Taylor's baby shower

I'll bet you thought I had dropped off the face of the earth.  Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't.   I've just been too busy doing nothing.  I'm not kidding.  I can waste more time doing nothing and feeling like I'm so busy doing something.   

I'm going to blame the Internet, Pinterest to be exact.  It's my latest obsession. I could be on that all day and night.

Besides, Pinterest, the other thing that takes a lot of my free time is our dog Cookie.  I have to take her on a walk every night.  I thought that the pounds would drop off once I started walking.  But no, I've actually gained 7 pounds.  What the heck?  I'm going to say it is muscle weight. 

But while I was not blogging, life did go on.  Today I decided to share my niece Taylor's baby shower.

The shower was held at Eric and Jeannette's house (parents of Taylor).  It was suppose to be a beautiful day.  Except that Mother Nature didn't get the memo.  The day was actually probably one of the coldest of the entire winter season.  But it was no longer winter, it was actually spring.  But here in SoCal we only have 2 seasons, winter and summer.  It usually fluctuates between the two and they don't always happen in the correct season and/or order. 

I love the color combo they chose.  And the theme was ladybugs. 

I love the labels on the water bottles. 

Here is Taylor patiently waiting for the food to be served.  OMG! (Oh my goodness for those of you that think I am taking the Lord's name in vain, which I am not).  The sandwiches were amazing.  All the bread came from Panera.  I had never eaten there before.  All I can say, it was the best bread I have ever had the privilege of tasting. 

Aren't these the cutest cupcakes?  Love the little ladybugs.  And I just now noticed that the only closeup photo I took has a finger smudge in the frosting.  Looks like someone tried to sample before the party.  My guess it was one of the boys. 

Danica put together these cute ladybug crackers.  I found a link to them on Pinterest (which for some reason I did not save).  They turned out so cute.  And they were pretty yummy as well.  Except for the olive part.  I hate olives.  But you need a head on the ladybug, so they were a necessary evil.   

Taylor had found a link on Pinterest for these dipped strawberries and asked her mom to make them for the shower.  Jeannette tried and said it was an epic fail.   Luckily Danica was able to figure it out and saved the day.   These would be great for the 4th of July as well.

Taylor, Carol (Taylor's Grandma and Jeannette's Mom) and Andrea (back turned to camera)

Jeannette also had these yummy salads from Panera as well.  I think I need to take a trip to Panera to get some more of their yummy food.  Panera could well be my next obsession. 

Aunt Jodi trying to feel baby Page kick. 

Since it was freezing outside, the gift opening took place inside.   Taylor got 2 diaper cakes.  I thought this one was cute.   Until.......

This one was brought in.  The other one was cute, but this one was WAY cute.  And it had baby Page's name on it. 

Andrea, Jodi and Mom (Grandma Dorothy).  Poor Andrea and Mom nearly froze to death that day. 

Taylor opening up her gifts.  Poor thing got so many gifts she was all tuckered out by the end. 

I didn't take a lot of photos during the gift opening process.  Jodi took tons of photos, and I was waiting for her to post them on Facebook so I could nab some.  But so far, she hasn't done so.   This quilt, personalized onesie, pink tutu and "PAGE" blocks were made from one of Taylor's friends Priscilla.  The "PAGE" blocks actually match the quilt that Taylor will be using in the crib that her Mother in Law made. 

This afghan was made by the mother in law of my neighbor Roxanne. 

Here is Taylor opening up my gift.  I placed everything in this basket.  Taylor is using the basket to hold stuffed animals.  The lamb actually opens up to be a blanket. 

I wish I had taken a photo of the front of this cute summer dress.  It has a ladybug on it.  It fit the theme of her shower perfectly.  I also gave Taylor a bunch of diapers as well as a diaper holder and some wipes that i didn't get a photo of. 

And I made this banner that spells "PAGE".  I forgot to take a photo of it at the party.  This was taken at Taylor and Michael's house in the nursery where it hangs on the wall.  I found all the vintage letter graphics from Rook No 17 blog.  Just used small clothespins from Walmart to hang each letter from some twine.  One of the easiest gifts to make. 

