Party Time 1920's Style

For Jed's birthday, I decided we had to do something big to celebrate him turning 30. I originally was thinking of doing an old man party, because I think this would be the only time I could get away with it and him not actually feel old, but changed my mind. I finally decided to say goodbye to his 20's with a 1920's black and white party. It was so much fun planning this party for him. (Seriously, we need to bring back some of the fashion... or at least the feathers!) Jed had a lot of fun at his party (and now wants to throw one every year lol).

I really wanted to have a costume party, because as adults we don't get many of them to go to, so threw in the black and white part so it'd be easier for people to dress up. I was pleasantly surprised that a good amount of people dressed up in 1920's outfits. I wanted to capture everyone dressed up, so I put together a photo booth at the back of our hallway and got some props to go with it. The pictures are great!

(I had a lot of fun with the mustaches... I think I want to have a mustache party in the future)

We also had a costume contest with everyone having to strut their stuff. Some people have great catwalks! (I am not one of them lol) The voting was really close too! It was so hard because everyone had great outfits.
Here are the winners of the contests.

Best 1920's: Mea

Best Black and White: Mandy

And Best Couple: Robert and Kayla

 I wanted everything to be either black and white or 20's inspired. The decorations, I kept simple and all black and white, but I rented a silent movie (Charlie Chaplin) and had it projecting onto our wall with jazz music playing to incorporate more of the 20's vibe. (If I had more time and a bigger budget, the pom poms would've been made out of feathers) For the food, I decided to do appetizers and dessert. The appetizers were 20's inspired (Italian) and then we had a black and white dessert table.
This is the only picture of the appetizers I had...they went fast 

And the dessert table:

We also had our own "Prohibition Bar" and served mocktails. Jed really took control of the bar and even had me hire a bartender for the night. (He was one of the young men in our ward and he did it like a pro!) It was so much fun to come up with names for all of the drinks too. I looked up 1920's slang phrases and used those for the names of the different drinks. Jed even made up his own signature drink...the 'Sea Turtle' which was super yummy and went fast.

(this is the 'Smurf')

(Dip the Bill: Have a Drink)

Our awesome bartender

The best part of the party was Jed's family. His parents and younger brother drove from Utah just for his party. They wanted to surprise him for his birthday so had me keep it a secret. (Which by the way, I'm horrible with surprising Jed because I just want to talk to him about it, but I kept this one :D ) And his sister's family came up from the Bay Area for his party too, so it was good times all weekend long.

Thank you everyone who came and helped us say goodbye to Jed's 20's!

Jed's The Big 3-0!

My lovelinkies is 30 years old now! Such an old man (I can say this because it's not true and I'm younger than him lol) Jed is such an amazing husband and father and I'm so happy to be married to him. He's really the better part of us and I love him so much! I just wanted to declare my love to him today on his birthday. Happy Birthday to the love of my life!!

Elijah has been looking forward to Jed's birthday all week long. On his own, Elijah drew a picture of Jed for his birthday card and sang happy birthday to him. (Sorry, I just love all the cute things my kids do) Elijah even thought of making Jed a card on his own and was so proud of his picture. He even drew Jed wearing a blue shirt (and it happened to turn out Jed wore a blue shirt today).

And here are some super cute pictures of him that his sisters sent me, so you can see the progression of how he became the hottie he is today ;)

His newborn picture (and great Zoolander look)

love the baby chunk!

Jed's 3 Year Old Portrait (he had style at a very young age)

2nd Grade Portrait

 4th Grade Portrait

7th Grade Portrait

9th Grade Protrait 

 Senior Portrait

Jed 30 Years OLD (such hotness!)

Introducing Joyous Love Creations

So I decided to start a new blog of just some projects that I've done or am working on. It's not really to show off what I've done, but to show where I got the links on how to do them. It's also so I can have a record of all of them, instead of keeping everything bookmarked (it's a really long list after awhile). There's only a few postings so far and only things from this year, but hopefully, when my sewing machine works again, I'll have more to post :) It's called Joyous Love Creations and I hope you enjoy and find it useful.
Check it out at joyouslovecreations.blogspot.com

Fun Times

The past couple of weeks went by so quickly! We've been having fun and staying busy. I've been trying to do better about writing small things that happen everyday or taking a picture for the day and some of my favorite pictures were these:

(Chloe's favorite pose is downward dog and she does it every time I work out)

(Elijah used a branch for his flag to start the car races on our walk...

when a car would go by he'd wave it and yell "GO!)

(Elijah and Chloe being "fish" in Elijah's "fish tank" fort)

Jed took me out to play glow-in-the-dark mini golf for a date. We've been trying to switch things up a bit, and we had so much fun. I loved it...mainly because I won. :) But seriously, I had four holes in one and a couple of amazing shots (yes, the course is really easy), but it still was fun.

(My sexy beast!)

The next day, the Saturday after Elijah's birthday, we had a family dinner for him. Elijah really wanted a train party, so I bought him a train topper for his cupcakes. I felt a little bad that I didn't do much for the theme besides that, but he still loved them. Elijah even looked at train parties on my computer for his party... so cute to watch him, but I just didn't have enough time to really do more.

(A close up of the cute train topper)

My brother, James, went all out on wrapping Elijah's gift and even took apart a cell phone for it. Elijah loved it and was so excited to unwrap all of his gifts. He's been so spoiled lately :)

(Elijah got a cap rifle gun)

(Chloe trying to climb into Elijah's new dump truck)

I finally was able to take Chloe to the dentist. (She had cut her gums and had a loose tooth from falling down the night before Elijah's birthday, and the Med 7 said she needed stitches and be taken to the dentist, but we had to wait for a referral to come through from our insurance to be able to take her to the dentist.) She did wonderful! There was no problem. Everything healed perfectly and Chloe just had so much fun at the office. So we were really happy and grateful that everything worked out.

(Sadly, this was my baby the night it happened after she was cleaned up a bit)

(She was fine until I had her dentist hold her)

(The only time she sat in the chair was so I could take this picture lol)

We've been wanting to take Elijah ice skating for his birthday. And we finally did Saturday. My brother, Robert, works at Skatetown in Roseville and got us in for free. Elijah has been asking to go ice skating for months. (Elijah watches Caillou, and Caillou goes ice skating, so Elijah wants to go ice skating) He did an amazing job! We were so proud of him. He was nervous in the beginning, but he never gave up, even when he'd fall down. He would get right back up and keep going. Robert and Kayla also came to skate for part of it too. Chloe and I watched from behind the glass, but if they had skates her size I'm sure she would've been out there too.

Every time I put Chloe down she'd run to the ice and yell for "dad". When she would see Jed, she'd bang against the window and yell for him and if he'd look up she'd get so excited and just claw at the window to get to him. She also had so much fun dancing to the music. It was a lot of fun and Elijah still wants to go ice skating again, so it was a huge success!