Cadence's 9th Backwards Birthday Party

Happy 9th birthday to my sweet little angel, Cadence. This year she wanted to have a BACKWARDS BIRTHDAY PARTY

with all her friends. That proved to be a little harder than your standard princess party which is what she always wants so I had to put my thinking cap on & come up with something creative.

The invites were upside down & backwards. They opened from the left side & all the writing was mirrored so you could only read it in the mirror. All the info, date, time, etc. was on the outside of the card, & the "You're Invited" part was on the inside with an upside down cake. VERY CONFUSING, but cute.

I baked several pretty pink cupcakes, frosted them, added sprinkles, & then turned them upside down on their plates with candles coming out the BOTTOM of the cupcake liner.

Then I made THIS MONSTER. ha ha ha. I couldn't possibly do it with cake; it would have crumbled into a million pieces. So I made it out of Rice Krispie treats & fondant. It's not the prettiest cake I've ever done, but it served it's purpose & Cadence LOVED it which was what was most important to me. So here is her UPSIDE DOWN CAKE.

The decor turned out WAY CUTE. I hung several balloons from the ceiling (upside down of course), & then I set up the eating area UNDER the table. We used PILLOWS to sit on instead of chairs & everything was done up cute in pink & white.

Cadence helped me put together the goodie bags. The color theme was pink & white so everything inside was pink or white. There were all sorts of pretty candies including some sugar crystal candy in the white bags, & there were sunglasses, lip glosses, nail polish, & lots of fun girly things in the pink one.

Cadence was SO EXCITED for her backwards party to begin. . .

All the kids (minus baby who was taking a nap) put their clothes on backwards. They thought it was SO FUNNY.

Even Daddy put his clothes on backwards.

And yes, my clothes were backwards too. Do you know how hard it is to button up pants backwards? I was surprised at how difficult it was.

Me & my little birthday girl.

Cadence waited ever so patiently for her guests to arrive. Then she made sure to say "Good-bye" as they each arrived on our doorstep.

The first thing we did was dig into cake & ice cream. After all, this is a BACKWARDS PARTY.

We all sang "You to Birthday, Happy" to Cadence. Then she blew out her candle.

Then we dug into our fun cupcakes. The kids loved eating the sugar FIRST instead of LAST.

After overdosing on sugary goodness, we had the girls sit down on the floor for a

Backwards Puzzle Race.

Basically, they put together puzzles upside down as fast as they could. It was SO HARD. They were laughing the whole time.

After doing puzzles, we had each girl draw a signed birthday portrait of Cadence BLINDFOLDED. Everybody was laughing SO HARD at the silly pictures they could hardly breathe. Cadence was laughing hardest because they were drawing her with blue, purple, & green hair. All the faces looked Picaso-ish & their bodies were no where near the head. It was a fun activity for everyone.

After lots of laughter & smiles, we headed back to our "table on the floor" for a

BACKWARDS DINNER.

We ate Pizza Sandwiches, Apple Fries with Peanut Butter Ketchup, Backwards Hot-Dogs, & upside down Sodas.

The backwards hot-dogs were fun. Just put the hot-dogs on the OUTSIDE of the bun. It makes a MESS, but it's hilarious.

Also, when you stab a hole in the bottom of a soda can, it EXPLODES. (We didn't know that.) But it was still fun. The girls loved drinking out of the bottom of the cans.

I think the favorite activity of the night was the

BACKWARDS PINATA.

All of the candy was on the OUTSIDE of the piñata. They got a kick out of that. (It's just taped on so it will fall off easily when it's hit.)

Trek held it up with a mop pole, then we blindfolded the kids BACKWARDS & made them hold the WRONG SIDE of the bat. The best part? Trek made sure the PINATA HIT THEM a few times before they could hit it. (ha ha ha)

After the piñata, we had another fun game in store. For a NORMAL birthday party, the guests give the birthday girl presents. Well, at this BACKWARDS PARTY, Cadence gave each of her guests a PRESENT.