And of course later that same day the sun finally came out and it was warm.  But being with friends and family to celebrate the upcoming birth of Page warmed the hearts of everyone there. 

Tomorrow I will try and post about baby Page who was born on April 20, 2012.  She is definitely a cutie pie!  So stay tuned.  Yes, I am a proud Great Aunt. 

Kim

Thanksgiving dinner

Can you believe how fast the fall in whizzing by? I can't believe that Christmas is 3 weeks from Sunday. THREE WEEKS!

And I haven't even started Christmas shopping. Well, I have, but just for me. That's because I know what I want. The rest of my family, not so much.

Since Christmas will be here before we know it, I thought I better post about Thanksgiving. However, there really isn't much to post. Well, I could write a book, just wouldn't have many pictures to go with it.

Thanksgiving was held at my house this year. I invited everyone in my family.

Todd's family couldn't come as they live in Utah. Plus Todd works at Walmart and had to work on Black Friday. So his family had a legit excuse.

Andrea's family couldn't come as Jamey had just got back in town from being away for a month. He wasn't up to driving anywhere and wanted to stay home. A pretty legit excuse.

My step son Brandan's family couldn't come as my daughter in law Crystal had to work. Again, a legit excuse.

Eric's family came. Every last one of them. YAY!!! Finally someone was coming.

Jodi, Mom & Dad said they were coming. I even gave them a food assignment, but I did ask her if I should buy backups. She said NO, they would be there. Then the day before, Jodi calls saying they won't be coming. Mom wasn't feeling well & didn't want to drive an hour and fifteen minutes. It's a good thing I bought back up food.

Then on Thanksgiving morning, Jodi calls and wants to know if we still have enough food for 3 more. Mom was feeling better, and Jodi really wanted to come. I told her "of course we still have enough food". I really wanted to say "NO, we gave your share away". But I was nice. As I am always the nice sister (Jodi is trying not to gag as she reads this. Ha, ha!).

So Mom, Dad & Jodi ended up coming to Thanksgiving dinner afterall. And all was good in the Chalfant household.

We ended up with 14 people at our dinner. So I set up 3 different tables for eating.


This is the table in my family room/kitchen. Mom, Dad, Jodi, Brandon, Mike & I all sat at this table. I guess I should have asked everyone to look at me when I was taking the pic.

This table is in my living room. Jeannette, Jesse, Eric, Jase & Cade ate in here.

Danica, Taylor and her husband Michael sat at the kid's table in my family room.

And that my family, are the only photos I have to share. I thought I took a bunch more. In fact, I thought I took photos of each table before people and food took them over. But there were no pre food photos on either of my cameras. I must have dreamed it.

For dinner we had turkey and cornbread stuffing that Mike cooked. I cooked the mashed pototatos and gravy, green bean casserole, corn, and candied yams. This is the first year I cooked the yams in the slow cooker. They turned out so yummy. Everyone commented they were the best yams they have ever had. I also made Grandma Manning's green jello Thanksgiving salad. We have it every year. And I bought rolls from Sam's Club. I'm not patient enough for making my own rolls. Jodi was suppose to bring jello salad and rolls, but luckily I had the items on hand for making the jello salad and Sam's Club had rolls at the last minute. Jeannette brought Martinelli's sparkling cider and a couple of pumpkin chiffon pies she made. Taylor brought green lettuce salad. Oh, I did make homemade ranch dressing for the lettuce salad.

Dinner was as yummy as ever. I just love Thanksgiving dinner. We had enough leftovers to have Thanksgiving dinner for a couple of nights after as well. I did cook 20lbs of mashed potatoes. A little overkill since I had about 1/2 left after dinner. But I got to make Shepard's Pie this week with the left over mashed potatoes. So a win/win.

I just love getting together with family. I wish I had a big enough house to invite all my extended family, including aunts, uncles, cousins and children and grandchildren of the cousins. Wouldn't that be so much fun? We really need to have a Manning family reunion. Who's up for it?

