, so that's a little lie - I was directed to the site because of a an entry about Twilight cakes. BUT as I read it and looked it over I couldn't help but laugh my butt off!

The blog is called Cake Wrecks and is a site dedicated to the horribly hilarious mishaps of professional cakes! I honestly can't tell you if the photos are funnier, or the dialog that accompanies it.

Here's a little snip it from one of their blogs:

The Problem With Phone Orders
[answering phone] "Cakey Cake Bakery, Jill speaking! How can I help you?"

"Hi, I need to order a cake for my boss. We have a photo of him playing golf that we'd like to put on it, though - can you do that?"

"Of course! Just bring the photo in on a USB drive and we'll print it out here."

"Great, I'll bring it by this afternoon."

Later... "Hey, Jill, what am I putting on this cake?"

"Oh, check the counter; I left the jump drive out for you there." [calling from the back room]

"Really? This is what they want on the cake?"

"Yeah, the customer just brought it in." "Okey dokey!"

Believe it or not, this is a TRUE story: Elisabeth R. worked at the office in question. Besides, how could I ever make up something this good?

Oh wait it gets better - here's a look at a Halloween cookie they found:

What do colorful sperm have to do with Halloween?
(Granted, "Happy" I could see...)

Now I warn you, this site it horribly addicting, after you see one cake you have to go to the next and read the story behind it or laugh your butt at the simply stupid decoration that has wond up on a cake and you have to wonder, are people blind AND stupid....

Check it out you will not be disappointed! I'm told the baby cakes are the best but have not gotten to them yet - it's on my list of things to do today!!!

(photos and story from http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com - I claim no right to either)

The Epic Twilight Birthday Party (Part Three)

I know, I know. Bad Blogger, shame on me for leaving you hanging....right - who reads this anyway? LOL - no seriously, does anyone really read this?

Okay enough with the pitty party and onto the Twilight party photos!

So we've gone over the set up and all the details, the fantastic Forks sign, and now here's some action shots of the fun and mayhem that ensued!

Me as Bella, with "the truck"

Okay so it's not the right truck, I know - fortunately for me, my truck did arrive shortly after this photo was taken....check out Marta who one the Best Costume prize, for being dressed as Bella's Truck:

The Back of the truck, complete with license plate and bumper stickers!
And don't forget the "headlights"
As you can see bu the above photo, "Alice Cullen" also made her debut in her New Moon outfit!
And "Robsten" even showed up.....
And so did some Volturi - no that's not red eye from the camera - it's contacts! Mary Jo (on my left) was Renata - Aro's shield, and Felicity (right) was just...well creepy! LOL As you can see I'm a little scared...


Here we have Volturi, Bellas Truck, Dr. Cullen, Victoria and Rosealie

Here's the other Rosalie
It was a great night filled with fun and WINE! I snapped a few shots of the gifts that I got from all my most wonderful friends and family. I'm starting with the gifts from a friend, Melissa, who coulnd't be at the party :0(

We all saw my Happy Birthday Wish from N*Sync, right? well - here's my Happy Birthday from The Hillywood Cast - this is a photo of Melissa dressed as Victoria, with the cast, she had them all sign for my birthday!
I can now hang this next to the one they sent me for my 1 year anniversary!
As if that wasn't enough - I also got an autographed copy of Bran Hambric by Kaleb Natire (the Original Twi-Guy) sent to me from Melissa as well! (not to mention the 3 shirts for me and onsie for Ellie all Twi-related!)
And here's everything...it's insaine! Now I actually own Twilight stuff other then the movies! I have the greatest friends ever!


And that concludes the party posts! Hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed my party!

The Epic Twilight Birthday Party (Part Two)

As promised, birthday photos and party info is back.

I'm going to start off with the crown jewel of my party - the Forks sign. My husband built it, my sister painted the circle and it was quite possibly the coolest thing.

He used fence panels, cut out each individual letter and painted them, he wanted it to look authentic. While it's much small then the real sign, it is a damn good copy! (BTW, this sign is for sale if you are interested!)

Here's the real sign:
And here is my sign:
I'm being attacked my Rosalie and Renata (Aro's shield, for those of you unaware of who she is)
)

The Process for building this was a long one, it went little by little. With 2 kids and work it was hard for my husband to find time. And the circle on the sign didn't even get painted until the night before the party!

Moving on, my Jepordy board. I sadly don't think I got a good photo of this I need to put it back together and take one, until then here's me with it in the background, never mind my funny face...LOL, this was about a bottle of wine in for me.

I made 2 games, 6 categories each. On the other side of every number was a question, and I had the answers printed off in hand. We played 3 teams of 2 for each game so more people could play. The only issue we had was figuring out who got their hand up first to answer...LOL

The board is 2 pieces of black foam board with the question held on with thumb tacks. I printed the questions and numbers on regular printer paper then backed them on red cardstock for sturdiness and a better look.

To keep track of who won what, I made "Twilight Money". I downloaded ths template in the $100 note, then filled in the circle with random photos from Twilight and cast memebers.

CLICK HERE FOR PLAY MONEY TEMPLATES

I made a total of $1300 to have enough. I loved them and so did the guests!
Thoughout the night I had random games, like "do you have in your purse" for small door prizes and what not. A few things I gave away were glass red apples, Twilight Buttons, warm fuzzy socks labled "To keep you warm on cold Forks nights" and so on.

The big prizes were for the costume contest, and the 2 winning teams of Jeopardy

The 3 main gifts were themed, one Alice, one Bella and one Rosalie. Each with items those chrachters would use/like.

Bella - travel bag with all the things she would need for her "human moments", toothpaste, deodrant, shampoo ect. I also included none themed stuff like Twilight buttons and socks.

Alice - a travel bag with pedicure items in it labled "for all the hostange pedicures", also a Magic Eight Ball so they too could see the future like her, body spray and socks

Rosalie - jewelry, a mirror to look at her self in, a travel bag with body spryas, tide wipes and mini Febreeze labled "For that pesky werewolf smell" and lipstick.

Now onto the food. Of course we had Mushroom Raviolli! But as I do not like mushrooms, we also served spaghetti and meatballs! All the food was lovenly hand made by my fantastic mother in law! There was no canned sauce here!

We also had a MASSIVE veggie tray with the "Edible Art Bella?" sing near it and dog bone shaped cookies in dog bowls labled FIDO:

Tomorrow I will do Part Three, the final installment with party photos and the costumes and winners! Stay tuned!

Cousins

Don't worry, those of you looking to see part 2 of my party planning and set up, it will be back tomorrow. I just took these photos last night of Paige and Ellie with their cousin Katia and had to share them!

I don't know what we will do when all three girls are up and running, because Katia and Paige flying around last night, hopped up on frosting from my birthday cupcakes was more then I expected!

After hanging out with her cousin and little sister last night, Paige this morning asked me when I was going to have a baby boy. I told her that I wasn't sure, it's not something that I can pick, having a boy or a girl. Paige thought on it a second and then told me if I concentrated enough, next time I could have a boy!