Hello Kari!

Another birthday party went off without a hitch.  I was secretly thrilled when Kari changed her mind from an M&M theme to Hello Kitty.  Hello Kitty was, ahem, the cat's meow when I was her age, and the merchandise was a hot commodity. Pulling off a HK party back in my day would have been a near impossible feat.

Nowadays, you just pull up to your local party store, and BAM!  HK party.  Pretty simple.  I did, however, make the invitations.

Since this was a girls only party this year, we did all things girly and pink.  First up, as soon as everyone arrived, each young lady chose a headband with kitty ears and then selected their choice of a bow- a Hello Kitty headband!  Once everyone was adorned with HK ears, we did a small photo shoot with the big pink frame.

A few weeks ago I was up at IKEA with Natalie and Pam and came across this big, huge, UGLY picture frame.  I had an idea so I took a chance and splurged.  It was a good gamble that only needed a small can of spray paint for its makeover.  The girls absolutely loved posing and hamming it up for the camera!  We did this early on during the party so that I'd have time to upload the pictures to Walgreens and for Kevin to pick them up in time for each girl to take home a couple copies.  Party favor?  Check. Yay!

We followed up with decorating cupcakes (thanks to Aunt Laura for the endless supply of sprinkles!!)

We primed everyone's appetite pump with the cupcakes and figured we better move on to the little meal.  Since the party was between meals, I didn't prepare anything fancy.  Hot ham and cheese sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls, fruit and veggies.  Easy.

We wrapped up the afternoon with painting fingernails which was another big hit.

The two hours went by quickly, that's for sure!  We continued the theme of giving to others in lieu of gifts.  Figuring out who and what to donate was easy this year.  After this fall's devastating tornado only a few miles south of us and displacing an elementary school in our district, we opted again for school supplies.  Kari's friends were overwhelmingly generous and we can't be more excited to make arrangements as soon as possible.

Happy Birthday!

To our favorite little seven year old!

More pictures to follow after this weekend's Hello Kitty party.

What -19 Degrees, Windchill -36 Looks Like

Pretty much all of Lafayette and the county was shut down today.  Purdue even closed down regular operations (classes don't start until the 13th, so the majority of students aren't here yet.)  Because of the declared weather emergency, no one is allowed on the roads, so we created our own fun at home.  The kids and I watched from the relative safety and protection from the wind in the garage.

This was nothing more than throwing cupfuls of boiling water into the air!  It was pretty spectacular to watch.

We've got snow...and we know how to use it

Depending on which weather channel you listen to, we're to get anywhere from 5-12" by the end of the day.  Regardless, the forecast was bad enough that church was cancelled and so we had a chance to sleep in for the first time in many Sundays.

With all that extra sleep and stored up energy, we headed out shortly after breakfast to take advantage of the new falling snow.  Snow (and temperature), surprisingly, are tricky things!  While it's perfect packing snow, it's probably just a degree or two too cold for rolling and making snowmen.  We had to resort to building our snow fort by hand- literally handful by handful.  It was an arduous task but well worth it!

Bryce on Kissing

Saturday night we were at a wedding reception up in Fort Wayne.  Bryce was contently sitting on my lap watching all the activity going on around him and I intermittently snuck a kiss or two on his cheeks or forehead. All of a sudden he sat straight up, pushed me away and said, "Mommy!  This is not a kissing place.  We only kiss at Barnes & Noble."

The funny part is that the little bugger has never set foot in a B&N.  We had only walked by one earlier in the day at the mall and heard Kari read the store name out loud.