A Night in Italy

If you didn't know, I am the 2nd counselor in our Young Women's program at church. Every year we put on a dinner and auction to raise money for them to go to Girls Camp.  This year we did "A Night in Italy" as our theme. All of the girls made either spaghetti, lasagna, or fettuccine to bring. And we provided an awesome salad and toasted garlic bread. The cost was $5 per person or $30 per family.

Members of the ward brought baked goods for us to auction off live, and we also had a silent auction going in the back with services the YW were auctioning off (babysitting, dog walking, window washing, etc.).

Between the dinner, live and silent auctions, we made just under $2700.  Covering the cost for all of our young women, including an awesome non-member, to go.

I was put in charge of the decorations, and thought they turned out cute.  I mean, there is only so much you can do with a gym, and a limited budget.

I found this awesome website and printed 99 cent 8x10's (thanks to a promotion Walgreen's was running) to hang along he back wall, like an art gallery. I glued them on cardstock and then on 1/2 sheets of poster board to make them bigger. 

I found chef hats for a good price on amazon, and had them shipped and on my porch in 2 days.  I love amazon.  The girls were awesome to comply with my request that they wear them :)

Our menu.  When I think of an Italian restaurant, especially in movies, I always picture it with a chalkboard menu. (Thank you Megan!)

I saw an idea on pinterest (of course) to chain together tissue poms to hang along walls at different lengths. Although probably just as cheap as balloons, you couldn't pay me enough money to make 114 of them (the number of balloons we blew up...thank you Justin for your air compressor).  I ended up really liking the balloons though. They reminded me of grapes, which makes me think of Italy as well.

But we did make 6 large poms to hang on either side of the stage.


My favorite, the centerpieces. Vases from the dollar tree, carnations from Flower Works, Italian parsley and a lemon slice.  I bought red damask fabric from Joann's to make squares for each table, and printed more Italian photos in wallet size to scatter around.


To complete the "mood", I downloaded an album of Il Divo (Pop/Opera) to play while everyone ate.  

Some of our girls performed a Samoan dance as entertainment for our guests. And we ran a slide show of pictures from our different activities.


I think people enjoyed themselves :)

I am so glad it is over though!

Family Tree

For Christmas, Sundee and I made my mom this family tree. I saw this tutorial over a year ago, and finally got it done!  I think it turned out great. I was really happy with it.

Because I wanted to make it bigger we had to make our own magnetic board. We (Sundee and Mike) glued ducting metal to some MDF type board. Then once we had all of the paper glued on, we (mostly John) framed it using finished molding. Since the pattern on the tutorial was only for 24X24, I also had to freestyle a lot of the tree. I felt very creative.

On one leaf I put the name and date of birth, on the other the city and state of birth.

 

December

My picture taking during December was sparse. But here is what I remember of it...

I tried to do some "Christmas Activities" leading up to Christmas. I did not prepare enough to do a full on Advent Fairy thing... maybe next year.

A few things I remember:

• Making and decorating sugar cookies
• Coloring a picture of the nativity scene
• Going to the Cerritos Town Center and listening to Mike Hardey and Brigham Welch play music from their Christmas album.
• Getting a Christmas Tree
• Disneyland, and staying for the snow and fireworks.
• Making cute hand print trees in Nursery.
• Dinner and cookies with the Peterson's.
• Decorating the house and tree.
• Getting new shoes for Tot Lot and loving them so much, we had to sleep in them.
• Lots of dance parties by the light of the Christmas tree to Darlene Love's, All Alone on Christmas. Lots.

 

A little video here ... If you listen close, you can here Boston trying to sing along.

Most of October

We have lived down the street from a McDonalds for over two years and I finally broke down and took the girls there to play one day.  No offense, but McD's playlands kind of gross me out... But, it was actually pretty clean, and I'm sure we'll go back. 


We also played at Pretend City. Boston made sure to ride every single car, motorcycle, fire truck, etc., there. The water area, as always, was the favorite.  The grocery store was a close second for Brighton. It was fun, although I don't know if I'll go back while both girls are so good at running in opposite directions.

That same day we went to a Chick Fil A in the area. They had a different play area than the other ones I've seen. It was a jungle theme, and both girls loved it. An interesting fact about that location: they only had caffeine free diet coke. (not that I had a problem with that ;)

This little princess...

...hit the jack pot when we went to Disneyland.  I've never seen any of the princesses, and we saw 3! And Mary Poppins.

Of course Brighton through complete tantrums once it was our turn for a picture. This is the only one I got.

We did have fun on a few rides too.

Next on the agenda was a field trip, with Tot Lot, to Pa's Pumpkin Patch.

 Boston's little face poking through makes me giggle every time.

My orange baby loved all of the pumpkins.

After Pa's, we again, ate at Chick-Fil-A.  This time resulting in a foot to Boston's face and a black eye :(

Our ward had our Halloween Party on the 22nd. Which at first I thought was lame, but now realize it's quite nice to have things broken up a bit. The Young Women were put in charge of the decorations, so I took on the task. I died rice yellow and black and had alternating vases on each table. Black rice with orange ribbon, yellow rice with black ribbon.  Then I did balloons around the exterior and a few pumpkins and spiders on the food table.

I had big plans to turn this Cinderella tutu into something more, but... that didn't happen.

Our princesses:  Adalie is on the right, and that is her cousin Chloe in the front.

The good news is... Brighton won the cutest girl award for the 2nd year in a row.

The bad news is... she threw herself on the floor screaming, "I don't want to win!"

After dinner, face painting, awards and tantrums, we went outside for the trunk & treating.

 

Thanks for the cute jammas Grandma!

Tot Lot threw a fun Halloween party last week. They have a lot of our events at Monte Verde park. It is so nice! It's private, small and completely gated.  There's no playground, but a fun walking trail that goes around the perimeter, and tons a running room. It would be really pretty for family pictures, FYI.

Belle and Rapunzel (Makayla)

Tot Lot is great, because this little puppy gets to come to all of the field trips and parties.

And THAT, is most of our October happenings.  The End.