what a beautiful day!

today was so gorgeous!  I am so ready for spring and this just made it worse.  It was 60 and sunny all day, so we headed to Bend and I dropped the kids off at my brothers, headed to my sisters picked her up and we went on a little hike around the Deschutes river in Old Mill district.  They have a trail that wraps around the river and it ends up being a 5 mile walk/hike.  It's beautiful and hoppin with people.  I love it!  After our great little workout, we picked the kids up had lunch in Old Mill, and then did a little shopping for some new shades.  :)  got home and was very excited when Justin pulled up right after me!  This meant I got to go for a run!  Lucy and I headed down tot he canyon and got in a 2 mile run!  Oh how today was so perfect..  I'm ready for spring!!!!!

Along the river

 

Ryder rockin his new aviators!

Averee picked some purple with rhinestones.  Surprise surprise.  LOL

just another day....

Saturday morning..

Showered the day before, of course I had a great hair day cause I was home all day in my sweats with the kids, wake up Saturday morning go to do my hair, I have one little spot in the middle of my bangs that has decided to curl and split right down the middle.  Pull the bangs back, get my coffee, grab my bags and head out the door for my 8:30am appointment. Pull out the drive way get to the stop sign, and...  forgot my appointment book, drove around the block, ran in and pull out for the second time, get to the stop sign...  Forgot my phone!  Really?  This is how my day is going to start?  Come back get my phone and head out again, after wasting about 10 minutes just coming back to get what I forgot.  FINALLY head out to the main road, and then..  hit ice. Yup it's totally icy and I'm sliding all over.  Took my time getting to Bend, by the time I get there I have no time to swing in to the Beauty Supply, so I just head straight tot work.  My first appointment is 15 mins late!  and the Coffee pot broke! From that point on I was running behind for each appointment...  I get to one appointment thankfully it's a friend, and I needed to run to the beauty supply to get some monomer, and she couldn't wait long enough for me to take 5 mins to run there and back so I had to let her leave without giving her, her fill.  :(  Then I got busy and missed the time slot I had set aside to go pick up some thing I bought on Craigslist.  Then we had a color correction come in and WOW Caylen you did wonders on that poor girls hair, but what a process for us all in the Salon.  haha  Oh... and the poor new stylist, had a not so great first day, she fried this girls hair, after the client left (and she was pretty pleased with what it looked like in the end! So yay!!  cause that is all that really matters) poor Sill was on the verge of tears!  Finally at around 8:15 Caylen and I head to the gym to get our workout in.  Unfortunately my key did not work, so I had to "sneak" in with Caylen (I trade with the owner so she now knows it's not working) anyway...  we get in our workout, kicked our ass!  go to leave (mind you it's about 9:15, 9:30) and I'm digging through my bag and I DON'T HAVE MY KEYS!!  My phone and keys are locked in my car...  Caylen being the wonderful friend she is drove me all the way to Redmond so I could get Justin's keys.   On the way to Redmond we talked about how our legs were shaking so bad from the workout, freaked out over the moon and how HUGE it was, AND almost hit a cat!  We get back on the road, head to the gym and about a block away we get stuck at a train...

This is what my day was yesterday..

I finally got home around 10, 10:30, ate a little something and went to bed.  Happy to report today was a very boring day compared to yesterday!  HAHA

the things that make me happy this week....

 1.  One of my favorite coffee creamers now comes in a huge bottle!!  (it's my guilty pleasure and will never go away..)

2.  New crock pot recipes.  Makes my life so much easier!  I have tried a few new ones in the last couple weeks and they are hit or miss, but overall turn out pretty good.

 3.  My little girl and her own little style.  She makes me smile each day with what she comes up with.

(this was taking Ryder to school, I let her wear it, and by the time we got home she was ready to change.  And actually overall she has AMAZING style sense....  usually) LOL

4.  DoLocalDeals

If you live in Bend or visit often check them out!  They have some great deals.  I love this site not only for the deals I get, but it has been a SAVIOR in my marketing for the salon!!

5.  I end this with the count down to VALENTINES DAY!!  I'm not all huge on the gushy love part of Valentines Day, BUT any day I get to put little baskets of fun creative things together for the special people in my life I jump on it!!  I love these little holidays!!  

