Happy Birthday Dear Abigail!

Abigail turned 5 a few weeks ago. The first thing she said on her birthday was "So, when do I get to meet my Kindergarten teacher?" I have been telling her that she will get to start Kindergarten when she turns 5. I love how kids take things very literally. :) She wants to go to school like Austin and Allison so badly. I told her that she is not allowed to grow up and go to school. It will make me sad. I then asked her "who is going to help me take care of Asher once you go to school?" She said I was going to have to do it by myself. :( I almost start crying every time I think about it. I am sure I am going to be a wreck come August. You would think this school thing would get easier with each kid but it just reminds me how fast they are growing.

I love birthdays but I hate birthday parties. They are a lot of stress, work and money. But we started a tradition with Austin that we have kept with Allison and now, Abigail. We throw a big 5th birthday party with friends, a pinata, the whole 9-yards. This year Abigail had been talking a lot about Minnie Mouse so starting in January (yes! January) I started planning a Minnie Mouse party. Thank goodness for Pinterest...it made getting ideas a lot easier!

Abigail loved it and so I guess that is all that matters.

Abigail's Dress

I saw this dress on pinterest and wanted to try to recreate one of my own. It sucked! To say the least. :) I am not great at sewing. My mom had to tell me step by step how to do it because I am too lame to follow a pattern. In the end it turned out cute. Abigail LOVED it! So that made it worth it. However, I am still not sure it was worth the $20 I saved to make it. :) I opted to leave the Minnie off the skirt at the last minute due to time-constraints. I figured it would be more versatile without it anyway. :)

The Ears

I found this Minnie Ear tutorial on Pinterest. I thought they were so cute and had to make them for the party. They were a little time consuming (mainly because I made 24) but they weren't very difficult. They ended up being about $.75 each so they were totally worth it. Abigail's head is weird shaped so headbands always fall forward on her. I forgot to clip it in place so in most of the pictures you will see it is falling forward. Oh well.

The Food and Decorations

We chose to have it out in the garage hoping for a beautiful day. We got our wish and it was probably one of the most beautiful days of the year so far. The decorations were minimal but enough to make it "girly" and festive.

The treat bags

The cupcakes

This cake was thrown together at the last minute with leftover cupcake batter. I hate writing on cakes!

My sister brought some of her glass jars and filled them with candy the colors of the party. They add so much to the table. :) I also made Minnie caramel apples. I have wanted to make them since our last trip to Disneyland but never had an excuse until now.

I wanted to cover the entire wall with streamers but when I saw my husbands face when I told him that, I said we could space them out a little. :)

The Games

I separated the kids into about 4 groups and they rotated through each of the games. The pinata we did at the end as a group.

Here is the pinata I made. The tutorial is here and it was super easy and cheap. It cost about $2 to make but about another $20 to fill. :) I think it would probably be easy enough to make other shapes as well.

This is the kids making minnie/mickey mouse suckers....like these in this picture...but I didn't get any pictures of the finished product.

This is the "balloon room" where we just had lots and lots of balloons and they played freeze dance. The picture isn't that great. Austin and his cousin Taylor were in charge of this room and they did a great job.
Chris' grandpa said that we should use his train for the birthday party so we couldn't say no. ;) All the kids couldn't wait for it to be their turn to ride. It was definitely the favorite of the party. Even my kids who ride it all the time act like it is the first and only time they will ever ride on it even though they ride it ALL THE TIME. ;) I am glad.

Anyone need a little rice?

Austin gave Asher a new knick-name, Asher-Smasher. He breaks things everywhere we go. I am not over-exaggerating. He destroys something everyday! But I like to call him the most "polite" monster because he is so sweet at the same time...it is hard to get mad at him a lot of the times.

Most recently, I naively put an open bag of rice in the downstairs pantry. It was Arborio rice...used for stuff like this recipe here. It is more expensive than regular rice so I should have safe-guarded it a little better. But, I thought it would be safe in the Pantry. Umm, wrong!

Asher got a hold of it and commenced throwing it all over the room. It seemed like he actually planned it because it was so uniformly EVERYWHERE! We pretty much had to take everything out and vacuum behind it. It went places that you wouldn't even imagine. What took him only minutes to create took us almost two hours to clean up! Oh the joys of parenting!

This was after I started cleaning it up already and realized that I needed to take pictures of this to show his future wife when she asks why her kids are so destructive. ;)

Finally...sledding!

It is has been such a mild winter for us. We haven't been able to go sledding until just recently. Even then, the snow was melting so fast that it was half way gone before we were done. But I am not complaining...I like when it snows and melts away quickly. I hate the bitter cold that lasts for days on end. But we like sledding too and it seems like you can't have it both ways. So we were grateful for a little window of time to get in some sledding.

