Happy Birthday Ella Bella

My little Ella Bella turned 5 on Wednesday. We had a Barbie themed party (which I was happy about), because just 2 weeks ago Ella said she wanted a Justin Beiber party. I had lost my voice and had a cold just the day before, so I took a sick day and stayed home to get everything ready.  I have to admit that the Barbie cake took a LOT longer than I thought it would.  We had 2 parties, for her first party Ella had some of her friends over and we did a barbie treasure hunt.  I had Barbies hidden throughout the house and the yard, where each Barbie held a clue to the next Barbie.  It ended in the kids giant Barbie house.  When the kids opened the door, prize bags fell out for all of the kids.  After that they played pin the pony tail on the Barbie.  You can see it in the background of Ella opening her presents.  Then we had cupcakes and the kids played for a while.

Happy Birthday my Ella Bella, I love you so much!
 

Back: Ella, Elysee, Skilar, Lincoln  Back: Corbin, Sara, Dean

I made these Barbie shirts for the girls to wear at the party.

Ella and her best friend Sara

John put up all of the streamers and did a great job

The whole set up: Chocolate covered strawberry marshmallows, cupcakes with homemade chocolate Barbie Sillhouetes, lots of black and pink candies that consisted of pink suckers, black sixlets, pink chocolate malted milk balls, black licorice, pink wrapped peanut butter cups, dark chocolate truffles, pink wrapped chocolate eggs, and pink zotz.

I'm embarassed at how long it took me to make this cake, but I do love how it turned out, and it was delicious!

The kids loved the "candy bar"

You can see pin the pony tail on the Barbie in the background.

Ella requested a family party with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. I gave myself one hour inbetween the parties. So I ran out to get pizza. We had some certificates from city deals for pizza. I thought, oh that's perfect, I've already paid for it and everything! This place that I went to is kindof like a Chuck E. Cheese (for you Utah readers, it was the Lehi Trafalga). When I ordered the pizza, I told the worker to just box them up when they were ready, because it was a to go order. The worker said o.k. and put in the order. After about 40 minutes, the kid came out with one of the pizza's on a tray, I said "Oh, remember I am taking these home with me?" He just looked at me. It was really akward because neither of us was saying anything, then he said (in an annoyed 16 year old, I don't care voice), "Oh, we ran out of boxes." My eyes got huge and I didn't know what to do. I was so mad! I finally said, "I don't know what to tell you, I told you when I ordered them that I needed them to go. I can't carry 4 pizzas home without a box. Figure it out." By this time the pizzas were getting cold, and I had to be home in 10 minutes. Finally the poor kid figured it out and did some make shift boxes. By the time he finished, another 30 minutes had passed. I didn't get home until 6:30 (the party started at 6:00). It turned out to be a really fun party and we were so happy that family memebers were able to make it. 

Dancing Queen(s)

Ella and Elysee had their dance performance and they were SO cute! They were so excited about it and even more excited to wear makeup. I definitely have some girly girls. They danced to the song "Sugar Sugar"

Here is the before...... and the after!
Striking a pose

Getting butterflies in the tummy

Practicing their favorite expression in the performance

Elysee

Ella

They wished the big lollipops were real

Ella had a rough time when I had to leave to find my seat

but did just fine when she got out there

Ella is the 2nd from the left and Elysee is the 3rd from the left

Happy Birthday to Ella

Better late than never right? My sweet Ella turned 4 last month. I can't believe how big she is. She is a smart little thing and is always saying the funniest things. She has started to get her own little sense of humor and she tries to make up jokes (they don't always make the most sense but they're funny). Ella is such a great helper. She is always wanting to help with William. She loves to play house, play pretend, she likes to play outside, ride her bike and play with her barbies. Ella loves her dance class and has recently figured out how to do cartwheels (she has also tried to teach me - to no avail).

We had Ella's Birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and had the whole family there (with the exception of my sisters in Alaska - we miss you!) We told Ella she could go to a movie for her birthday. We asked if she wanted a date with mom or dad. She said she wanted a date with the whole family! We took all of the kids and went to "Gnomeo and Juliet". Ella wanted a ladybug Birthday cake. I wanted to do a homemade birthday cake for her, like my mom always did. But my planning on time wasn't the greatest! When we got home from the movie, we had 1 hour before we had to leave. Luckily I made the fondant before hand, but boy was that a crazy hour! Ella had such a great birthday and we all had lots of fun at Chuck E. Cheese. Happy Birthday my Ella Bella! We love you.

Disney Princesses On Ice

Nana Eisenhart asked if I was taking Ella to the Disney Princesses on Ice. I told her I wasn't planning on it. She said if we wanted to go, she would watch Dean and Ely and pay for Ella and I to go. We had such a fun time! Thanks Donnalee!!!

Halloween 2009 and swine flu

We told Ella to draw a face on this pumpkin and she did this all by herself!I'm still trying to play catch up with my posts. Here are a few pictures of Halloween. Ella was a princess, Dean was Winnie the Pooh and Elysee was Piglet. Ella came to school with me Friday morning and watched the Halloween parade (she loved it!). Then on Halloween (Saturday) we went to McDonald's for breakfast with Nana and TJ.

Later that day my parent's came over and brought dinner, a yummy pizza in the shape of a pumpkin. Then we went to John's parents, where the kids got awesome prizes. Then we came home and went trick-or-treating around our block. We were gone for less than an hour and got a TON of candy! We got the kids to bed at a decent time, then John went to work.

That night I wasn't feeling very good. My whole body was really achy, but I thought it was my arthritis acting up and maybe the weather was changing. When I watched the news and the weather wasn't changing I knew I was getting sick. The entire next day John felt the same way and we were both wearing surgical masks so the kids wouldn't get sick. We suspected H1N1 and we were able to get into the Dr.'s on Monday. The did a test and confirmed that it was the dreaded swine flu! We got on Tamiflu and John immediately started feeling better, but I was getting worse. By Monday night I couldn't even function! I laid in bed with a fever of 103. I called my classroom aid, Cherise, to tell her that I wouldn't be in for a few days and tried to give her lesson plans, but honestly I was delirious and wasn't making sense. Luckily she was awesome and figured it out! By Thursday John and I were back to work, but the kids seemed like they were getting sick. We took them to insta care and yes they all had swine flu! Luckily I was able to take Friday off and then we had the weekend to re coupe. Now hopefully we won't have to worry about swine flu any more. Although it has been a month and Ella still has a cough from it! Who knows what that's about?

Lehi Mascot Bowl

At the end of September we went to the mascot bowl. Mascots from all over the nation show up to this. There are mascots from the NFL, NBA, Pro Baseball and local Universities. Our family is very lucky because we have a little "in" with Jazz Bear. Papa Eisenhart is friends with Jazz Bear, so Jazz Bear loves our kids. -Jazz Bear even came to our house and turned the sirens on in his car and brought little basketballs to our kids and game some to our neighbors who came out to see what was going on.- All of the kids were really excited to see all of the mascots. Dean's face is priceless when he see's a mascot for the first time. Elysee was also having a great time. Thurl Bailey kept hanging out with our kids and "Big T" stood right over Ely (from super tiny to super tall)