(feeling a little cheesy for posting that...  haha)

Party Time!!!

 Our Saturday morning starting with me heading off to work, pampering some ladies feet, and making their toes look pretty.  Oh and a huge Starbucks! ;)  After a couple hours at work I headed to my sisters to pick up my 2 nephews and niece ( she was in Portland all weekend with my other nephew for his basketball tourny) then we headed back to Redmond to make a couple more stops before finally making it home.  We finally made it home around 12:45, and the party was supposed to start at 2!  When we got home Justin was vacuuming and the kids were still running around in their jammies!!  Yes...  Panic mode hit!!  I threw the kids in the shower, got them dressed picked up their rooms (for the second time that day, cause daddy had done it already!) shut my door to my room so no one could see the mess in there, did the dishes, and finished up setting up the table and goodies bags.  People started to show up and the craziness began!  We had so much fun.  About 11 kids showed up and ran crazy throughout the whole house, while the parents chatted and watched the football game.  I had a couple games planned and a table set up with coloring pages and crayons, the games never got played cause the kids were just having to much fun playing in the bedrooms and the coloring pages were a totally hit!  Who knew something so little and cheap (printed the pages off of the computer, and bought the crayons at the dollar store) would be the hit of the party!  The cake was a hit, Ryder had a twinkle in his eye as they all sang Happy Birthday to him then he blew the candles out and all the kids were ready to dig in!  Then came the presents..  I think this is so hard at this age.  All the kids want to play with all the new toys and they don't really understand that they don't get to take their presents home that they got for the birthday kid.  haha  But all was good and everyone had a blast!  Can't wait to see what next years birthday will hold!

After the party we ended our night with Uncle Derek and Aunt Katie hangin out watching the football game and eating Chinese food.  It really was a great day!

(unfortunately I forgot to grab my sisters camera, so these are the few pictures I got with my phone :( )

 

 I so badly wish I could have found some How to Train Your Dragon decorations, but none!!  anywhere!! So we had to make do with what we could find (luckily we found the party hats at Goodwill!!  lol)

 Averee hangin with daddy watching football.

 My party girl!

 The cake!  Everything homemade, but the dragons.

 The mountain with all it's little details, was by far my favorite part of the cake!

And the Birthday Boy!!!

Happy 5th Birthday Ryder!!

We all love you so much!

Cakes, Decorating, & one happy little boy!

 Day two started with us waking up late and trying to scramble around to get Ryder to school.  I told Averee to go get ready and this is what she came out in..  SO this is what she went in , and she loved the attention she got from it.  LOL

 

While we were out, we did all of our errands and paid some bills, got home around 9:30 and began our adventure in to the decorating of the house and cake!

 After a quick trip to Dutch Bros, Averee and I made the frosting a yummy buttercream recipe I have made up through hours of  messing around with different recipes.  Decided on the colors (hoping people don't mind the staining of the teeth!  haha)  I knew I wanted a little corner to look like water and then the rest needed to look like a rocky dirt color beach.  If you have ever seen the movie I'm trying to go off of the part of them heading in to the mountain that the dragons live in.  Anyway I decided to go with different shades of grays.  Unfortunately it turned out more of a dark purple... but you can't really tell so I'm not to concerned about it.  ;) 

got it all frosted....

Next came the part I was not so sure about.  I had to make the mountain and pebbles, and making the fondant, that I have never made before!  I was just really hoping it all turned out.  The fondant turned out SO good!  It's so expensive and I have to say it only costs me a couple bucks and was so much more tasty!!  We got the mountain made (we made it out of rice crispy treats) and then covered it with the fondant.  Made our own rocks and moss and I have to say it turned out so much cuter then I thought it was going to be!  not a ton to it but it's perfect! AND every piece of the cake is homemade!! The picture really doesn't do it Justis!!  I will have better pictures tomorrow..  I don't actually own a camera right now (new one being purchased for my birthday, a canon rebel! I'm way excited!!!) but my wonderful sister is letting me borrow her camera for the party, so I hope to get some great pictures!

