July Birthday Celebrations

July is birthday month around here.  Will turned two on July 14th and I turned twenty-five on the 18th. Last year we went all out for Will's 1st birthday.  It probably had something to do with the fact that I was still in recovery from surgery with nothing to do for the 4 weeks leading up to his big day...  Anyway, this year we scaled back and threw a little family party at Grant's parents' house.

Will is all about treats.

Our friends Alison & Travis came to celebrate with us.

As well as Aunt Cheech, Uncle Matthead, and Uncle Matthead's brother Kirk.

Mumsie and Grumsie rose to the occasion and supplied an incredible spread of food despite us telling them we were coming just earlier that day... You rock Mumsie & Grumsie!!

Will was quite pleased with his little shindig.

And we even managed to sneak in a little family picture.  (We're lucky if this happens annually, it seems!)

For my birthday, Grant convinced our friend Chris to take us rock climbing!  I was so so excited.

I wore my new Lululemon clothing from my mama.  Not the best climbing attire... but man, I looked good!

Our trusty guide.

Best birthday planner ever.

It was a great warm-up for my First Descents trip that's coming up in a few weeks!  I'll be climbing in NY for a week with a group of cancer survivors.  Hoorah!

It was gorgeous, and wonderful, and so much fun.  Can't believe my baby is two and I'm a whole-quarter century old!

The After-Party

After Will got all cleaned up, we continued the party with a little family after-party.  We didn't do presents for Will's party, but he still had a few to open from Bma, Papa, Mumsie, & Grumsie.  

One of his toys was this tool bucket.  He now spends most of his time pushing nuts, bolts, and screwdrivers through the banisters in the loft so that they fall down to the main floor.  

Then we had a family monkey-o tournament.  It was pretty intense.

This little monkey was the difference between a gold and silver medal.  One leg in, rest of the body out.

The winner and his spoils:

And Ron practicing his monkey face:

And then Lauren took some impromptu family pictures for us.

Cutest one year old in the world!

Little Will's Sock Monkey Birthday Party

We rounded up all the monkeys (both literal and figurative) for Will's 1st birthday party.

A giant monkey (on loan from a friend) greeted guests at the door...

Where they signed Will's birthday book:

Will loved having so many friends at his house, although I doubt he realized the party was for him...

The food turned out great: Caprese salad skewers, tortilla sandwiches, monkeys in a blanket, cheesecake strawberries, frozen chocolate bananas, root beer and cream soda, and of course, cake!

Everyone enjoyed the Tanner version of "Monkey Baggo" and the kids colored their very own sock monkeys.

Guests helped themselves at the treat table: 

And filled goody bags to take home:

It was a great success and our sweet little man is one!!

Birthday Preview

Our little man is one!

The house is starting to recover from throwing monkeys, cake smashes, and children running around with sharpies.  (It was awesome).

  The computer table, which was relocated for the party, just made it back upstairs, thus I can begin editing pictures.  

How I love that little monkey...

I feel a party coming on...

I've been an online purchasing queen today...  It's almost July!  Birthday month!  

Will turns one on July 14th.  I can't wait. We're throwing him a party.  Can you tell what the theme will be?!

Sock monkeys!  My parties usually consist of two basic things and nothing more: food and guests. 

This time, I'm getting out of my comfort zone and tackling details.  I ordered special straws for Pete's sake!  I'm even going to attempt making bunting... pray for me.

I'm Married to a Murderer

For this New Year's Eve (can you believe it is 2011?!) we were invited to a Murder Mystery dinner party!  Each party member was given a part to play as we read through the dialogue and clues to discover who committed the horrendous crime.

Caitlin & Jared were Mama Rosa and Marco, the wife and son of the deceased.  Jared was a wannabe soccer player and always said, "I'm gonna be world cup!" in a Mario & Luigi-esque voice.  Best line of the night, hands down.

Zach & Megan were Rocco and Tira Misu, the brother of the deceased and his floozy fiance.  You will be impressed to know that my computer did not spell-correct the word floozy.  All is right with the world.

Heather & Jeremy played Angle, daughter of the deceased, and Father Al Fredo, the priest of the parish the family attended.

Grant played Beau Jalais, boyfriend of daughter Angel, and I played Clair Voyant, Mama Rosa's psychic.  I clearly forgot to control my eyeballs in this picture.

Okay, that's at least a little better.

Caitlin, er.. Mama Rosa made a delicious Italian meal for all the guests and we had a lot of fun reading the dialogue.  However, I think the best part was trying to figure out all the accents.  Grant was supposed to be French, but inevitably ended up being Mexican (of course).  I was supposed to have a deep husky voice... that I also tried to make Italian... not so easy.  And of course, all the Italian accents got pretty interesting all around.  We had some Scottish Italians, some British Italians, and of course, some Mexican Italians.  It was awesome.

Grant ended up being the murderer... Sneaky little bugger.  Unfortunately, my psychic powers proved insufficient as I was unable to figure it out...  But man, I totally had the best husky-Italian-Mexican-fortuneteller accent!

A Dora Day

One of the girls in my Sunbeam class at church is turning 4 this week!  In fact, Emily and I are exactly 18 years and 1 day apart!  I told her mom I would like to help with her party and so today I baked cupcakes!  Dora cupcakes to be specific.  I found the directions here.

First, I made some hair out of candy melts

Then I skinned some cupcakes.  It was an anxiety filled process figuring out how to get this color.  (Not to mention wondering how many extra cans of frosting it would cost before I would get it right).

I cut out some fruit roll up mouths.  This was tricky because the fruit roll up wouldn't unroll.  It was a sticky mess.  Thank you Texas humidity.... How many times can I say that?!

And Voila!  Dora was born.  Well... a few hours later.  I became quickly aware that Dora's hair was taking over her face so most of the Dora's got a smart bob.

Unfortunately, she kind of looks like the Berries & Cream lad.... 

How unfortunate.... I'm pretty sure that video won't work... so just in case, you can see it here.

So anyways... there were also so eye issues.  The directions said to use chocolate chips for the eyes, but that made Dora a little googly-eyed...

Unfortunately, I'm afraid my eyeballing skills weren't too much better...

Little eyes.. big eyes... oh man.  

But really, they are for 4 year olds and I don't think they'll notice my bug eyes or Berries & Cream lads.  And when you put them all together, these little Doras don't look half bad!