Our Party Planning Success

So my sisters and I planned a wedding shower for our cousin, Ashley, who's wedding we are all in on October 4th. I must say, that the shower, was a success, we do know how to throw a party. I think we may have a business on our hands, I just have to convince the two of them. However, I broke a few of my own rules in the planning part, and those I will never ever stray from again:

1. If you know how to plan the party and you know you can do it the best, just do it

2. When enlisting people to help, make sure they are reliable. In the future, I will go no further than my family to bring items, everyone else is incompetent.

3. Do not care about stepping on anyone else's toes, the recipient of the party does not care about anything other then the fact that it was a beautiful affair, all about them.




We made the favors, by hand, which I loved. Although they took about 30 some hours to do, they were really pretty hand decorated cookies that we configured ourselves, cutting apart cookie cutters, and using paring knives to get them in the shapes we wanted. Thanks again, Wilton for providing all the fun accessories that were used to decorate them. My kids even got in on the cookie baking process. Ethan assisted his Aunt Michelle by 'tossing', ok chucking the cookie cutters at her. And Kendall carefully added all the ingredients to the mixing bowl as our resident pastry chef apprentice. They also were our resident cookie samplers. Because if you didn't know this already, there is no avoiding helpful toddler hands when you do this kind of fun stuff during the day.


I made the invites, my sisters did the designning of the decorations, and we all put it together.

I won't give away any of our party planning secrets, because then well, you wouldn't need us, now would you?

The Bride & her rehearsal bouquet

Kendall and the Flower Girls

Explanation

There are no pictures of E because E is in a don't take a picture of me funk.

Pics and Sayings of the Week

This is what happens when you send Kendall and Daddy to the store to pick up some donuts for a Sunday Morning lazy breakfast, you come home with a donut that is so festive the food coloring stains your face for 2 days and numerous washings!

So there were a few but this is the top Kendall conversation of the week.

Background: Kendall went with Mom Mom Mom to her house all by herself for the afternoon the other day. Mom Mom Mom and Pop Pop Pop have two donkeys, Elmo & Meghan. Ethan and I went to pick her up and to stay for dinner.

Right upon my arrival she says to me, "Mommy Elmo & Meghan were playing silly games!" I answered, "they were, what kind of silly games?" And she says to me laughing,"Elmo was biting Meghan's neck and then he jumped on her back!" I then try to hide my laughter and ask, " and what did Meghan do?" And she goes, "She kicked him right in the face!" And that is the birds and the bees Mom Mom Mom style, we'll leave it at that.

Our 4th of July

This past weekend was the 4th of July. Yet for Andy and I, it was his best friend Josh’s wedding day. The kids spent the day with my family at my Aunt and Uncle’s house at the infamous pool, and so they were in their glory. I stopped by in between the ceremony and reception for a few hours and they were having a blast, enjoying the 4th the way it is usually spent with my mom’s side of the family, picnicking and playing. My dad was in charge of the kids for a few hours while my mom worked and he passed with flying colors. My kids are enamored by my father and all that he entails so he could have had them doing chores and they would have thought that this was the greatest time ever. During my in between time there, Kendall was stung not once, but twice by bees. I have been waiting for this time to come, expecting the worst since me and some other members of my family are allergic to bees. However, Kendall passed with flying colors. She did cry. But she didn’t cry as long as I would if I were two. My aunt whipped out the first aid kit and in it was sting soother and Kendall’s favorite, boo-boo patches. I think that this attention from everyone soothed her more than anything else, and she was over it within a 10 minute span. It started to swell and I was ready to run, but then as quickly as it came on, it went in the opposite direction, and she was fine.

So on to Mommy and Daddy time. The wedding was a lot of fun, and in true Josh form, it was on the 4th of July and it was grand. In the defense of Josh, I do think that if you are going to have your wedding on the 4th of July, it has to be able to compete with that which is the 4th of July and all that it entails, and this “event”, certainly did. The ceremony was at noon in Trenton, and though it was beautiful, it was hot, since the church did not have air. All I could think of was that one of the guys is going to pass out. They were in their head to toe tuxes and if I was sweating in my sleeveless dress, they must have been sweltering. So cocktails began at 5 and the wedding party took off in their party bus for pictures and enough beer to put everyone in good spirits. The reception was in the city at Cescaphe, and let me just mention the three things that are worth mentioning since I won’t go into all the details; mojitos, yummy, dessert room, as close to heaven on earth that I have been thus far in life, and my dress, doable. I had a few dresses picked out…but it was going to be a long day so I needed one that had the two things of most importance to me when wearing a dress ALL. DAY. LONG. It kept me cool, since it was July in Northeast PA, and it covered the ladies, so this meant I could dance without being concerned that they would pop out and make America’s Funniest Home Videos wedding gag reel.

We stayed in the city that night and thank heaven for the brick size and weight of the piece of wedding cake Andy had snagged for or those mojitos would have made an encore appearance.

My husband thoroughly enjoyed all wedding activities, and why not since this wedding has been going on for a few months now with 2 bachelor parties, one that involved going on an airplane, countless phone calls, hanging out with a bunch of close friends that could probably have a book written about them, which would be even funnier from one of their wives’ prospective, the construction of a best man’s speech, and with the culmination of all of this with the actual wedding day.

Here is my best man himself at the end of this day...

"A cousin is a ready-made friend for life."

Kendall and Ethan have had some fun and recent play times with their cousins Aidan, and the twins, Molly & Brynn. We invited them up to Mom Mom Mom's farm one warm Friday to play a lot and get dirty; what Mom Mom Mom's house is for. We were able to go fishing after Mom Mom Mom dug up some worms, the only one that didn't even get a bite was the boy and cub scout...I won't mention any names.



The unlucky fisherman

He did seem to get beat up a bit though and was the only one to go home with a boo-boo patch with an actual wound under it. Kendall was and still is very concerned about this boo-boo and whenever we mention Aidan, whoops, I let the name slip, she asks me if his boo-boo is all better, we are going on about 3 weeks now since the incident.

Just this past weekend we had a picnic at my uncle Jimmy's and Aunt Eleanor's house and Kendall was in her glory because not only was Molly and Brynnie there but Marlaina, or 'Laina', as well. Despite the the showers, we had a good time and the kids, or should I say, Marlaina, Aidan, and Kendall enjoyed the sprinklers, everyone else was a scaredy cat, including the number one scaredy cat, my son Ethan.

We also got to see fireworks, which really aren't worth mentioning since they were kind of stinky, but the kids had fun with their freezer pops and glowsticks, and that is really what matters...I suppose

In many of the shots I have it is Kendall and Brynnie. They seem to have formed this bond over silliness. I remind Kendall each time we get together to also invite Molly to play with them, and the last time Kendall replied, 'Molly not want to play wit us, Mommy.' And so it seems for right now Molly cannot be bothered with the goofiness which is Kendall and Brynn together, but she is never far from the pack, choosing to play independently, close by, and you can be certain that when Molly moves on to play something better, Kendall and Brynn are right behind, she reminds me of the 'big' sister of the pack. So I think Molly might be on to something and knows to keep her safe distance from this cousin double trouble, because then she can never be blamed for what the other two get into because I think that they are going to get into plenty.

"God made us cousins, because he knew our moms couldn't handle us as sisters."