This year we tried a new place. Our usual place was packed...I am sure because everyone felt the same way as us. We actually loved this new place because it was bigger and closer to parking and a little longer "sled-way." We got two new sleds too so now we have four which makes it a lot nicer. None of us have to wait for a turn anymore. Because, heaven forbid, we have to wait! ;)

Chris coming down with Asher.

Cousin Emma watching Allison go down. I am not sure why she looks awkward in every picture. :)

Asher and dad coming back up. Asher loved it! And he didn't complain about walking back up the hill by himself either. He had so much fun. (Allison looking awkward again in the back round.)

Allison running back up....not looking awkward...just looking like she is running. ;)

Asher with Uncle John. He is covering his eyes because when ever he goes with Chris, Chris' feet kick up snow on his face so now he just instinctively covers his eyes every time he goes down. :)

Austin coming back up. Austin LOVES sledding. He could go ALL DAY if we let him. He also is quite the daredevil and will go off of every jump and in every type of position (head first, feet first, on his belly, on his back, etc.) He is actually not really a daredevil in most other circumstances but I guess he feels pretty comfortable sledding.

Allison crawling back up the hill....looking awkward. ;)

Austin getting to ready to race, Uncle John with his girlfriend (hopefully soon to be fiance...they just need to do it already!...I mean, get married) and Jake.

That is me down at the bottom sitting against the wall. I actually hit the wall. ;) Mainly because SOMEONE pushed me! We have always had double rider sleds but we got the single rider circle ones and they GO FAST! I wasn't used to it and it scared the bajeebers out of me! Lets just say, I did not go on that sled again! :)

Chris going on the single rider sled for the first time!

Asher, Uncle John and Abigail. It was a beautiful day as you can tell...Uncle John got a little too warm.

Uncle John and Stephanie racing down the hill...Uncle John is only in front because he cheated!

Abigail with a big block of ice.

Emma, Allison and Abigail getting ready to go together.

That is a lot of our group coming up and Asher is standing down by himself. I actually don't remember who he even went down with but he must have made it back up the hill alright. ;)

What a great day of sledding!

Zions in January

A couple of weekends ago, when we were having unusually nice January weather, Chris and I decided to take the kids to Zions to go hiking. We love hiking. We love everything about it. The warmth. The fresh air. The scenery. The exercise. The price. The togetherness. Hiking is lovely. I think I have said this before but we really do LIKE hiking.

Our kids didn't fight once that day! And they didn't whine either! Another reason to love hiking. They love hiking too! Even Abigail and Asher hiked the two miles without whining once. Even when Abigail fell a little off a ledge onto a rock, right on her bum, she got right back up and started hiking again. Any place else, she surely would have cried. But she wanted to be so tough like the older kids. And she was!

Uncle John came with us and brought his cute little girlfriend.

Can you see Allison in this picture?

Brag Session...or not...

I made croissants. They made me happy. Food usually makes me happy. But these made me even more so. So, I am going to brag.

Bragging is very subjective. Some of you won't consider this bragging because you have no desire to ever do it yourself. In that case, I am not bragging I am simply showcasing my workmanship.

If this is something that you have desired to do, then I am posting this to simply let you know that it is not only attainable but absolutely worth doing.

These were absolutely the best croissants I have ever had. And I am not picky when it comes to croissants. I have pretty much loved all the different types of croissants that I have ever had. The canned ones that you pop open and pop in the oven. The ones you buy pre-made from the nearest local supermarket or bakery. The one I got from Panera Bread that was, up until now, probably my favorite. Yep! Loved 'em all!

But these....these topped them all. I don't know if I can even go back to eating other croissants. OK, I probably will just due to shear time constraints but I will never look at another one the same again. *sigh*

If you like to bake...or if you just want to learn something new then I highly suggest making these. They will be worth it. This is not a food blog (although secretly I wish it were...another sigh) so I don't have all the fancy pictures or instructions but I will link you to some. Don't let the fact that the recipe is 4 pages long and takes two whole days to make discourage you! ;)

I promise that if I can do it, so can you. And it will be worth it!

Here is the link to the recipe from Willow Bird Baking.

Here is the link to the photo tutorial.

Here is a link to the Apple, Brie and Pecan sandwich I made with them; although I highly recommend this chicken salad on them instead.

Here a few amateur pictures just to prove I did actually do this. :)

This is a picture of what it should look like after all the rolling and folding right before you roll it out one last time to shape and proof it. I promise that it isn't that hard, just time consuming. And look at those beautiful layers!

Here is the picture of the Pains Au Chocolat. It is basically chocolate rolled up in the croissant. I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar.

Mmmm! Even better than Panera Breads!

This croissant is a little funny looking but that is because, like always, I forgot to take a picture of the best ones before we ate them! :)

Here is a picture of the Apple, Pecan, Brie Panini. It looks beautiful but I only liked it so-so.

I hope my bragging motivates you a little to go out and try making some of the very best croissants you will ever eat in your life!