Green and Pink Luncheon

Immediately following Claire's baptism, everyone came over to our house for lunch.  (Convenient that we live about 3 minutes away from the church building!)

We served food Claire wanted and the only real theme was the colors:  hot pink and apple green

 Hot pink strawberry, regular, and green mint chocolate chip cookies.

(Figuring out how to make these so vividly colored was non-trivial.  Would the masses like a tutorial?)

 Sub sandwiches.  (Thank you Costco meat and cheese platters.) 

 Pink lemonade, water, fruit (in mostly reds/pinks and greens), chips, pink and green napkin sculpture.

And of course a marker to write your name on your cup.

M's sister helped me string up these streamers:

Nothing bonds you to your sister-in-law like climbing on top of a table at 1am, right?

I ruffled the streamers on my sewing machine using this tutorial.

Technology Bi-Polar Disorder

Yesterday, I sent a text message for the first time.  Ever.

Yes, I am that lame.  I didn't even get a cell phone until 2006.  And then it was a pre-paid by-the-minute Tracfone.  (You know, a drug dealer phone.)  We bought it so I could always get ahold of M when I was pregnant with Scott and after I had him, I just kept using it.  But as little as possible.  I just didn't want to spend the money.  I have been eeking by on that phone used mostly for emergencies for the last six years.  (Do I have to relinquish my geek license???)

I waited until 2012 to send a text message at first because I wasn't willing to type it out on the number pad.  And then it kind of became a claim to fame.  So even when people texted me, I wouldn't text them back because how could I possibly waste my first text ever on something so boring?

But I gave in.  It was time.  I finally feel like I'm missing out on things because I didn't really have a cell phone.  I won't bore you with all the little incidents, but I just knew it was time.  (Not to mention the fact that my six year old phone wouldn't hold a charge very long anymore and I needed a new phone anyway.)

So I bought a new phone!  With a keyboard!  And I signed up for a cheap monthly plan.  So still no contract, but it's still way closer to "normal person."  And I sent my first text message ever to my best friend.  (I knew if I totally screwed up she wouldn't laugh at me too much.) (Turns out: hard to screw up.)

For how "tech savvy" I am in some ways, it does seem strange how backwards I can be too.  I'd never texted until yesterday.  We still don't have a DVR or even cable TV.  We just get by with what our TV antennae receives.  But I blog, use Facebook and Pinterest...

And for my 2nd text ever, I tweeted.

I don't make any sense, do I?

The Fanciest Easter Dress Ever

Today my Claire is getting baptized.  We're all so excited!  I'm really happy she's making this choice.

(In our faith, children get baptized when they are 8 years old.)

We're also excited to see all of the family that is here for the event.

 

We went to my parents' house last weekend and took some photos so that I wouldn't have the stress of capturing her dress along with everything else going on this weekend.

It was windy, so she had fun twirling her dress.

Oh, and I sewed her dress:

It only kind of consumed my life since Christmas.  

And yet I claim to enjoy sewing. (Note to self: verify sanity)

And thank you Target for free shipping on new white shoes:

As fun as this weekend will be, I'm sure, I'll be kind of be glad when it's over.  Between sewing the dress and getting ready for house guests and prepping for a post-baptism luncheon and everything else, I'm... tired.  Oh yah, and it's ALSO Easter.  I really want to sit and rest a spell...

 

Well, at least a nice Easter dress for Claire this year was a no-brainer!

  

"Pie" Charts

If I show you how M and I plan a party where we're serving pizza, do you promise not to laugh at us?  At least to our face?

OK, here is a screenshot then:

 

Because happiness is optimizing the correct number of square inches of pizza to have on hand for your guests.  Do we know how to party, or what???

At the End of the Rainbow

Now that Claire's birthday THIS year has passed, I went to look for my post about LAST year and realized I never wrote about it.  So now I'm going to remedy that.

We were camping on Claire's birthday.  And that day may or may not also be a certain holiday that falls in mid-March.  I wanted to share a little game we did with the other kids who went camping with us last year.  As you may have noticed by now, I have a real love of Pass the Parcel type games.  For this one, I put glow sticks (to play with after dark at the campsite) in-between successive layers of wrapping paper.  In rainbow order:

And in the very middle, a pot of "gold" (AKA chocolate coins):

 

M and I played music and the kids passed the package around a circle until the music stopped.  The kid holding it when the music stopped got to open a layer and keep whatever prize was inside.  (In a fit of obsessive justice, M and I watched to make sure the music stopped on everyone at least once.)

The kids loved the "Pot of Gold at the End of a Rainbow" and we followed it up with cupcakes: