Isabelle's first birthday bash

Isabelle's birthday bash was less of a bash and more of a hastily thrown together family party at the end of a very busy day of school and errands. But Mark at least had the day off, so that was nice!

 The birthday girl started off Year One with a bang. I had just changed her stinky diaper and was scooping out the litter box (my life is so glamorous) when I heard shouts from the bathroom. Mark was in the middle of cleaning out the fish tank and was dumping the dirty water and Isabelle wandered in and Oh! Look at all this water right here --I've never been able to get to it before and went for a splash IN THE TOILET. Yes.

I  have a feeling that I'm going to have a lot more gray hairs by the time she finishes her toddler years.

Anyway, we cleaned up and changed clothes and Mark showed her the music video to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." He says it is our girls' life in a nutshell.

Then she watched Sesame Street, which is her favorite part of any day.

Later that day, we had my sister Maria, Shay, Emery and Nora come over for pizza, cake and ice cream.

 

 Isabelle gave out free snuggles to Shay and Maria.

 Getting warmed up with an un-frosted cupcake

 Present time! She got completely spoiled by us, her cousins and two sets of grandparents. And her great-Gma Mary sent a card and a brand new fiver like she always does.

 I made her smash cake from scratch (a vanilla cake recipe that was a total disaster) and the cupcakes were a boxed pink velvet cake with added chocolate mini chips.

 Happy birthday to you, sweet girl!

 She thought this cake and the was the BEST THING EVER. She got the frosting up to her armpits.

 A bath was necessary.

The sweetest thing was watching her give her new baby doll loves and a kiss.

What a precious girl and we love her so much!! Happy birthday princess!

Maria and Monica's baby shower

 

My sister Maria and my sister-in-law Monica are both having baby girls next month! We are so excited. It is the third child for each, but we still wanted to have a little baby shower with immediate family. So my mom and I held one at her house a few weeks ago.

I ordered the invites and she hand made all the cute decorations. She is super talented--if you're wondering where my craftiness came from.

There was me, my mom Carolyn, our sister-in-law Lori, Maria, Monica, her mom Roxy and grandma Lucy, friend Brenda, Maria's mother and sister-in-law Dawna and Josie, her Grandma (in-law) Audrey, and our aunt Sherri. We just wish our sister Meg was there!

It was pretty low-key, we mostly just ate and talked.

I made chicken salad sandwiches (just used canned chicken and added celery, apple, red onion, mayo, mustard, craisins, etc. Next time I'll add feta cheese.) and the cupcakes were this vanilla cupcake recipe and this lemon cheesecake mousse on top. 

The cupcakes though!

I rather stupidly decided to try a new recipe from scratch the day before the shower, and this is what happened! So I went back to the store to buy more ingredients, tried lowering the oven temp and some other things and the second batch turned out like this, too! It was almost comical.

See the mini round cake in the middle, between the two cupcake pans? That I saved for Isabelle's "smash cake" on her first birthday. It is so pathetic looking, hahahahahahaha

The problem with the recipe is that it has three different leavening agents, (creaming the butter, plus baking soda and baking powder) and we live over a mile high in elevation and so even though I only filled the cups halfway, the batter rose a huge amount and then collapsed. The flavor was really good, just know that they might not turn out pretty.

 Anyway....

 

 My mom had us fill out papers with our hopes for the babies as they grow up, and then the girls opened gifts. There was quite a decent haul!

 

I gave them baskets with all my favorite baby things and some sister bracelets.

 After gifts, we sewed some burp cloths from cute flannel and cloth diapers (cut in half) for the back. They will be awesome, I wish I'd made some for me a year ago.

 

When it was over, the husbands came back over with our kids. It was fun to see so much family. Now I just can't wait to meet those BABIES!!

Miscellany

In an attempt to get caught up on this freaking blog, I spent a couple days going through four months of pictures and finding random ones that I haven't posted yet. I made everyone a collage:

I do take an obnoxious amount of pictures, I know. But I can't help it!!

 Luke drew faces that were happy, sad, "kind of", scared and crying.

If there is snow on the ground, he will be eating it.

 "I'm ready for naked school."

He has been full of gems lately.

He came wandering into the living room with his face all wet, and when we asked him why, he said, "Because my eyebrows were dry."

He came up with code names for the whole family.
Mark: "Rainbow Toots"
Melissa: "Sheep Quest"
Madelyn: "Monkey Bars"
Luke: "Sparkle Bum"
Isabelle: "Bubble Burps"

And my sister Megan, (who is serving a mission in Mexico) he dubbed "Taco Lover".

