Steph+Lars=STARS

Then and Now

THEN

NOW

THEN

NOW

THEN

NOW

Moral of the story is that it is easier to take pictures with kids when they are lumps instead of toddlers. :)

I am 30 now and I want to say that everyone has been really really nice to me. I don't know if it is because they could tell I have been sad or they all know something I don't about turning 30. I have always felt that my birthday was a month long party. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because I spread the fun and bad because the fun sometimes can be spread so thin that your actually birthday day is just another day. Now that I share a birthday month with Roan I pass most of the attention onto him and I am fine with that. It turned out to be an eventful fun month.

Probably one of the best gifts of all was a surprise from Lars. I had a hunch about this surprise because I can put two and two together. He has many secret phone calls with our friends and when I confronted them about it they denied it and lied to me about their plans. I was veered away from it so many times that I believed it but deep down inside I had hope. Anyway, Lars had my best friend from California drive up with her family the weekend of Roan's birthday party. He woke me up in the middle of the night upon their arrival and I saw them as I walked upstairs in my rob half asleep. LOL we embraced and I cried and was soooo excited that I didn't go back to sleep for hours. This was not only special for me because I love being with my friend but our sons are 3 days apart and are like brothers. Seeing their reunion was special. Having Dane, Aaron, and Marly at Roan's 1st birthday party was the best thing ever. They have been apart of our lives in CA and our pregnancy from the get go that I couldn't imagine having the party without them. It was really what I wanted from the time I found out we were moving and Lars made it happen.

We partied all weekend with them. The girls had a reunion with Jamie and Shawna.

Then we went to the temple and downtown to check things out in the cold cold weather.

My parents let us borrow their van so we were call in the same car

The boys first traxx ride and it lasted like 30 seconds

Dane all bundled up. I love this kid and he has a crush on me and it makes me giddy.

Playing at City Creek

The boys had a blast playing together.

Here is a cool video of their 1st 5 minutes together. They seriously picked up where they left off.

Lars also got me a really cool flip waffle maker, like the kind at hotels. I love it and will be hosting a waffle party soon.

We tried to throw a really small birthday party the week of my birthday and it failed. I don't want to go into the details but lets just say I don't want to even try and throw myself another birthday party until I am 40. Maybe then more than one person will come. It was just a bad day and snow balled into worse but I have moved on from it and have learned that I am a big party girl and not a small intimate party girl.

My actually birthday was full of lots of well wishes from blogs, facebook, texts, and phone calls. I received a special box in the mail from my friend Rebecca and a package from my Anaheim girls full of beautiful hand made birthday cards. I had dinner at my in laws and when I got home my Mom had a cool balloon and a pie for me. I was so caked out from Roan's birthday that I only wanted pie for mine. It was a super delicious Village Inn pie, my favorite place on the planet these days. I haven't had a chance to dig into yet because the next day I got sick with either food poisoning or the nasty 24 hour flu puke your guts out bug. Needless to say I stayed home from work and Roan was still able to go to the sitters while I got better. Hence all these updated posts.

I had a 20's bucket list full of random stuff like write a musical, become a Mom, and go sky diving. I love my life and all I have done in it thus far. I want to keep on living it up into my 30's and beyond. Maybe this decade I will go sky diving. :) Thanks all for making this birthday special.

It's A Muppet Birthday Party

For Roan's First Birthday we threw him a Muppet themed birthday. I had a Muppet Baby Shower so naturally he got a Muppet 1st Birthday. It turned out amazing, more amazing than I ever dreamed. Special thanks to Lars, my Mom, sister, & friends Marly & Aaron for helping making it possible. And for Lars's family for assisting in the clean up.

Here is what went down. Everything had to do with The Muppets and I started planning this in October. Each week I did something birthday party related so I wouldn't get stressed out the day off. I scaled back a number of times in the process but it was still so amazing. I got a lot of the ideas from various websites and just pulled a little of this and that together from each one to mash it together into this...

Decorations:

I used some decorations from my baby shower, a banner and signage that Marly made. The color skeme was centered around this. I also printed a ton of Muppet pictures and had them spread throughout the venue.

I had a cool welcome sign, that we didn't take a pic of. And then as people left I had this sign on the door. It had quotes from these characters about how the show stinks, LOL.

Food:

All the food had signage right next to eat to tie it in with The Muppets.

Plus we had really yummy cupcakes that my Mom made with her super delicious special frosting.

Cake balls that my sister and mom helped me make and decorate. I was given a babycakes cake pop maker for Christmas and that sped things up. These were really really really yummy. I had like 10 of them.

Activities:

My fabulous sister in law had a booth for face painting and she created Muppet/Sesame Street characters. They were awesome.

I also had a color station where kids could color Muppet pages and faces to put on sticks for a puppet show. There was also a fold your own Muppet that I got off the Disney website.

Then I had a Fozzy Bears joke shop photo booth. I did not get a picture of the table but I had various props; rubber chicken, Muppet glasses that I made, large bow, green wig, giant flower, mustaches, whoopie cushion that my sweet nephew begged to take home (his parents must love me, hey I am a cool Aunt, what I can say), a large hat, just a bunch of goofy stuff. I had a backdrop set up that I made out of Muppet pictures and balloons. Each guest will be sent a picture from the booth as a thank you card. (Still working on getting these out).

Here are just a few fun pics from the photo booth

Epic fail to get all the kids in one shot

Kermit so made an appearance

Anaheim Ladies yo

Cake Balls Rock!!

Everything was a hit and worked out better than ever. My niece and nephew were the first to arrive and they totally picked up on what I was trying to do. My nephew played with the rubber chicken in the puppet theatre and was having a ball. Success!!! Kids are awesome!!

I made a 3-tiered cake for Roan to dig into. He was taken back by all the singing and would only dig into the cake if he was on my lap. He was so sweet and gave me his first bite from his cake. Eventually he got comfy and made a mess. We cleaned him off in the sink and he loved it.

On the invitation I suggested in lieu of gifts to consider donating to Roan's mission/college fund. I was nervous about this at first but it went over pretty well and thanks to everyone's generosity we have a great start on his fund.

We had a wonderful time and appreciate all who came out and all the well wishes from those who couldn't make it. I was so happy during his party and totally crashed afterwards. I think his next few birthday will be super low key until he is like 5 and then we can really go crazy with sleep overs and stuff.

Here are more fun pics from the party:

Having a dance off

Smiling painted faces

FaFa Madesen

Look at all that snow. I need to note that Aaron helped shovel snow around the clubhouse which was the second time in his life he has ever shoveled snow.