BELLA'S GOLDFISH PARTY: PART ONE

Last night we partied late into the night with Bella and a few of her toddler buddies.

Okay, not exactly - but we did host a party to celebrate Bella turning two years old.  Cannot even believe that is reality, except that her behavior sort of indicates that second year under her belt, so it's made more believable all the time.

She loves fish.  I mean, she goes wild for them.  And, she loves the Goldfish snack crackers, so this seemed like a great theme for her.  She was so excited to wear her fishie shirt and "pretty" tutu.

Our friends own a "concert grade" bubble machine and graciously let us borrow it.  It provided great entertainment as children arrived.  Also, Bella and Lily were beyond thrilled.




Then everyone tried to eat.  I say "tried to eat," because if you have ever tried to feed yourself and your children at one of these events, you know that often, you don't eat much.  I'm pretty sure most kids got full though.




One of the big draws of the evening was the Goldfish Bar - did you know that you can buy 14 different kinds of Goldfish at Target?  You can!  I saw this idea on several different blogs found through Pinterest and put my own spin on it.

The only real activity I had planned was to go "fishing" off of our back deck.  My sis, Ellen, loaded the lines with treats from the bottom deck, and the kids seemed to really like it!  They each got to fish from both sides, and different treats came up the different sides.  It also created a bit of chaos on our back deck.

Here's cousin True, dressed appropriately for the party and looking upset that he did not get to go fishing.

Then, it was time for cake and treats!

(cute marshmallow pop idea from this blog, found through Pinterest)

Everyone sang, and Bella actually attempted blowing out her candles.



The cake had a fun ombre surprise inside, reminiscent of Lily's birthday cake when she turned two.



After that, the scheduled party events were over, and bubble mayhem began again, which then turned into kiddos playing in the front yard with the daddies.  Lily took some bubbles in the eye, which proved disastrous - here we are trying to calm her down.  (She's still screaming in the pic.)




At one point, a little boy dropped his pants and peed in the front yard.  The dads at first didn't notice and then did notice and laughed.  Here are the moms laughing over this.



Birthday girl decided to start bringing lots of different toys outside, and at one point was just sitting in the lawn, reading a princess book.



We sent everyone on their merry way with goldfish soap.



I am not about to give families a real pet that they are required to take care of, and this did the trick beautifully.  All in all, it was a blast.

Special thanks to:
John, aka Best Husband to Throw a Party With
My Mom, aka Best Party Assistant and Clean-Up Specialist
Ellen, aka Fishing Pole Loader Extraordinaire and Awesome Aunt
Our Friends, aka Best Party Guests

And yes, we will be eating goldfish for weeks.  The good things is - we go through large boxes quickly round here.  I plan on posting more of the party details tomorrow!  (More Details in this post!)

THIS WEEK: HIGHS AND LOWS

Just as I thought, it felt like life hit the gas pedal this week, now that it is October.  Life knows, you know?  Here are my highs and lows from this crazy, busy week.

High:  Discovering the Top Bun.  This may not seem like a "High" to you, but now that my hair will go up high, I am thrilled to do just that.  I found a tutorial through Pinterest that showed me how to make my hair look like a ballerina's.  Which is nice, since nothing else about me, grace included, could ever resemble a ballerina.

I wore my hair like this on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which allowed me to not wash my hair for four whole days.  And, I got tons of compliments - always a bonus.  John even likes it a lot, and because of all the joking about my top bun, he decided to compliment me on it repeatedly on our Wednesday trip to Memphis.  So sweet of him.

High:  Hanging with a friend on Monday night when our husbands were busy working.  It's nice to be able to collaborate with another Mom for dinner and evening activities when the men-folk have to provide for our families.  We ate at Larry's Pizza.



Low:  Because we have 5 rowdy kids between us, we didn't get to talk half as much as we thought we would.  Silly us.  We should know better by know.

High:  Seeing God's heart for the orphan.  I have been following this friend's adoption story as she is in the Congo picking up her two sweet children.  It is unbelievably beautiful to see the way God places the lonely in families.  Also, last night, we had a prayer event for the banquet that I am organizing.  It went so well, and I am blown away by the God of the universe who provides and orchestrates the details.  He is so good, and I am so in awe.

High:  Community Group on Tuesday night.  We didn't do our lesson.  Instead, we laughed and talked and laughed some more.  That's real good for the soul.

Low:  Being on the edge of sickness.  My throat is moderately scratchy, and I am a bit lethargic, but by the grace of God, I have not fallen off into the sick abyss.  I'm so glad.

High:  Obviously, spending a day in Memphis with John in the middle of the week deserves to be its own high.

High:  Seeing Lily make her bed by herself for the first time.  She earned a quarter to put in her Honduras jar for clean water.  (Our church is running a fundraiser for the children, and she loves it!)



High:  This morning we had nowhere to be, and we took it easy.  We enjoyed a leisurely walk in the beautiful weather, and the girls have been so sweet this morning.  I am thankful to spend time with these jokers.




High:  The sweetness continued, and we introduced Colored Pencils.  They were a hit.




Looking forward to celebrating Bella's birthday this weekend (it's actually next week) and soaking up the nice fall weather.  Happy Friday to you!

FINGERPRINTING IN MEMPHIS

As it turns out, the Department of Homeland Security does not have an office in Little Rock.  So, when we filed for our I600, a petition to grant an orphan immigration to the states, we knew we were going to get an appointment for our fingerprinting.  It is assigned, about a month in advance, and for ours, we were told to show up in Memphis, today at 11:00 a.m.  Just like that.



So, we made a fun day trip out of it.  First stop, government office.  Not usually a place I would include on a "fun day trip," but since it was the entire reason for the trip, we went.  We arrived an hour early, and decided to go ahead and see if they could work us in.  Since there were only two other people in the entire lobby, it turned out just fine.  As we went through security, we had to hand the officers our appointment documents.



They looked at them, and then looked at us rather quizzically.  At that moment, we had to shamefully admit that our cat had eaten the top of those papers.  True story.  Of course she chose to exercise her first sign of paper-hunger on those very important documents.  Thankfully, they thought it was funny and said it would be no problem.

The finger-printing took less than 15 minutes, and then we were done!  Another step down.

We swung by the Pottery Barn Outlet and picked up a Halloween costume - Score!  Then, we ate lunch at the Elegant Farmer.  I had these delicious things -

Sweet Potato Soup



Caprese Salad (I am a sucker for this stuff almost anywhere)



and Key Lime Pie.  Yum.



We made a few other fun stops before heading home.  Having 2.5 hours in the car each way was a fun treat - having un-interuppted conversation is one of my favorite things in life.  Who knew what a gift that could be?

And where were the girls?  A good friend kindly agreed to keep them with her kids all day.  I think they had so much fun that they want to spend every day there.  What do you think, Keri?  (She also hosted us for dinner upon our return, which pretty much earns her a million gold stars in my book.  Thanks forever!)




I'll leave you with some pictures I took at a large produce stand we visited on our way home.  It's easier to do these things when you can just hop out of the car.  I am slightly obsessed with pictures of pumpkins.  Here you go.

Fall is in full swing.  Hooray!

THE FOOD THAT WASN'T

Today is really heralding the arrival of fall and the delicious wonder it brings along with it.  I, along with most of the known universe it seems, adore this time of year.  The weather is fabulous, and there is such jolly seasonal fun to be had from now through the holidays.  The only tragedy that mars this fact is that it goes so quickly.  I feel like I am normally walking quickly through the airport of life, and when October 1st hits, it feels as if I start running on one of the people moving conveyor belts, fairly whisking me right through.  I want to be able to savor it and drink it all in and thank God for the beautiful moments that it contains, and that will definitely have to be a discipline in the midst of the crazy fun.

Last night, we had a good friend who happened to be in town over for dinner.  I was planning on whipping up some fish tacos, with a side of fallish corn muffins and some home made guacamole.  I wasn't budgeting my time real well to start with, and then our guest arrived 20 minutes early, not realizing how close to our house his hotel was.

Into the oven went the muffins.  The fish was cut, seasoned and ready to be cooked.  The other toppings were chopped and ready.  We were chatting about life.  And then I started with the avocados.

Sometimes things just aren't meant to be, and I should have been able to see this coming.  But I didn't.  I never do, when it is going badly.  Over the years, I have learned how to cook and bake.  My parents taught me a great deal of baking, and after being married, I have picked up a lot of cooking.  My overconfidence serves me well in this area, because I generally feel like if I have a recipe, I can accomplish anything.

But, there was the first time I tried to make my family's cinnamon rolls for John when we were married, which is funny on several levels.  First off, now I know he doesn't really love cinnamon rolls.  Secondly, as I brushed the melted butter over my dough, it started running off.  I was not deterred.  I didn't realize that it was not going to get better with the addition of cinnamon and sugar.  As I was rolling that dough, a mixture of butter, cinnamon and sugar began dripping out, eventually forming its own little river and cascading down the counter and cabinets.  Saying it was a mess does not go far enough.  Now I know that the butter should be softened, not melted out right.

There was also the time that I made dessert for someone we were having over.  We didn't know her well, but I regularly try out things for people I don't know.  When else would I be motivated to try new things?  I made a recipe for White Chocolate Brownies, which sounded like such a lovely treat.  I decided to throw in extra white chocolate chips for good measure, not knowing that there can be too much of a good thing in this instance.  That was the sickliest plate of sugary mess I have ever served up.  I stopped our guest from feeling like she needed to eat it as soon as I tasted mine.  I did laugh over that later.

Back to the avocados.  I bought them sometime last week and thought they would be ripe, but I forgot to set them out of the refrigerator earlier in the day to soften up.  So, I started trying to cut and peel rather unripe avocados.  They were having none of it.  Again, I should have known and stopped, but I persisted.  I just kept investing time, and then I felt like I had spent so much time, I had to have something to show for it.  I kept peeling the avocados, little piece by tiny piece.  At one point, I even threw avocados into the microwave to try to get them to soften up a bit, which the guys thought was so strange, and I guess it was.

After finally getting the meat of the avocado into a bowl, it was time to try to mash it into guacamole.  It was not mashable.  It was so hard.  I tried mashing it wish a potato masher to no avail.  Then, after the struggling, I decided to throw it all into the food processor, which is what I should have done to start with.  Round and round it went, but it was still having a hard time being chopped.  I used a spatula to try to get it all cut up.

At long last, we were ready to serve dinner.  The dinner that I was just "whipping" up.  I stuck a spoon into the food processor, cause I am really classy like that, and at that moment, I realized that the spatula was missing pieces.  Pieces that were on when I started the process.



The whole thing was a debacle.  John and I actually ate some, but our guest politely and appropriately declined.  I couldn't bear to throw it all away, because I can be economical like that, so now, reposing in our fridge, sits the guacamole with the added ingredient of spatula.  It takes pretty good - just be on the hunt for little blue spatula shards.  And never, I repeat, never try to work with avocados that are anything less than perfectly ripe.  It will not work.