Brighton's close call with death

The day of the party, Brighton decided to sample Irelynd's birthday cake for me while I was in the shower.  And he lived to tell about it...barely.

Not to mention the day before, he ate my green layer and I had to make another.  Good thing for frosting!

Irelynd turns 8

We went over the rainbow to Fairyland to celebrate Irelynd's 8th birthday.  We had a Rainbow Fairies party.  The intention originally was to have just a rainbow party, emphasizing the rainbow baptism song from Primary.  But that didn't excite Irelynd much, so we added in the Rainbow Fairies, and we'll do just the rainbow thing for her baptism luncheon instead.

Here was our front door.  We used the fairy lights from last year's Fablehaven party.  I love being able to reuse decorations!  Makes me feel it was worth the effort involved.

Sign on the front door.

Front room.  While everyone was gathering, I had Savannah help the girls make up new fairy names for themselves.  The idea was to welcome them to Fairyland Castle as Queen Titania, the fairy queen, and then send them on the hunt for the missing rainbow fairies, cast out of Fairyland by Jack Frost, played by my wonderful hubby:)  Fairies doubled as Fablehaven fairies last year.

I missed my opportunity to snap a photo of Scott.  He came out of his office dressed in all white.  He used our fog machine to make his entrance.  We used the spell words right from the book.  He was apparently mad at not having been invited to the Fall Ball.  After his departure, I told the girls to follow the rainbow to Rainspell Island, where they'll find all 7 fairies hidden.

This was the rainbow that led from the living room to the patio door in the back.

They found all 7 fairies by following the color of the rainbow that corresponded to the fairy and playing a game for each.  Here is the game for Sunny the Yellow fairy.  Savannah was the Queen Bee guarding her worker bees.  You can see her antenaes sticking up.  The girls had to grab the balloons and pop them to find Sunny.  Really, they were supposed to be beehives, but I was thinking screwy and made them bees instead.  So the girls were actually popping bees, not beehives.  Seemed a little weird, but they didn't question it. 

I sent them on a candy scavenger hunt to find Inky the Indigo fairy.  They entered the Land of Sweets to do that.  I was glad I had all the decorations from Irelynd's Candyland party from 3 years ago.

One of Irelynd's cousins, Lizzy, came to the party with her own fairy wings on.  She ditched them halfway through, and Brighton tried them on. I'm surprised Scott left them on long enough to snap these photos! 

After finding the last fairy, we came back in for a celebration feast.  Always gotta end with food, right?

Gotta do my part in being green, with plastic plate from IKEA! 

Table runner by moi.  Disappearing chocolate gold coins by Brighton.

I made a rainbow bracelet for each girl. 

We had a rainbow buffet, with food from each color.  Blue is a hard one!  I read there are no natural blue foods; blueberries aren't even really all that blue, either. 

I made the rainbow cake from The Idea Door.  It was yummy!

This was one tall cake!

This gift up above is a great idea for kids that love to put things together.  She and her sister have spent many hours already playing with this toy.

I think she had a great birthday.  I was just so relieved to have it over this year.  Now, on to Savannah and Brighton's!

Where is Brighton?

Last week, while getting set up for Irelynd's birthday party, we lost Brighton.  We searched everywhere, and couldn't find him.  Finally my mom, who was here to help me, located him behind the couch...asleep.  I'm still not sure how he found it comfortable enough to drift off, but ok. He slept for a few hours.  Upon waking, he popped up and wanted to know "how's the party going?"

Naughty Little Monkies, part 2

Last week I made the mistake of leaving my laundry room door open while I went to the potty.  I could hear the twins giggling and knew it wouldn't be a pleasant surprise when I came out.  I just didn't know how bad it would be.  They had a heyday throwing scoop after scoop after scoop of soap everywhere.

 There was a trail down the carpet...

 on every piece of furniture...

and later I found it in the beds and their cribs too.  Luckily Scott found them when he did.  Keaton had a scoop about to dump over the railing on the catwalk.  At least it smelled good upstairs, and after Brighton, it didn't seem so bad.  It wasn't anything permanent after all.  I have a feeling they are just warming up though...

I {heart} Brandon!

A few Saturdays ago, Barnes and Noble hosted their annual Authorpalooza, featuring local authors.  I was uber-excited to find out my favorite author, Brandon Mull, (after JK Rowling, or course!) was going to be there.  I took Savannah with me, as we had a date planned for that day, and she has started reading the Fablehaven series and loves it too.  I was expecting a long line, but was happy to see only a few people in front of us.  I asked Savannah if she'd mind if I screamed (she said no, that would embarrass her:), but I couldn't help but be star struck.  He was a very nice, down-to-earth guy.  I did think he'd be more impressed by my Fablehaven party last year, though!  How many of his fans do that???  I was excited to hear he has a new series coming out next March called The Beyonders.  I was worried he'd pull a JK Rowling on us, and retire for a few years.

 After leaving the bookstore, Savannah wanted to go to Funfinity to look around.  We found some fun hats and tried on a new persona.  CleoSavannah

 Elton John?

 I liked these best.

 Lastly, we stopped by Cupcake Chic and split a caramel apple cupcake.  Mmmmm.

Harvest Moon Festival

We attended the city's Fall Festival last weekend.  Scott came down with something the night before, so I went with just the kids.  I questioned my sanity in so doing (as did my mother when I told her later), but the kids were great, and we had a good time.  We even came back after a ward BBQ for the Eclipse concert later.  That wasn't so great; we started out in the center of a group of people; when we left we were loaners in a 20' radius circle.  Seems we can clear a room with little effort.

...and a dead man's toes!

We came home from a Friday night date last week to find these sitting on our counters.  Irelynd found them in my craft room garbage can (me having tossed them out earlier that day), and asked if she could have them.  I said sure, not knowing what for.  Seems like we have some Harry Potter wannabes in the house...  The funny part is, look at the bottom of each book.  In case you were wanting to copy, now you can't!

The following day, Irelynd asked if she could borrow one of the Halloween cauldrons I had pulled up from the basement for her upcoming birthday party.  As an additional reason why she should be allowed to use them, she added, "I already caught 5 dead flies!"  Permission was granted.  Wouldn't want those flies to go to waste now... I just hope she's not plotting my transformation to something hairy or spotted.

Provo Canyon and Sundance

A couple of Sundays ago we had regional conference, so we took advantage of the "early out day" (we have late church) and went to Provo Canyon for a picnic lunch.  I was so glad we did, because I ran into an old friend and former co-worker and was able to catch up with her. 

The fall colors were just coming out.  It was beautiful.

 After leaving the park, we drove to Sundance to walk around.  I haven't been there since Savannah was a baby; it's bigger and more beautiful than I remembered.

 The kids (and Scott) were all enthralled with this critter.

 Before leaving, we tried to get a nice family photo, with just the kids.  This is what we got.  {sigh}  Oh well, closer to the truth anyway...