A Party of Epic Proportions!

In August we had a HUGE party for my dad's retirement and my sister leaving for her year long missions trip!  

And by the way doesn't my dad look great!

This party was interesting to say in the least.  We decided to celebrate all the holidays that my sister would not be with us over the next year.  We divided up the house into various holidays to celebrate.  It was open house style so people could come and go as they pleased.  You could celebrate every holiday in less than an hour.  

My sister had a wonderful display of her upcoming trip.  She even gave away a Starbucks Verismo. 

This is her backpack she is currently living out of.  We had guest stuff it with lovely notes of encouragement at the party. 

We celebrated my dad's retirement from HP in the living room.  Here are the cute cupcakes I made for his special day! 

Valentines day was in the foyer.  You could right a love note to a special person or leave one for my dad or my sister.  Oh and we had Easter eggs hiding everywhere.  April fools jokes could be found around every corner. 

Of course we celebrated my sister's birthday.  She wanted the world on her cake.  Here is our interpretation.  Her best friend Laura help me and my mom make all the fondant pieces.  

The dinning room was sooo cute for her 35th Birthday!  It is this month and she will be in Cambodia for her birthday.  

For Thanksgiving we went with a summer twist. Our caterer made amazing turkey & cranberry wraps, green bean salad, potato salad, corn casserole, and pumpkin brownies that were to die for!

Christmas was in my parent's newly remodeled basement.  We had a candy bar, hot cocoa, and for a brief time we had our traditional Christmas time Swedish pancakes.  We had Christmas movies playing and board games at the tables.  What a great time to relax and enjoy the season....HO,HO, HO!

We rang in the New Year with sparkling grape juice, noise makers, and party hats.  We had so much fun with the countdown we did it twice!  LOL

For a special retirement gift, one of my sisters customers from Starbucks came and played his bag pipes for my dad!  It was SPECTACULAR!  My dad is Scottish and is so proud of his family history.  He loved it!  It was so freakishly loud and wonderful all at the same time.  

His face says it all.  I love this photo!

We even has famous people come...an Astronaut! We love these people...so genuine and loving!

Ooooo I almost forgot....4th of July in the backyard and fall in the gazebo. 

We had yard games like bocce ball, corn hole, ladder ball, and horse shoes.  My sister had her slack line out and we had a hammock for relaxing.  Her friend and I did henna.  There were sparklers, smores, cider and doughnuts. Oh and a BBQ to top it off.  

We had probably 150 people in and out of that house.  It was crazy and extremely fun all at the same time.  We ended the night sitting around the living room with some friends, talking about funny stories and Jesus until the wee hours of the morning.  It was probably the best party I have ever been to and ever will go to.  My family is truly blessed with the most wonderful people that God has allowed us to have the privilege to know!  

Happy Retirement Dad and Godspeed Jennifer!

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The League of Incredible Vegetables 5th Birthday Party!

Yup, He is finally is the big "5"!  What is happening?!  My kids are not little anymore.  

We had a small but fun birthday for him.  We did an Incredible Vegetable party.  He really loves the movie and the superhero Veggie Tales.  Thanks Big Idea for such a great cartoon.  Here are the pictures from his big day!

The very fun cake I made.  Fondant is like playdough for cakes.  Hahahaha!

We invited his good friend over for the afternoon!

Here he is opening his gifts.

He is just getting too big... I just love him.

We did birthday kind of things like party blowers, balloons, Incredible Vegetable cut outs on the walls (printed from my computer), watched the movie, capes for party favors, and played  with new presents. It was a good day.

They pretended to be superheros!

Don't you just love his Captain American pose?!

Happy 5th Birthday to my most favorite boy in the whole wide world!

You are too cute for words, to amazing to say, beyond wonderful...

you are God's beautiful gift to us.

GET JOY!

By the way love the Newsboys and Veggie Tales!

38 is Great!

The girls and I made this.  We printed them, cut them out, and strung them. So easy and so cute...except that I am not a MSU fan.  It would look better Maize and Blue!

