Pop Star Party

Emily had been trying to figure out for a while what type of party she wanted with her friends and then I found this really cute idea in Family Fun magazine for a Pop Star Party. They had a craft for the girls to make their own guitars and even a recipe for a guitar cake. I mentioned it to her and she was excited - she and her friends talk about having their own band at school, so I thought she would love it.

The hardest part (for Paul and I) was cutting out all of the guitar shapes from the cardboard. It wasn't too bad, but it took a couple of nights. It was so funny though - the day of the party, I got an Oriental Trading catalog in the mail and what do they show - guitar carboard cutouts for like $10 a dozen - Ugh! I have got to remember to check that website!!

The girls seemed to have fun decorating their guitars and afterwards, they went downstairs and blasted the music and pretended to be in a band and sing and dance. We had 11 girls at the party and I knew it would be loud and crazy, but I seriously underestimated how loud they could get. At one point, I thought they were going to shatter glass - I think next time Paul and I need to put in some earplugs lol. They had fun though, and that's what we wanted.





And here is my pride and joy of the party - I was so impressed with myself - Yes, I made it!! My regular old circle or rectangular cakes usually don't turn out that great, so I was shocked when I was done with this and it actually looked like a guitar. The magazine had great directions and it was really pretty simple. Oh boy, I hated to cut into it!!

Happy 8th Birthday, Miss Em!

Wow, it's so hard to believe Emily is 8 years old already. The time has flown by.

With school and dance, she had a busy day and we weren't able to fit in too much celebrating (but more is definitely coming this weekend with her friends party on Friday and family party on Saturday). Paul, Alli, Joey and I went and had lunch with her in the cafeteria. For dinner, she picked tacos and she wanted cheesecake for her birthday cake.

We got her a new bike, a softball bat (she's excited about softball starting in a couple of months), some new spring clothes and a webkinz.

Celebrating our Irish Heritage

On Saturday we went downtown for the St. Patty's day parade. The weather was pretty nice, cool, but sunny. We had fun, but it was a really long parade, so we ended up leaving a little bit before it was over. Plus, Joey spent quite a bit of the time screaming - he hates loud noises, so every time a fire truck went by, he freaked out. Poor guy!

Here are the kids decked out in their St. Patrick's Day clothes :)

Big Birthday Celebrations

The past couple of days we've been celebrating some big milestone birthdays.
On Saturday, we had a party to celebrate my Grandma's 90th Birthday. Her kids took her on a limo ride around Rochester and then we all met at Valecia's restaurant for dinner and partying.

I sure hope I inherited some of my Grandma's genes - at 90 she's still living on her own, driving, doing her aerobics and dancing. She's such an inspiration!



I just had to show the picture of her cake too. My aunt Maureen designed it. I thought it was so cool - I've never seen a cake with writing and pictures like that before.



Then tonight, we celebrated my Aunt Maureen's 60th birthday. As you can see, she had LOTS of help blowing out all her candles :)

Oh Toothfairy......

a visit is needed at our house tonight. Alli lost her 3rd tooth today. It just came out while she was eating dinner.

I don't know if it's just our kids or if this happens to everyone, but boy is it a traumatic experience when a tooth comes out at our house. There's crying (sometimes screaming). It's not just Alli, Em was the same way. I remember being excited about losing my teeth. It's not like we're yanking them out too early - every time a tooth has come out, it's was barely hanging on to begin with. Maybe it will get easier as they get a bit older.....this mom can only hope.

This Girl is Addicted!

When we got the Wii for Christmas, I never would have thought that Alli would be the one playing all the time. She loved the Wii Fit and Wii Sports that we got at first and would play quite a bit, but boy, did she become addicted to Mario Kart - and let me tell you - she's GOOD!!! She always comes in first, has unlocked a ton of the characters and race tracks and has even beat a couple of the levels. I'm really amazed at how good she is at this. I on the other hand, come in last every time I play and have even been known to be going in the wrong direction on the track - ha ha!!

Paul's loving that he and Alli have this in common to do together. Alli's not as into sports as Em and she tends to do more of the crafty things with me, so now he finally has something they do together and he's enjoying it so much.

Red Osier

Today was our annual visit to the Red Osier restaurant. We look forward to this every year. Paul's dad always gets a gift certificate for Christmas from their neighbor and we're lucky enough to be able to tag along with them!! For anyone that may be reading that's not from around Western NY - the Red Osier is famous for their prime rib. It is SO good and I always leave their VERY stuffed!