We put the numbers 1-10 in a shoe (not a hat because it's backwards). Each girl drew a number. Whoever drew the #10 got to pick her present first. Then #9 got to choose whether to steal the first girls gift or open her own & so forth until #1 got to steal from anyone or open her own. They LOVED this. I think they were having more fun stealing from each other than opening their own thing. Girls are SO funny. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

We all had a lot of fun wearing our clothes backwards, eating crazy things, & just being silly.

The night ended with the REAL PRESENTS. I was going to make Cadence open the gifts with her feet, but there wasn't enough time left & I wanted to make sure everyone got to see the presents opened. She got a lot of fun craft things from her friends. They know her well. Everything was perfect for her. We had a blast!

Happy Birthday my sweet little Angel Girl. I hope your day was as WONDERFUL as you are.

My new addiction - Julep Maven

I'm terrible when it comes to beauty products. I love them. I love to do my nails & my girls' nails. I found this program called Julep Maven & I have to admit, I'm addicted. ha ha ha. You take a style quiz on their website & they assign you a style (I'm "Classic with a Twist"), then every month they send you a box of polishes & hand products worth over $45 for $19.99. They send you an email on the 20th of the month that tells you what will be in your box for the month & you have the option to skip the month (if your running low on $$ or if you don't like any of the colors), you can switch your box to a different style if you like the colors in another box better, or you can send the box to a friend instead. I love it.

In my intro box (January) I got a beautiful peachy pink shiny color called Maya & a beautiful periwinkle color called Taylor which ended up being my girls' favorite color EVER. I also got a really nice hand brightening lotion worth $32 on it's own. I was hooked.

For February's box I chose to switch to "Boho Glam" because I wanted that blue color really badly. Since it's the month of the Oscar's, Julep decorated the boxes in red & gold & included a chocolate Oscar Statue in every box. It was SO FUN. 100 customers got Oscar Gold Boxes which had $100+ worth of polishes inside. Mine wasn't golden, but I loved everything in it.

My box included Oscar (gold glitter polish), Marisa (a gorgeous shimmery blue), & Julep's famous cuticle oil. I'm in love with all 3. Lorien gets hang nails constantly so I've been using the cuticle oil on her all week & it's working miracles on her poor little fingers. Amazing stuff.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. I'm addicted. ha ha ha. Look at my pretty nails.

For more information on the Julep Maven subscription, go here.

San Francisco

For the weekend, we drove up to Tylee's house in San Francisco. It was an amazing weekend. Tylee & Pete surprised us by taking the kids back to Tylee's house while Trek & I stayed the night at Pete's penthouse apartment in the middle of the city. They sent us to their favorite Italian restaurant & as we were getting ready to leave, the waitress informed us our entire meal had already been paid for in full.

Then we got to spend the rest of the night at Pete's apartment on the 14th floor. His entire apartment is surrounded by windows so you can see out over the entire city. It was GORGEOUS. What a great BIRTHDAY SURPRISE for Trek. . . & I got to enjoy it too.

Thank you Tylee & Pete for a WONDERFUL kid-free evening.

We woke up at the crack of dawn so we could go to the Oakland Temple. There's nothing like waking up at 5:00 am on a Saturday morning. ha ha ha. We got ready fast & drove 30 minutes to the temple to find it CLOSED FOR CLEANING. Oops. I guess we should have checked the schedule huh? It was only 6 am so NOTHING was open. We drove around trying to find ANYTHING open, but we were out of luck. We drove back to the city & parked the car near Tylee's house. Then we walked around for a couple hours to pass the time before the kids woke up. I never get bored of walking through Union Square, even if all the stores are closed. It was a nice morning for a walk.

When we got back to Tylee's apartment, she had a BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST waiting for Trek. She made him a FABULOUS birthday burrito. I was totally impressed. Tylee is becoming a better cook every time we come visit.

After our "Birthday Brunch" we all piled in the van & headed over to Sausalito to the Discovery Museum.

