Have Food, Will Party

My side of the family LOVES to have parties! We throw a party for everything. There are now 30 of us, and one on the way, when we're all together, so we have big fun parties! In years past my mom would pretty much get stuck with planning, organizing and worst of all paying for our love of parties. With 5 of us daughters and one son there was always someone to help, but no one really stepped forward, not wanting to step on toes, and take charge.

So when I heard a friend of mine explain how their family "runs" their family parties, I snatched the idea, presented it to my fam and now we "run" our family parties close to the same way. We've done it for two years and it's been so nice and a whole lot of less stress for mom.

Here's what we do. We have a family president. That's Candy, she's the oldest so she will always be president. And we like it that way! Her job is to make sure everyone is doing their part.

Next we have the Treasurer. That's Mel. She's in charge of the Family Pot. Each couple contributes $36 a year ($3 a month), and other unmarried adults can (if they'd like) contribute $12 a year. This money is to go towards some of the food, decorations, paper goods, etc. needed to party!

Then there's the Secretary. That's me. My job is to put out the yearly schedule.

Almost every month we have a different party planned. We have one birthday party a month which usually gets combined with another party planned for that month. We have our Mother's Day party, Father's Day, a big Bear Lake vacation, the Halloween Party, every other year we get Thanksgiving. One of my favorites is our annual Christmas Eve party. Here's a picture of us all.. oh, wait Bill needs to send me the big group picture. Here's just a picture of two of my cute neices and my sistas.

And here's one of my brother and his GRANDSON!!! Holy Cow!!

Yes, we all had matching sweatshirts, thanks to Bill! After eating we all went over to an assisted living home and sang Christmas carols! So fun!

We also have a New Year's morning brunch and an Easter brunch, (yum). We each take turns being in charge of the party. So far it's worked out really well. As you can tell, our parties revolve around food and that's the way it should be.

This month I was in charge of the "Chinese New Year Party!" So everyone came over last Saturday and we ate and ate! A couple of thanks go out to: Juanita Thordude for her wonderful "Sweet and Sour Chicken" recipe found here. To my sisters and mom who came and helped me finish up because it all took SO MUCH longer than I thought to prepare. And to CK for his wonderful sushi! Here it is...

I didn't get a very good picture of the rest of the food, but it was yummy!

Here's some shots of us enjoying the moment...





We have the greatest time all being together. It's nice to have everyone close-ish and able to get together so often. And really, we all do get along. Weird, huh?

Leopard

The other day I went on a field trip to the Treehouse Museum (for the first hour) with Loobey. What a great place! Loobey was chosen to be the princess in the fun little play they put on. At the end she got to marry the very handsome shepherd boy. She hammed it up well.

She came home with a leopard mask that she made while there. While she was showing me, her eyes started to sparkle and you could just hear the cogs moving in her brain. She said, "I know! I'm going to make a leopard costume to go with the mask!" So off she went, and sure enough completely by herself, she made a leopard costume! Here's her creation...

She was a little sad that she couldn't walk in it because, you know, being taped on and all, it made it a little difficult. I thought she did a great job!

The Ghost of Valentine's Past

For the past month I've been reminding CK that Valentines is fast approaching. Every few days I'll end our phone conversations with the number of days left till V-day. Why you may ask? Well, it all began 17 years ago.

It was our very first Valentine's Day as a married couple. That year V-Day fell on a Sunday. CK had to work the Saturday before and didn't get home till 11:30 p.m. When he got home we started to talk about this and that and for some reason I mentioned Valentines. I'll never forget the look of terror that came across CK's face. Eyes wide, face white. So, here it was 11:30 p.m. the night before Valentines, which, like I said, happened to be on a Sunday which meant he had 30 minutes to figure something out. So, he said, "Uhhhh, I'll be back in a minute." Out the door he ran. A few minutes past midnight he came storming through the door, happy as a pumpkin.

The next morning I awoke to a single plastic wrapped rose that he purchased from...wait for it....wait for it.... CHEVRON! Yes, the gas station. The only place he could find open that had anything remotely Valentinesy. And boy was it very remotely Valentinesy.

So from then on I decided that if I wanted CK to remember special occasions I would remind him. Valentines, Anniversaries, even Christmas. Birthday's, however, are a different story. It just so happens that we have the exact same birthday, only he's three years older. So fortunately for him, he doesn't have a hard time remembering that one.

Since then CK has had a perfect record on remembering all these events and we're BOTH happy!

By the way, to my sweet CK: If everyone were as happily married as you and I, the world would know Heaven like we do!

Funny Mom

Last Monday morning I drove my mom and dad to the airport. This in itself is surprising and jaw-dropping if you know my mom. Last time mom has been on vacation, not including Swiss Days with her amazing daughters :0) was the day after I got married...over 17 years ago! Mom is a HOME-BODY. In fact she invented the word Home-Body!

Mom and Dad agreed to go on a cruise with some friends from her ward. She began packing WEEKS in advance just to make sure she had everything. (She's so cute!) For mom, everything has a place and everything is in it's place. So everything she took was sealed in it's own bag AND labeled. We laugh at her, I mean "near" her because she labels see-through bags. I think you can tell there's soap in the bag simply by looking through the baggy.

So the entire drive to the airport she was silent, except when we were half way there and she muttered, "I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I won't be in my own bed tonight."

However, I'm not writing this (just) to make fun of my dear, wonderful mom. I want you to know what amazing homemaker she truly is. Her heart is at home and always has been. Mom is very organized and ALWAYS on top of everything. She truly is the hardest worker I know. She has her cleaning days in which she ALWAYS keeps up on. For example, if she's going to be out of the house on Wednesday, she does Wednesday's work on Tuesday; without fail. She does laundry on laundry day, and my favorite, she shops on shopping day. It's my favorite because for the last almost 15 years, yes, 15 years, she and I have gone to the grocery store together then to lunch on shopping day.

So, for mom to leave her home is truly like a fish leaving the water.
Speaking of water, mom called from the ship to let me know they made it, per my request. She let me know that she wouldn't be calling because it would be too expensive, so we wouldn't know until Saturday if and when she steps off the plane if she drowned or not. Nice optimistic words from my funny mom.

I'll keep you updated if and when she comes home.