The only down side of having so many people to dinner, is the dishes. Luckily Jeannette and Eric helped. OK, they did most of the dishes. I did have to run my dishwasher two times to accommodate all the dishes. Thank goodness for dishwashers. See, I am thankful for something.

The best part of the day was seeing Mom with our dog Cookie. She just loved her. Mom loved Cookie so much that we had her convinced to take Cookie's brother (who is looking for a home). But Dad the Grinch, talked her out of it by the time they got back home. Or maybe it was Jodi. They gave some lame excuse about having to open 2 doors to let the dog in and out. Whatever!

Speaking of our dog cookie. She is the best dog in the whole world. You couldn't ask for a better dog. She is perfect. Even my husband Mike who doesn't like dogs, just loves her. And you know she is perfect if Mom wanted a dog just like her. My neighbor (who has worked in vets office for 20 years) says that almost all Golden Retriever's are just like Cookie. Very loving and gentle.

Enough about Cookie and Thanksgiving. Time to journey on to Christmas. What are your plans for Christmas? We are going down to Mom and Dad's house. Plus we will be able to see my Grandson Gunner.

And then on New Years Day, we will be back down in San Diego to attend Zak's homecoming. Zak is Andrea's oldest son. He gets home from his 2 year mission to Detroit on the 20th of this month. Everyone in our family is so excited. Andrea is beyond excited. It will be so good to see him.

And now, you are pretty much caught up on what is happening on the Langston side of the family. At least the stuff that I know about.

Take care & have a Merry Christmas! Just covering my bases in case I don't post again before Christmas.

Love,

Kim

P.S. Happy 21st birthday to my stepson Jesse. And Happy birthday to Andrea's son Simon. I think he turns 18 years old today. Yikes! Our kids are getting old. How can they be when we are not?

Our first ever Halloween party

Well look who has decided to finally post something. Sorry that I have been away so long. I just haven't been feeling it.

But since we had our first ever Halloween party last Saturday night, I decided I should come out of blog retirement aka: laziness, and tell you all about it.

In case you were not there, you missed a fun time. It was small, but lots of fun. And no alcohol was involved. See you can still have fun without booze.

The secret is to have ice shaped like a skull in your blood aka: Shasta Tiki Punch.

And you must have nachos. No party at Kim's house is complete without nachos. I decided to be a little healthy by adding a spinach dip to the mix.


And I had lots of fun putting together this graveyard 7 layer bean dip. The graveyard decorations are made from flour tortillas that I cut out using cookie cutters and a knife, then baked them in the oven until crisp. I should have used some food coloring to paint some color. Maybe next time.

We had lots of food. Mike made riblets, Danica made funeral potatoes. Jeannette and Eric put together the mummy dogs, I made the garlic bread bones and my neighbor Roxanne brought the KFC chicken and the ants/spiders on the log (celery sticks with peanut butter and bugs painted on).

I had a couple of more Halloweeny dishes I was going to make, just ran out of time. There is always next year. I even made cupcakes, but never got them frosted. Luckily Jeannette brought hers that were. I still haven't frosted my cupcakes.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I did make fossil cookies, but they all disappeared before I could take any photos. And what are fossil cookies? They are snickerdoodles that I imprinted with a plastic spider right away they came out of the oven. So it made an imprint of the spider. Looked like a fossil.

After dinner we all went outside to watch a Nightmare Before Christmas movie at the "Dive In Theater" over our pool. Mike was mad I didn't take a photo of the movie. I told him it never shows up if I don't use flash and if I use flash, you can't see the movie. So why bother.

Here is Michael (Taylor's husband), Taylor and Danica. Taylor is dressed up as a pregnant woman. Oh wait, that is her normal self.


Eric sat in the jacuzzi for awhile, while Jeannette sat on the edge. When the movie was playing the jacuzzi was full.

We were going to pop popcorn for the movie, but everyone was so full from dinner. And we never did make our s'mores. But no one noticed.