Bladen & Taya liked the toddler area where they got to play with fish in a stream. My kids love any excuse to get wet.

There was a huge open area full of learning toys that the kids loved. They played for a while. I was impressed.

The kids' favorite area at the museum was the art studio. There were so many neat things here. Cadence especially loved the weaving room. Bladen & Taya weren't into the weaving, but they sure loved the safety glasses.

Pete & Tylee bought Bladen some chocolate milk to keep him still while Cadence & Lorien weaved crowns & necklaces (which took FOREVER). He was good so long as he had chocolate milk in his mouth. ha ha ha.

The girls did a fabulous job at weaving wet wood into all sorts of shapes. Trek impressed me by showing them how to do the crowns. That's the boy scout I married. He was amazing!

There was a HUGE playground at this place. There was a corn maze type thing made out of willow sticks. There was a boat to play on, several sandboxes, a hike, & all sorts of other fun things. Taya liked crawling through a giant redwood trunk.

At the top of the hike was a big bell. The kids all took turns ringing the bell. They loved that.

After our trip to the museum, we stopped at the lookout point in Sausalito to get a spectacular view of the city & the golden gate bridge. It was GORGEOUS up there.

After our adventures in Sausalito, we went back to Pete's apartment & played in the hot tub for a while while Trek & Pete picked up pizza & Chipotle. We had dinner together & then we were on our way home again. It was one of the best weekends EVER.

Thanks again Tylee & Pete for an AWESOME WEEKEND.

Lo's Student of the Month

Our sweet little Lorien was awarded Student of the Month for the month of January. Trek & I were SO proud of her. Only 3 first graders out of the whole school got selected & she was one of them. She was awarded a certificate as well as a bag of goodies & prizes. She was SO happy to be recognized.

Congrats Lorien. We are SO PROUD OF YOU.

Trek's Birthday Party

And what's a birthday without a party? After Trek got home from school, we watched him open all his presents.

Lorien made him a new laptop out of a diaper box (SO SWEET) so he could have something to "play with" after school.

Cadence made him a home made picture frame for his favorite pictures. (again, how sweet are my little girls?)

Trek got some fun things from family & friends. He got some money to buy a computer program he's been wanting for a while now, an outdoor fire pit from his sister, a jigsaw tool from me, some candy from the kids, & some new clothes from Nancy. There were also several nice cards for his special day. Thank you everyone for everything. He loved it all.

And the ONE THING Trek HAD TO HAVE for his birthday was

CAKE POPS.

I don't know what it is with cake pops, but he's obsessed with them. This time around he wanted funfetti cake mix & cream cheese frosting (for the cake ball itself). Then he wanted it dipped in milk chocolate & rolled in Heath Bar crumbles. Spoiled boy!

He's SO happy to be 33.

And then with the cake pops we enjoyed Heath Bar ice cream with Heath Bar chocolate topping. We're just a Heath Bar kind of family.

YUM.

Happy Birthday Trekkie.

Trek's Birthday Breakfast

Happy 33rd Birthday to Trek.

Trek's birthday is January 25th & we always start his special day with his favorite thing:

BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST.

Trek loves biscuits & gravy. It's his favorite thing in the world. Bacon is a favorite as well. The Potter family always does Ding Dongs with birthday breakfasts, but not Trek. He wants Hostess CUPCAKES. He's SO FUNNY. So his every wish was my command . . . he had some delicious biscuits & gravy, bacon, a hostess cupcake, & a glass of orange juice!

(This was supposed to be a picture of Trek's Breakfast, but for some reason I took a picture of Lorien's plate. I blame it on waking up at 4 am. ha ha ha. Lorien doesn't like the gravy so I always do biscuits & jam for her. . . but try & picture gravy on the biscuits.)

Trek was SO surprised when he walked into the kitchen. (not really, but we like to pretend for the kids)

Surprise!

He made a wish & then ate it all up.

Happy Birthday #33 Trek.