Birthday Bash

With Cliffton and Violet's birthdays only about 3 weeks apart, we've decided to do a combined party for them (which we did once in New York) and it was a smash!  I had a dino theme for it which showed up in the cake - a Volcano cake complete with fire (candles), smoke (dry ice), and lava (colored ganache), dino-shaped sugar cookies and some dinosaur themed games like knock the spikes down on the Stegosaurus, and feed the T-Rex, each of which were amazingly and awesomely constructed and designed by my Richard!
We rented a bouncehouse for the first time!  It was a good deal and a great party tool!  I think it was $80 or so and since we couldn't turn it in Sunday, we played with it on Sunday too and are turning it in today (Monday).  We used Plan-It Rentals to get it.  My sister Jess, my friend Hannah, and Richard were some of the adults who helped out with the food and games and then my Mother in Law was so cool to help out by bringing some snacks and then doing dishes pretty much the whole time she was here.  It was such a blessing to NOT have to turn around and spend 100 minutes or so doing dishes after the party was over.  Bryana came over at the end and we had some fun shopping together that evening for ourselves and for Richard's birthday, April 27.  He's got an expansion for Talisman, a board game.
 
So, Violet is already 5 (April 17) and Cliffton will be 7 on May 10.  I love my cuties.  They had so much fun!  Cliffton did some magic tricks for his friends and it was great to see him more confident.  He had 3 schoolmates come, neighbors and cousins.  Violet had some neighbors, cousins and friends from church.  We had 17 kids or so in addition to our own.  :)  Crazy fun, let me tell you.  

The last couple of days

I don't understand why the pictures from Violet's birthday aren't showing up.  Grrr.  It was a pain trying to get them on the blog and yet it had seemed fine when I uploaded everything.  guess I'll have to play magician later and make them "magically" appear.  :/  I wanted to post that I accomplished one of my hikes/rides on my 2014 list - the Bonneville Shoreline trail.  It was so 'dumb' getting there, though, for lack of a better word.  I parked near Bridal Veil Falls and found a trail for the Great Western Trail, which was fine, but then a way up from it which was dumb.  It was sooo steep in areas, I could barely hike, let alone trail run (my goal).  Finally, I got to what was the old shoreline and then it was good.  Coming back I thought, Heck no am I going to do that same trail, so using my phone's google maps service, I found a way down to the Western trail and at first it was steep but then it was fine.  I nearly fell on the steep part and rolled my ankle and hurt a tendon (or something) near my left hip a little but nothing bad.  See what you get for trying to be all healthy, Janelle?  Yeah, boo!  :)
Looking forward to the kids party this Saturday.....anyone know how stressed out I get when I do a party?  Well, my super de duper awesome husband is doing a lot of it.  He's amazin', let me tell you.  It should be groovy!  I better go bake a cake, or something....

When you gotta go

Susie and I saw this silly episode of Bear in the Big Blue house years ago, maybe 15 years ago.  Susie found it recently and I had to post it.  For all of you parents out there, this should be at least slightly hilarious.  :)  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKaobXtm6xo

What's it time for?

Violet's 5th Birthday was a great day for her.  She got to go shopping the day before her birthday for treats and such with the family and some friends.  Richard and I wrapped up presents that night and set up the table with decorations (Violet color, of course) and presents.  I had to work that morning but at least it was just half the day.  I took her and Cliffton to Chuck E Cheese in the afternoon.  

We had a family dinner that evening with some of Richard's family and my brother Dave.

She liked her "relight" candles.  :)  ha ha ha.  I think she did.  She wore a Birthday Girl shirt from her grandparents which was super cute and just happened to have 5 candles on the cake.  

We love our super UltraViolet!  She is so loving and energetic and brave.  She is one tough cookie!  Our first daughter, our Violet Ann Stacey.