"Gretel Gumdrops"....The Birthday Girl!!

For Gretel's FIRST Birthday, I was really excited because my family came to visit the weekend of her special day!! So Gretel was able to celebrate with her G-rents Mimi and Pop-"C",Uncle Teal, and her Auntie Hab, Uncle Stevo, and cousins Hudson and Oliver!

For her party, I thought it would be fun to do a Hansel and Gretel theme! So I made these invitations, and the rest of the poem had the info about when & where...





Everyone visited and ate when they arrived. We had two different kinds of soups, salad, spinach & artichoke dip/bread, sugar cookies and cupcakes when we sang to Gretel and the end.
The little kids went in the backyard and sat on blankets while my mom read them the story of Hansel and Gretel. Then we had them go in the garage to help decorate the gingerbread house and color. I had lots of help from friends and family for the party, so thank you everyone, for everything you did to help me!!

My very talented friend Abby is an awesome artist, and spent TONS of time drawing the entire story of Hansel and Gretel to create a giant coloring page for the kids at the party. It was sooo nice of her-I only requested one scene, and she went above and beyond!!

So the kids really liked coloring and decorating the gingerbread house, and played a quick game of "Throw the witch in the cauldron."

We watched the video that Johnny made of Gretel's highlights of her first year, which turned out really fabulous and Gretel still loves watching it! (Thanks Johnny for all your hard work!) Then we sang to her, & took pictures. We gave each family a party favor cd named "Ear Candy" (thanks Hab for labeling and wrapping them!) which had songs from her video and candy themed songs on it.
It was a lot of fun-we're glad we have so many fun friends and fam to celebrate with!!

On Gretel's actual birthday, we started off the day with having her open some presents from my parents and Hailey, Steve, and their boys. Yay for new toys!! Thanks, everyone...

Then we spent the day at a pumpkin patch where they had lots of fun things for the kids to do, like train rides, slides, and a petting zoo!!

Johnny had to stay home and study, but in the end he decided to skip class and go birthday shopping for our little girl instead! We were glad he met us for dinner (at B.J.'s) that night, so he didn't miss out on the whole day!

Fun+Uncle=FUNCLE!!!

We came back after dinner and opened more gifties-a doll with a stroller and a little toy hair/makeup kit that Johnny had gotten her. She just loves this-she sits all day long opening and closing all the tiny nailpolish bottles, and rummaging around her bag for her makeup brushes!! (I wonder where she gets it from?) Her first word was "Baby" and she says it all day-so she really loves her little baby that cries and makes sleeping noises.

Thank you Mom and Dad for all the fun outfits, accessories, and cute jammies too!!

Malibu, baby yeah!!

So this is really late, but I figured I might as well try and keep my little events in order. Sort of. This little girls' weekend happened at the end of August. My girlfriend Shar invited me, Abby and Shauna to stay with her at her "Grammy's" house who lives in Malibu. We felt really cool, because this was in the same neighborhood as stars like Minnie Driver and Pamela Anderson (I got a glimpse of Pammy at the very end of the trip-I was so thrilled!) And just across the cliff we could see Barbara Streisand's mansion. We walked down to a private beach every day and we saw....you'll never guess......Matthew McConaughey very up close! We walked (slowly) past him and got a good look at him playing with his two dogs. Shauna was especially thrilled because she touched one of his dogs. Also, I was not at the beach yet when my friends saw Luke Wilson so I was really bummed.

The highlight of our weekend was when we went to dinner at this really awesome/expensive Steakhouse in Beverly Hills called "Mastro's." Abby's brother-in-law is the general manager, so she made the reservations, and they were extra nice to us....they even comped our meal! Also, while we were there, the manager came and talked to us and pointed out what celebrities were there, and also told us who had been there recently. He quietly showed us that Kareem Abdul Jabbar was just a few tables away, and told us that "Puddy" from Seinfeld was there too. Chevy Chase had been in recently, and the night before, David and Victoria Beckham had been there with their kids!! I was so sad we didn't get to see them- Johnny can't believe that I actually get excited at the thought of seeing celebs; he thinks I'm really silly!

There were definite drama-filled moments; our car broke down and we had to stay longer than planned which didn't really disturb mine and Gretel's schedule (she was there with me) but it messed up everyone else's.

But we had so much fun at night when the babies were asleep-we would just talk and laugh while eating Snickers ice cream bars...and howl with laughter some more. My favorite line of the trip that we kept repeating more loudly and obnoxiously each time was, "It's a beautiful night..." "WE SMELL LIKE PIZZA!!!"

I just wanted to quickly journal all the good/funny parts of the trip before I forgot them. I don't have pictures because I didn't bring my camera, but maybe I'll add some later if I get a few from my friends!

Post Columbus Day Post...

So Gretel's BIG FIRST BIRTHDAY was on Monday, October 12 which was also Columbus Day this year. I thought since it will take me a little while to catch up on posting the fun birthday festivities, I would at least update my little blog with some pictures from about 5 years ago that I took with my very fun roommates! Betsy worked very hard on this white wig she made out of cotton, and we all dressed up, ate dinner together and took "Discovering America" type pictures...