After the movie it was time to take photos. Everyone was suppose to dress up in costume. But it was mostly the kids that did so. But a few of the adults did as well.

I set up an area complete with ripped cheesecloth and lights for taking the photos.

Eric used part of one of his boys costume for his photo with his daughter Danica.


And who is Danica dressed up as? Why Danica Patrick the race car driver. And that is a wig Danica is wearing. She used to have long black hair, but right now it is short & bleached blond.

Taylor didn't dress up. So for those who didn't wear a costume, I had some funny glasses and other masks they could wear for photos. All my props came from Dollar Tree. The funny glasses and noses were the biggest hit.


Taylor and her hubby Michael dressed as a pregnant man.

Jase and Cade. Loved their costumes.

I didn't get to dress up as my costume needed to be altered and I never got it done in time. So I put on a pair of funny glasses and nose and a couple of dollar boas. Mike was a cowboy.

Since this is a family blog, I'm not posting the photos of my neighbors and other friends since you won't know any of them. But you can see their photos on my facebook if you are really interested. My neighbor Kenny made a real scary "Pinhead".

I had plans to make some other photo props, but never got them done. Being a procrastinator does that. But no one cared. They loved the props I did have and had fun taking photos.

All in all we had a good time. It was just my family, Eric's family, the next door neighbors and some friends. Taylor and Michael brought some of their friends as well.

We will definitely have to do this again next year. Maybe we will even invite you.

Kim

First time to Cold Stone Ice Cream

I know, I know, I've been a bad blogger. I haven't posted on the family blog in over a month.

It seems everything gets posted on facebook first, so I don't feel like posting again on the family blog.

Darn that facebook.

But today I decided to post here first. And then maybe I'll also post the photos on facebook.

Anyhoo, can you believe that I have never been to Cold Stone for ice cream? Me either. Especially since my family loves ice cream. The only reason I have for not going is the cost.

But now that my niece Taylor (Eric's daughter) works there, I decided it was about time to go. So Saturday night that is what we did. Mike and I stopped by Eric's house first so we could follow them to Cold Stone as I had no idea where it was.


And who was our helpful ice cream scooper once we got there? Why it's Taylor.

Here she is busy posing for photos while trying to mix up my Founder's Favorite.

I had a really hard time making up my mind as to what I wanted. Too many options to choose from. A real stressful situation for a non committal person like me.

Eric, Jeannette & Cade were the only ones to go from their family. Jase stayed at home and Danica is still up in Tahoe. Which by the way, I get to hopefully go see in a couple of weeks. I'm so excited. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see Danica too, it's just that I've never been to Tahoe. I'm going with Eric to pick up Danica in a couple of weeks over my birthday weekend. Can't wait! That is, if work will let me off a couple of days.

Sorry for the distraction. Back to the matter at hand. Ice Cream!

Here is my masterpiece. Looks yummy, no? Loved the waffle shell.

Mike got some strawberry/banana concoction that I can't remember the name of. Normally it comes with graham crackers, but they were out, so he got pecans instead.

And here is Mike enjoying his ice cream. Everything was very yummy & I highly recommend & give Cold Stone "2 thumbs up".

I'd give them more, if I had more than 2 thumbs. Which I'm glad I don't. What would you do with more than 2 thumbs? Other than give more thumbs up to Cold Stone?

We even gave our ice cream scooper a huge tip. Thanks Taylor! You made my first trip to Cold Stone, a very yummy experience. This definitely won't be my last trip.

What is your favorite thing to get at Cold Stone?

And guess what I found this weekend?

There is a Starshine Dr in my town. Too bad it didn't say Starshine Chic Dr. That would have made it even cooler. And no, I don't want to move to this street. I like my house just fine.

Kim

Gunner's Stay with Gumma & Gumpa

Before I start I want to thank Jodi was posting a Happy Birthday to our Mom. I totally forgot to put anything on the family blog to wish Mom Happy Birthday. But don't worry, I did call her personally on her birthday Saturday and wished her a happy birthday over the phone. Plus I did send her a birthday card. So I am not a totally lame daughter.

