There's No Place Like Home: parties

Showing posts with label parties. Show all posts

Monday, January 20, 2014

Tie-Ar-Ra

In our country the word for airplane is Tie-ar-ra...roll your rs and you've got it ;)

It's also the word you use when someone does something amazing or when someone is just plain awesome...

Our Arabic teacher is Tie-ar-ra. For real.

We celebrated her birthday in our class today because my friends and classmates are Tie-ar-ra:

They made a cake, made sure we all knew the words to the birthday song, and wrote a message to her on the board. Can you say Tie-ar-ra?!?

Poor Dan missed the fun because he took a tie-ar-ra to a conference.

He probably would have missed it anyhow because when he gets back, he's "skipping a grade" and moving up to the next level of Arabic. Let me tell ya, there's no mistakin'. He is tie-ar-ra.

I'm not sure where else to go with this, but any day with chocolate cake for breakfast is worthy of a tie-ar-ra...and if you are still reading this, so are you!

Ta-Ta! Tie-ar-ra!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

TWO!

We didn't know what to expect celebrating Felicity's birthday in Africa...but I guess we should have known it would be super fun no matter what because we love this girl more than words can say:

She squealed with delight as we covered her with balloons and she kicked them out. Over and Over...

Family Breakfast was a real treat: baguette french toast with Grandma Val's jam (limited supply, people...only for special occasions or really bad days):

We opened Grandma Kathy's card with glow sticks, and Fliss even wore her Minnie Mouse costume from Grandma and Grandpa J to school. Fliss' friend, "Hife" brought her a mini cake and two roses for TWO years...

After nap time we decorated her cake with Ms...

We prepared some of her favorite foods to share...

A chalk board pic attempt was made, but we quickly gave up:

And then the guests started to arrive...

We sang, opened presents, and cut the cake:

And just when we thought the party was about to end more guests arrived...

This is when Dan coined some of our friends, "The Feed the 5,000 Crew" because we ran out of drinks and food, but they saved the day by running to a hanoot for drinks and serving pizzas from the "make your own pizza station". We have really nice friends:

Bellies were full, children jumped on couches, and a good time was had by all:

Especially this one who slept so hard the next day that I was actually able to take a sleeping picture. Doesn't she look bigger already?

But still our baby girl. always.

Friday, November 2, 2012

It's so FUN to be ONE!

A friend of mine warned me to plan ahead for the big ONE. I meant to follow her advice, but true to form, good intentions left me scrambling the week of.Thankfully my mom came to town, and my husband sort of has to do what I want right now because I'm teaching Sunday school for him. ;)

I'm so grateful for all of their help! And as for the one year old, she was of little help as she spent most of the week teething and desperate to be constantly held by moi...it's a good thing she's so cute.

And I forgot to mention our dear friends who say they just happened to be in the neighborhood 30 minutes before the party. Say what they may, I'm convinced they just know us so well that they knew we would not be ready without their intervention:

For the party we decided on a FELICITY theme because she hasn't developed an affinity for much more than bugs, yogurt drops, iphones, butterflies, daddy's funny faces and mommy, and she certainly does not have a favorite cartoon character at this point. Plus, we like her a lot and knew we would enjoy planning a PaRtY to reflect our little delight.

The decorations were simple enough and inexpensive which is a bonus...

Initials on the high chair and a felt party hat.

We thought of Felicity's favorite foods, but gave them a grown up twist. She does not eat baby quiches every morning, but eggies are certainly one of her favorites...We also printed a few pics of her eating her favorites to go along with the food...fruit, veggies, eggies, mac & cheese, Fliss mix, and drinks.

Yum!

And for the decorations we printed her ONE year pictures and made a collage and a wordle with all of her favorite things. Dan also made butterflies outlined with lyrics from his song, FELICITY. I love these things because they are not only party decorations but items we will love putting in her room and continue to enjoy.

Thank you Nita and Adrian for arranging it so it all looked much more amazing than anything we would have dreamed up!

We also set out some of Felicity's favorite books...Elmo, Girl Bible, If you Give a Pig a Pancake, etc.

And my very favorite pinterest idea is the line of her little faces. I found a variety of Felicity expressions, cropped them so the picture showed only the face and had kinkos print them in black and white (less than $2 total). We cut out her faces and used scrapbook paper to make party hats. Then we labeled them with Felicity's various nicknames. I simply showed Dan a picture, and said, "What's the first name that comes to mind?" We had Whoozle, Fliss, Crumpy, Felicity, Wootie, Baby Clown, and Flo-Zo. So Fun!

For the favors we gave the kids Fliss Mix and the adults Izzes...

Of course the BEST part about the Felicity theme was Felicity in real time...

Can you tell we are so in love with our little girl. I didn't even tell her daddy to wear pink...

We're not the only ones who love this Whoozle...

We are overwhelmed at God's faithfulness to answer our prayers that Felicity would bring glimmers of happiness to those she meets. Thank you friends and family, near and far, for loving her so well. We are blessed.

Happy FIRST Birthday to YOU, Felicity Renee! We love you!

Epilogue:

Felicity: Really, two iphones? This is the BEST day of my life...