Gingerbread Birthday Party

I have been so ridiculously busy the last couple of days that I haven't even managed to blog!  It was Adam's work Christmas party on Friday night, and we had a babysitter for the whole night!  That's right, an uninterrupted night of sleep in a beautiful hotel room for us!

Then Saturday we finished off some last minute Christmas shopping without the girls and finally came home, and started preparing for the big birthday party today!

Mylie doesn't turn 4 until January 3rd, but we celebrated with a gingerbread themed party today.

Here is the candy waiting to be handed out to the kids.  They worked in "sister" teams.  One house for each two sisters.  Each girl got a bag of icing to use to decorate, and each team got a set of candies.  The kids took home the gingerbread man dish, the house, and the gingerbread girl apron.

The stations before the kids got here:

The decorations and goodies:

"Take it of my good side..."

That is what Laina said to me tonight when she saw me wielding my camera.  Then she turned her back to me and stuck her butt out at the camera.  Where does she get these from?? Certainly not something I have ever said!

Anyways, I kind of cheated tonight.  I realized that I had not used my camera once today and the kids were about to go to bed.  So I snapped a couple of quick ones just so that I could say I took pictures today!

Here is Laina, showing off her gappy smile.  She lost both of her front teeth in the last month and a half.  She is pretty proud that she will be able to sing, "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth!".

And because most of the things that I could say about the day are negative.... instead, I will show you the reason why I use a professional photographer for back to school pictures, rather than the school-provided photographer.  We got these back from Mylie's preschool photo day yesterday.

First is the school photo of Mylie in her Loves Me Not Gem Lap Dress

And now one of the photos that I had done back in October with my favorite photographer Addykphotography of Mylie in the same dress:



 What do you think?

Sugar Cookies

I have come to several realizations today.  The first of which is that it is never a good idea to count on the amount of time a baby USUALLY sleeps when planning a craft.  Since Evelyn usually has a solid two and a half to three hours nap in the afternoon, I thought it would be an excellent time to ice the sugar cookies I made yesterday for Mylie's party (don't worry, I will be freezing them until the party).  So I laid her down, made a huge batch of royal icing in several colors and consistencies and got set up with all the bits and pieces that I would need to decorate the cookies.  I have never really "iced and decorated" cookies before other than the paint on icing that we usually use or a shake of sprinkles here or there, but I have been getting ideas and inspirations from this blog called Glorious Treats.

Which brings me to my next realization for the day.  I really don't enjoy decorating cookies.  I love baking, I love decorating cupcakes and I sure love eating both, but decorating cookies.... not so much.  Maybe it had something to do with my 3 (almost 4) year old constantly trying to "help".  Even after I set her up with her own cookie and icing to decorate, she still managed to grab one of my bottles of the thin consistency icing and squeeze it all over her dress.  She also managed to spill the shaker of sanding sugar all over the table and floor, not once, but twice!

And can you guess what happened as soon as I had finished doing one cookie?  Yep, Evelyn (aka Destructo-baby) woke up and terrorized the cookies and I until Adam got home from work.  The path of destruction she left was wide, and I still haven't finished cleaning it up.

But here they are, the finished product.  These are for Mylie's Gingerbread house decorating party on Sunday.  I normally wouldn't choose brown as a decorating color but it goes with the theme.

Laina's Christmas Concert

This will be brief, since I have way too many things that haven't been crossed off on my to-do list today!  Laina's Christmas concert was today and it was filled with lots of sweet childish voices singing en français and in english (she attends a school that is two-thirds french immersion, and one-third english speaking; Laina goes to school entirely in french.)  She still isn't feeling well and is now on anti-biotics for a double ear-infection and you can tell she looks sick in these pictures.

She is wearing a Santa hat and Gymboree Alpine Sweetie dress and tights, and she accessorized (without my knowledge) with some plastic green beads.

And here she is with her BFF (their words, not mine) who is wearing a pair of legwarmers that her mom made using my how-to found here.



