Photos and Stories GALORE!!!

Ok braised yourself for another very lengthy but hopefully engaging post. Much has happened since my last entry.

First on the list is Maddie turning two. Her special day fell on a thursday and not much happened that day. But that night we figured we will celebrate a little (which was mainly my idea so I can get a night off from making dinner. Hehehehe, sneaky) so we went to McDonald's. Our trip was two fold; one to have the bday girl enjoy a dinner that she would like rather than going to a restuarant and just have chaos and two so we can see Amanda (who's been working there for a while now) in action. Here are some pics from that. My camera and I weren't getting along that night so a lot of stuff are blurry but here's some of the best shots.

Then on Saturday we had our BIG party. It started with a tea party with her "friends". My kids are lucky to have kids that are the same age in our ward. Not hard for me to find kids that they actually hang out with to invite. :) So the planning for this started about three weeks ago. I was a little scared to push through with this but thankfully I found some ideas online and magazine clippings that fit perfectly for what I wanted to happen. There were six girls, including Maddie, at the party. They made bonnets from paper plates, got dressed up with some fancy clothes and played with a tea set and made their own food with playdough. After washing their hands, they ate "real" food which was mini sandwiches, mini cupcakes, cream puffs, strawberries and jello. Hmmmm.

Here's the banner I made. Besides this, I also used my paper stash to make the party favor purses, invites and thank you cards.

Here are all the girls in attendance. Totally cute! :)

The birthday girl trying to figure out why she should open all these gifts. Hehehe. After a while she understood the concept and loved being surprised at what she will get next.

After the children's party, I had the rest of the family come over for some more fun. I made lasagna for dinner. Take note: lasagna from scratch!!! Our little bday girl blew out her candle and opened up more gifts. She got ton's of girly stuff. Pretty cool! She got shoes, boots, princess make up set, baby stroller and a little baby. It was so fun seeing her reaction as she opened each gift. One word to describe her was bliss. So cute!

And to think that day was pack as it is, I did get some breathing time during general conference sessions. Gotta love the internet. The fact that I can sit and watch/listen to general authorities speak about topics that pertain to me at this time is truly a blessing. Great talks and learned a lot. Also very excited about the new position of Pres. Henry Eyring and Elder Quentin Cook.

Whew I was pooped by the end of Saturday and thank goodness we had conference the following day which meant I can stay home and rest. Yippeee! Even with resting in mind, I did manage to make my thank you cards for Maddie's gifts. Here they are just ready to be written in and mailed.

And finally...... another happy news for me....... just found out in an email that I'm finally getting published in print!!!! A christmas card that I made will be featuren in the december issue of the Scrap and Stamp Arts magazine. I will probably post a pic of the mag and the page I'm in when I get a hold of the issue.

So there, if you read till here you truly are awesome and know that you are special to us so leave a comment when you can .

Have a great day,

Grace