Elaine the Party Planner!

PARTY #1--I volunteered to host my Bible Study group on Valentine's Day. It was fun going all out with hearts, red and pink!

I made heart shaped ice with raspberries in them.

Here's how they looked once they came out of the molds.

 I used the same molds to make pink heart-shaped sugar cubes.

And why not heart-shaped butter, too?

 Since I have a heart cake pan, I made sour cream pound cake and made mini cakes for the dessert, which was strawberry shortcake.

I don't have a picture of the completed dessert. I ran out of time and didn't have time to cut the strawberries into hearts. (o:

To mark everyone's place I made these mini nine-patch wall quilts.

I just put the names on with stickers, since they weren't meant to be permanent.

 I used my white with red poppies dishes on red chargers.

 I bought red heart-shaped glasses and bead necklaces at the dollar store for accessories.

  I forgot to put "roasted red pepper and crab soup" on the menus for the first course, which was served in the heart-shaped bowls. The soup was probably the most popular food.

 I hung pretty glass hearts that I bought in Germany from the chandelier.

 I used heart-shaped pasta for the alfredo and put glittery foam hearts on the red napkin rings and the tea pot. We had a very nice time!

Becky gave me these delicate little heart lights that looked so pretty!

PARTY #2--In March I was in charge of the invitations, decorations, cakes, and activity for the Relief Society Birthday Dinner. I decided on aqua and gray/silver for the colors and made the invitations accordingly.

I wasn't in charge of the food, but printed the menus to put by each place.

 I recycled the silver paint stick stars I used at the ward Christmas dinner and had Kent shape them into window frames. This was one side of the cultural hall. I made the buntings with fabric and paper napkins.

I made the flower boxes from cardboard, covered in paper and filled them with silk ivy and tissue paper flowers. I made the large pinwheels from wrapping paper.

The other side of the cultural hall had the cake table, plus displays of the three areas of focus for the Relief Society, which are Faith, Family and Relief.

 Each table had items on them that went along with the theme.

This time I remembered to have Kent take a picture of me with my decorations!

 I made four different four-layer cakes. Below are the lemon and vanilla cakes.

 These are the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the chocolate with peanut butter frosting cakes. They were all very yummy, if I do say so myself.

I didn't have time to put string across the ceiling of the cultural hall to hang my paper lanterns, so I used a hula hoop and hung them and the pom poms over the cake table.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the centerpieces. I used milk bottles wrapped in gray fabric and tied with aqua twine. They were placed on a piece of aqua card stock with lace scalloped edges.

 I made pinwheels from aqua wrapping paper and used my silhouette to cut out the words, "faith", "family" and "relief". The aqua and gray napkins are also shown below (which I also cut up to use on the buntings.) We set up six tables and only needed four and a half, so that was disappointing.

After the meal we did projects that centered around each area of focus. 

For "faith" I designed this tile using a pass along card picture of the Savior and used my silhouette to cut out the vinyl words. They turned out pretty well, though the photo below is blurry.

PARTY #3-- The very next day after my labor intensive RS activity, we had our annual Green Party. Fortunately Kent had the day off so we worked together to get set up for the party. Here are this year's invitation.

The porch decked out in green and shamrocks. This year we had the party actually on St. Patrick's day, which was fun.

 This sign was a new addition this year.

 For the past few years Kent has bought these cute little narcissus flowers that look like mini-daffodils to put in the kitchen window. They look so spring-y!

I don't vary too much from the way I decorate from year to year. I've collected quite a few serving green dishes from Goodwill over the years.

Our green party outfits.

 I bought shamrocks from Giant to use as decorations and as prizes for the most unusual green food item and the person wearing the most green.

 Every year I have the green avocado chips and green m & m's, but I tried something new this year. I made spinach crepes and filled them with laughing cow cheese, green onions and raw spinach. They were tasty and came out a lovely green color without adding any food coloring. I was pleased with them and think I'll make them again!

It was a crazy couple of days, but now that it's behind me I can say it was fun in an extremely stressful kind of way! I like entertaining and being creative in my decorating, but I wish I was better at having people help me and not trying to do so much by myself.