By late afternoon I had the decorations up around the house, all cake stuff done and I was heading to Bend to drop the kids off at my brothers and head in to work.  Got home around 8:30, kids off to bed, me on here and really thinking I need to head to bed, cause tomorrow I have to be at work by 9, home by noon and ready for the party to start at 2!!

My day of preparing "1"

How my day started...  Instead of just doing a "normal" deep clean, I had the brilliant idea I needed to switch up somethings in my Kitchen!  So out came all my pots and pans (they are to the right, not in the picture) and all my baking/Tupperware!  The kids found some pretty awesome "spaceships" among all this clutter.

I discovered how many cake pans I have accumulated in the last, oh about 6 months!

It truly has become a passion...  haha

among all this clutter and messiness I did actually get cleaning done and the house looks Fantastic!  I had dinner in the crock pot, and the kids occupied with toys, or movies, and I got a ton done today!  

Cleaning-  check

(kids rooms to be cleaned right before party, it would just be a waste of my time if I did it now..  LOL)

Laundry-  check

Dinner-    check

and the most important...

the cake is out of the oven and cooling...

(have decided last minute to just do a sheet cake for the bottom of my vision instead of a layered cake)

another year older!

Yup that's right..  My sweet little Ry guy turned 5 this past Monday!  It's still crazy and I really don't know how this happened?  I mean really.. wasn't he just 2? I remember the hospital trip and the crazy snowy mountain that my sister drove over just to "try" and be there in time to meet her new little nephew (and she did make it by about 15 minutes!) haha.  Then he turned one, that year was a big year for us moving over the mountain and all, and 2 just snuck right up on us, with a baby sister that came to rock our world that year!  Then we hit 3, he started preschool and became our "big" boy.. 4 came and went so fast I'm scrabbling to remember what all has gone on this past year with him, lets see...  He started playing sports, video games,got his first BB gun, and Kung Fu!  wow talk about him getting older..  Now he is 5!!  I'm super excited about it, but super sad. What will this year hold for us?  He gets to start T-Ball this year and he can't wait! and we are going to see how he takes to wrestling, again this is some thing he is so excited about, and he wants to learn how to snow board.  Next year he goes in to "real" school!  What? Seriously!  Oh the joys of watching our kids grow up each and every day..  I truly love it...

Monday he got to bring cupcakes in to his class for everyone and handed out his "How To Train Your Dragon" invites for his big friend birthday party this Saturday.  That night we headed out to the one place he really wanted to go to dinner (for the soul reason they would sing Happy Birthday to him) at Red Robin.  My sister and her kids meet us there and we had a great dinner and the boys watched the game.  Tomorrow marks the first day of preparing for the big party on Saturday!  It's cleaning and baking day!  Oh joy..  lol  I'm excited about the baking but could do with out the cleaning. I'm making a homemade cake with homemade frosting and fondant.  I usually buy fondant, but I'm really not a fan of the taste so I decided to get a little crazy and make my own this time around!  I'm way excited about his cake and hoping it turns out cool!  Should be pretty easy?  Just a flat cake that will be made out to look like a rocky beachy area, then a big mountain on top of the cake (this is where the dragons live) and we will have dragons on the mountain and the vikings shooting them down on the other side with their sling shot thingy.  Wish me luck!!  

I'll keep a daily blog for the next few days!  I'm going to need to see progress I think cause I'm going to be exhausted come Monday!  Did I mention that on top of the party I'm working all weekend!

A few of my favs from 2010!

Happy 2011!!

A new year is beginning...  Can't believe it!  We rang in the New Year home with the kiddos, like we do every year.  :)  I won't complain cause I'm not a fan of drunks and crazy drivers, so I enjoy staying home.  Our night consisted of eating good foods, and playing Dino Monopoly, Candy land, and the wii.  I made it to about 11:20 and then crashed, do I have to mention that my 5 year old made it until about the same time as me!

Well here's to a New Year and I know it's going to be a WONDERFUL year!

A few "goals" (not resolutions) I setting for myself:

Walk Lucy daily

Drop the last few (25) pounds I have to lose

Run a half marathon

See my Colorado friends at least one time this year!

I'm sure there are more, actually I know there is but for the moment these are the good ones to list. 

Good luck everyone with any "goals" or "resolutions" you set for yourself!