Now back to our regular scheduled blog post.

A couple of weeks ago our grandson Gunner came to stay with us for a few days while his parents (Mike's son Brandan & daughter in law Crystal) went to Vegas.

It was great fun having Gunner, but very tiring as well. Now I know why you should have kids while in your 20's. Much more stamina. But it is still fun being Grandma and Grandpa, better known as Gumma and Gumpa (as Gunner would call us).

Here is Gunner & Gumpa playing with the Marbleworks set. I bought 2 sets of these from Discovery Toys about 20 something years ago when my Brandon was a small boy.

He just loves playing with this every time he comes to our house. It's been the best toy investment.

On Saturday we took Gunner to the Western Science Center at Diamond Valley Lake in Hemet. This museum is the result of the artifacts they found while digging for the Diamond Valley Lake reservoir. Danica was working that Saturday as a volunteer for school credit. This was our first time to this museum. It was perfect for taking Gunner to.

Plus we got our own personal tour guide. Doesn't get much better than that!

This museum has some permanent exhibits including the Life on Earth Timeline, The Big Dam hole (and no, I am not swearing) it's where you can use interactives to learn about the people and animals that inhabited the Diamond Valley Lake site over time. And you can discover how scientists uncovered evidence of their existence. You can also watch 2 different movies in their really cool theater where you sit on fake rocks while watching a circular movie screen. And the big room called Snapshots in time.

Where you learn about the mammoths and mastodons that used to live in the Diamond Valley Lake area. And you can see some of their fossils as well as the bones of a huge giant sloth . Pretty cool. Who knew that such creatures once roamed the area around where Eric and my families live. Glad they are not here now.


They have lots of activities for the kids. Here is Danica helping Gunner use his crayon over an engraving to make a print of a giant sloth.

The kids could even make their own fossils. Here is Gumpa helping Gunner.

And we found out these are not Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are something completely different. Who knew?

Most of my photos didn't turn out very good in here. I hate the way that photos with flash turned out and the most of the ones I took without flash came out blurry as Gunner never stands still for very long.


They also had a temporary exhibit of the cartoon "Peanuts". Mostly it was stuff about Charles Schultz and someone's collection of Peanuts memorabilia. It reminded me of being a kid since Charlie Brown & Snoopy was really popular when I was a kid.

And the museum had an area of cool puzzles and brain teasers to try out. Some where pretty hard. We were having so much fun playing in this area that I totally forgot to take photos.

So if you are ever in the Hemet area of California, you should check out this museum. It does cost money, but worth it for a few hours of fun education.

I think the most fun Gunner had while at our house was playing video games with my Brandon.

I think almost every waking moment was spent playing video games. Brandon even enjoyed playing with Gunner. And they were both very good at taking turns. Gunner had so much fun at our house that he hardly would take time to eat. He did like his french fries though.

I've posted a few videos below of Gunner while playing video games with Brandon. I thought they were so cute.

Gunner slept on our couch. He never did go to bed before 11:30pm. This kid doesn't like to stop. But once he did fall asleep he was out all night & woke up both days at about 10:15am. Which was the perfect schedule for us.

We thought we would have Gunner all day Sunday, but his parents showed up around 1:00 or so to pick him up.

He finally posed for a couple of photos before leaving. I could never get any good photos of him as he wouldn't stop for 2 seconds to take a photo.

I like this one of him out front of our house, but he closed his eyes as the sun was too bright. All in all it was a fun filled weekend. Can't wait to do it again. The only bad thing was that Gunner didn't really want to eat anything (too busy having fun). And boy is that kid stubborn. It's the Chalfant genes in him. Seems all the Chalfant men have quite the stubborn streak in them. Which made taking him into the grocery store right after he woke up from a nap a bad idea. He didn't want to go where I wanted, he'd drop anchor right where he was. And I ended up carrying him out of the store kicking & screaming as he didn't want to do what I wanted him to do.

Other than a little tantrum, the weekend was great. Can't wait to do it again. I love being a Gumma.

Kim