A Presidential Inauguration

I must confess that I wasn't interested in attending the inaugurations in 2009 and 2013, but I really wanted to take the opportunity this year. Kent wasn't convinced he wanted to go because of crowds and traffic, but I talked him into it. I pointed out it was a once in a lifetime chance, and we'd only be four years older for the next inauguration. Besides that,the weather forecast was for relatively mild temperatures, which is unusual in January.

The federal employees in DC had the day off to help alleviate traffic, so we were able to sleep in and started driving to DC around 9am. Traffic was the lightest I've seen it in months, so that was a good sign. We drove to Arlington Cemetery in about 45 minutes and found the parking lot there virtually empty. We parked and took the metro to the stop by the Capitol. 

We'd been given tickets to the inauguration by a friend in another ward and they were reasonably good tickets. Everything was very well organized and the crowds weren't as hideous as we thought they'd be.

We knew where to go because as soon as we got off the train there were active duty military people directing everyone to the correct exit. Once we got up to street level there were signs and more police  and TSA officers available to give directions and answer questions.

By 10:30am we were in our places in front of the Capitol and talking to the people around us. One couple we talked to had come from California and we met a mother and daughter from Wisconsin. It's always nice to attend Republican events so we don't feel like we're the only people in America who don't agree with the mainstream media!

 Our friend, Carma Huggard, is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so we had fun finding her in the choir and trying to get a good picture of her. We have a pretty good zoom on our camera,

 but these were the best shots we could get.

 We only saw three protesters as we walked to get to the inauguration. We were on the west side of the Capital, and CNN was broadcasting from the east side, so we figure most of the protesters were over where they could get on the news.

 Unfortunately, from our perspective the jumbo tron closest for us to watch was behind a tree, so all our photos of the jumbo tron have a tree in front of them.

 It sprinkled a bit in the afternoon, but you can see from the photos that it wasn't a downpour and we both had hoods on our raincoats. We didn't try to go to the parade because it was too crowded. We went back to Kent's office at Arlington Cemetery and rested (my legs were very tired from standing for about two hours). We relaxed there until it was time to drive Maryland to work at the DC temple.

It was a great experience--Kent had to agree it wasn't as bad as he thought it'd be and he was glad we went!!

Carson's Blessing in California

On January 12th Kent and I were up bright and early to take a flight to LA to visit the Lees over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend.  Our flight was delayed out of Chicago so we arrived in LA late, then had about a two-hour and fifteen minute drive to Bakersfield. 

It was very gratifying to me that as soon as Grace saw me, she yelled "Grandma!", ran out the door and flung herself into my arms. This is why I visit my grandchildren so often!

We got to the Lee's house at about 6:30pm, in time to have a quick dinner before going to watch Grace and Sophia at their gymnastics class. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took of Sophia turned out blurry.

 Carson is a good sport about waiting around for his big sisters during their classes.

 Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Kent and Adri repainting the dining room while we were there, but that's what they did for most of the day on Friday while I played with Grace and Sophia was at school.  Here's a picture of Kent in his paint clothes taking a break with Grace.

 Carson wasn't smiling when I left in October, so it was fun to see him smiling and laughing.

 Russ's parents came in on Saturday and we drove out to see the Chevron oil fields. It was an amazing sight.

 This picture was taken near the headquarters building on the Chevron compound.

 We played lots of hide and seek with the girls while we were in Bakersfield. Here's one of Grace's excellent hiding places.

 Here are some pictures of Carson on his blessing day. He's wearing the shirt that I smocked in 1988 when I was told Adri was going to be a boy, so I made a little boy blessing outfit.

 The shorts that I'd made in 1988 were too small, so I made some long pants while I was in California and attached them to the shirt.

The shirt was a bit snug but fit okay, and he looked very cute in the outfit.

Carson was a good boy during the blessing and didn't fuss. Here's their sweet family all together.

Proud Mommy and baby.

 At three months Carson was older than most of our grandchildren have been on their blessing day, so he was definitely more alert and aware.

 After Sacrament Meeting and some family pictures I took Sophia home because she wasn't feeling well. She fell asleep in this box in the family room and slept for quite a while in it.

 I had to include this sweet picture of Grace and Carson with Kent after church.

Both the girls in their princess nightgowns loving on Carson.

 Another adorable picture of the three Lee kids. Love them all soooo much! It's always hard to say goodbye after just five days.