Luke (playing Minecraft): "Mama, I made leather pants! Do I look fancy?"
Me: "Yes."
Luke: "Okay, thanks. I always wanted to be fancy."

"Mama, sometimes I like gangsta swag."

He always gets a little crazy when Gpa Rich comes over. (And Isabelle usually conks out.)

Three days ago:

"Daddy, this is mysterious."

"My voice is changing! It's all old and rusty."

"When I turn a thousand, I'll be in high school."

"Awww, snap!"

He keeps me laughing.

Madelyn used to say weird stuff all the time. Her latest contribution is that she accidentally made up the word "farteen" when she was doing her math homework. She was in hysterics for days.

(Madelyn's comforter had just come out of the dryer.)

A few other happenings:

 We went to the baby blessing of Owen Jowers in Toquerville and got to hang out with our old friends Adam and Liz and Charlotte and Trujillo Amy. We all went to college together and were neighbors 10+ years ago. It's fun to still be able to get together. We have 12 kids between us now!

Auntie Rose and Uncle Frank Yoder popped in for a surprise visit

A couple of weeks ago, we went to our niece Lily Yoder's blessing in Enoch. Fun to see the two little cousins that are 6 months apart!

Frolicking in Paul and Nikki's giant back yard.
 (Madelyn, LOL)

Isabelle's baby blessing

We had Isabelle's baby blessing on July 13th. I was going to have it the week before (and the weather would have been perfectly cool/overcast, dangit) but my family was just getting back from a family reunion in Colorado and needed more time to recoup.

I was so excited to see her in the dress and bracelet (and headband that I stitched 5 minutes before church) that I made. She was supposed to wear some little eyelet shoes that Madelyn wore for her blessing, but I pulled them out and one of them had yellowed pretty badly. I've since washed it up but it was too late for the blessing. So she wore a different pair that were way too big but OH WELL. She still looked darling.

 Mark got her ready (rather unceremoniously) on the living room floor while the kids were already waiting in the car. We are ALLLWAYYYSS late for church but we did manage to get there 10 minutes early that day. It was a miracle, given everything I was trying to get done that morning.

But the tradeoff was that I didn't get any cute pics of just Isabelle in her dress that day. But I took some a week later, so whatever, man.

Mark gave a beautiful blessing and our dads, my brothers Tyler, Kevin and Shay helped, along with our friend Cam Norton. Isabelle Miranda Yoder fussed through half the blessing, the little dear.

We ditched the rest of church after Sacrament meeting and went to a park near my house for a picnic.

 

It was 93° and super humid that day--Mark said it felt like we were in North Carolina.

l-r: Nora, Shay, Emery and Maria Nielson, Ava, Monica, Nathan and Tyler Murset, Luke, Melissa, Isabelle, Mark and Madelyn Yoder, Megan, Carolyn, Rich, Gary, Lori, Hattie, Kevin and Jack Murset

 The food was awesome--we had this pasta salad, this cheesecake fruit salad (minus the marshmallows), pb&j for the kids, watermelon, carrots and dip, cookies, brownies and sandwich pinwheels from my Smith's deli. Yum yum.

 And my sister in law Monica made some lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and decorated them to look like a little blessing dress!

It was melting hot, but we still had a good time. (My sister-in-law Nikki Yoder was there too but somehow didn't get photographed.)

One of the best parts was that my friend Anya got to come with her daughter Amber and husband James! They happened to be down visiting her mom in Hurricane.

Anya grew up next door to me and we were best buds. She's the one who keeps crocheting me all sorts of awesome stuff. Oh, and it happened to be her birthday that day! Wooo!!

My dad took some nice pics while I was busy running around being hostess:

 Auntie Meg (all my nieces and nephew's favorite auntie, by far)

 
One day shy of two months old.

 

 Mark's folks, Kathy and Frank Yoder. Glad to get a good picture of them!

Not sure if you can see the family resemblance in Mark....*chortle* Actually, Frank looks exactly like the Dalai Lama when he has his glasses on.

I love my in-laws!

 

My folks, Carolyn and Rich Murset

 

Afterwards, we went back to my place to sit in the air conditioning like big blobs. Kevin and Lori stuck around for a few more hours and the cousins got lots of time to play.

  

Hattie and Madelyn

 Luke and Jack

 

Gary :)

It was a great day, but I have to say I'm happy to have that event crossed off my list! Phew!