Messy kids

That is pretty much all I have pictures of today!  Messy kids.  We had one of those busy and productive days where we mostly hung around the house in our pajamas with unbrushed hair.  Glamorous we were not!

The kids flipped over the Rose Petal Cottage on it's side and all sat inside it to watch Christmas movies on television.  Then Destructo-baby crashed the party by attempting a superman-dive over the side and broke the frame.

See what I mean about the unbrushed hair and pjs?  Oh and the sagging frame?

Evelyn was the only one dressed at this point, she is sporting Gap Chelsea top and bottom.

And her she is, leaning in for a smooch, all puckered up and ready to go!

I have noticed my photos are mostly of Evelyn, which is a reverse of the usual "no-photos-of-second-or-third-child rut people get into.  I think it is mostly because she follows me around all day whereas the two older girl flee when they see me with the camera.

At suppertime, I had no sooner mentioned to Adam that Evelyn was making good use of her fork (for once...) then she pulled this stunt.  Pasta was on the menu, so this got messy.

Look ma, no hands!

And thus begins the busiest week of the year, with kid`s Christmas activites and parties and party planning!  Sigh, I wish the weekend had a few more hours in it!

Gingerbread Aprons

We found out a few days ago that Adam will be having his hernia surgery on January 7th which was the day before we had planned to hold Mylie's 4th birthday party.  For various reasons, we couldn't hold the party the week before the 7th, and the week before that is Christmas!  So we decided to have her birthday party a mere week away from now.  GULP!

So today, I had the gorgeous invitations designed by Danny (whose website has slipped my mind for the moment but I will add it in later or you can comment and I will get you a link.  If you need awesome digital photo invites that you can just print off at your local photo shop he is your man!) printed out and I will be hand delivering those tomorrow. 

I was inspired by this blog to hold a gingerbread decorating party.  Should be easy enough to do considering the house is already decorated for Christmas!  Each child will have a station with a gingerbread house (already put together and solidified, because we all know kids just can't wait for it to dry!) and all the icing and candy they need to make it beautiful!  I will be sewing each little girly their own gingerbread girl apron to wear while decorating as well as sending them home with the finished gingerbread house.   I have quite a few more ideas up my sleeve but will save them for later!

Here is Mylie, modelling the first apron I made yesterday.  I bought the pattern from my favorite place of course, etsy.

A Blue Day

It just wasn't a good one for me today.  Despite my best efforts to keep my depression at bay, it was determined to relentlessly wash over me.  I hate days like today, where I can sense it as soon as I wake up.  I try counting my blessings (of which I have many!) and listening to the sweet high-pitched voices of my daughters; even feeling their little arms around my neck and them smothering me with kisses, all to no avail.  It is just there, lurking in the back of my mind, not allowing me a moment's joy.  I know these days are few and far between now, but it frustrates me that they come at all.

I try my best to hide it from people; and especially from my children.  I don't ever want them to think that I have any reason to be unhappy or dissatisfied, because there is no reason.  I don't want people to think less of me for a mental illness that I have struggled with for almost as long as I can remember.  The first episode of anxiety that I can recall was when I was 9 years old, but it could have started even younger.  I can go through spells where I have no episodes of anxiety or depression for years at a time, but since I have had children, the anxiety at least is here more often than not.

This is a hard thing for me to admit and talk about with people, so I will hit Publish Post before I chicken out  and delete this, but before I do, here are a couple photos of the day.  And I promise that tomorrow's post will be brighter and sunnier... the blues never hang around for long, and besides, I have something super cute to share tomorrow as soon as I get a little one to model it.

Here is Mylie who wore the apron dress I sewed for her.  She wore it with a blue Gap St. Petersburg shirt and tights and you can't tell from the picture, but the blue was an exact match for part of the pattern of her dress.  She looked adorable in it!

And twirling...

Again today, this is how Evie felt about having her picture taken:

She was wearing Gap Boho on top and on the bottom (the butterfly jeans) and an adorable crocheted hat that my friend Kelli bought her for her first birthday.

Here is she once she got what she wanted:

Much happier now!!