My dear hubby turned 38 yesterday!  He is so wonderful.  So, the kids and I decided to make him feel special all day long. We made a "Food Bouquet" full of all his favorite goodies and the girls delivered it to his work.  Much better than flowers any day for this guy. We then had lunch together at McD's!  

So what was in the bouquet of food???...cheddar pringles, Mt. Dew, homemade
chocolate chip cookies, mini rolos, mini peanut butter cups.  

When he got home after his long day, dinner was waiting for him.  We made his requested birthday dinner homemade meatballs, mashed potatoes, and corn.  A very typical Johnson dinner.  LOL

My little baker made daddy's cake and cookies for the day.  She is at a point where all I have to do is put them in the oven. She is still a little nervous about that. The girls also help with the decorations. 

We sang and watched him blow out his candles.

 I made him take pictures with all of us.  We then sent the kids to bed and ended the night with a free birthday rental from the movie store.  Did you know Family Video did that???  We watched the newest Batman movie.  It was pretty good.  

Here is John's facebook status update from yesterday. 

"I sat in front of my birthday cake tonight racking my brain trying to think of what to wish for. You don't want to waste a birthday wish ya know. But I realized I have everything I want. I am so blessed. Tonight I blew out my candles and wished for nothing!" 

What a guy!

Happy Birthday My Love!

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Beach Birthday!

My oldest turned 13 last week and we wanted to do something special. Her grandparents paid for her and some friends to go to a local pool and then they came over for a sleepover. It was such a great party.

Crayola makes the
 best window markers.
These are the crystal ones.

Swimming was such a wonderful idea; because it wiped them out!

I told my girls that when they were teens no more themed parties...I lied.  LOL

With going swimming for her party a fantastic theme just naturally presents itself...Beach Party!  Here in Mid-Michigan we are pretty tired of winter...it is time to think of warmer days.


We went swimming at our local community pool for three hours.  It was a lot of fun for the girls.  Shorty liked it too.  He decided to get brave and go in as far as his waist and put his face in the water.  Big stuff around here.  If you watch the tv show "The Middle"  my son reminds us of the character Brick without the whispering and Whoops!  LOL  We also brought pizza to the pool.  Man teen girls can eat like nobody's business. 

The house was so easy to decorate.  Half the stuff I had around the house.  You can't live in the "Great Lake State" and not have tons of beach stuff!

We had adorable cupcakes at home! The cupcakes were store bought at a local cupcake place here in town.  I added the umbrellas and the sugar surfboards and flip flops (also bought at bakery).  This was my hour before emergency dessert fix.  My daughter asked for chocolate bowls for ice cream sundaes....bowls were an epic fail!  I have made them before; but I can't figure out what I did wrong this time.  Oh well these were a great yummy substitute.  

 We made sure we sang "Happy Birthday" Johnson style....loud and horrible!

These girls were just too fantastic.  We had fun pigging out and laughing around the table.

Of course, I provided a lot of junk food.  But the presentation was pretty fun, you have to agree! My local dollar store just happened to have some fantastic Beach/Luau party supplies which was perfect timing for my daughters party!  I went to a party store to pick out the plates and adorable Hawaiian shirt napkins.

Sweet friends, seriously fun party, sleeping girls by 2 am, and one super 13 year old daughter equals one happy mom and dad. 

Everybody seems to be saying have a teen would be rough.  I am not convinced!  They have not met my teen and her friends. These girls are pretty wonderful.  We are blessed beyond words!

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Roll Out the Red Carpet!

My daughter wanted to have a "Movie Theater" themed birthday.  So, I went to work putting all the plans together.  

We sent out movie tickets for invitations and the decorations went up.

Thanks to pinterest for the idea of using plastic red table clothes for curtians.
I bought red material for the red carpet. 

I printed our favorite movie posters and hung them in the hall.

The concession stand was set.

I had the girls pay for their concessions in high fives, jokes, being silly, and fun things like that. 

I found cute plates and napkins at a look party supply store. 

These are probably the things I spent the most money on LOL!

Yummy food was prepared.

For the concessions, we had pretzels, nachos & cheese, pizza,
popcorn, candy, and cake & ice cream.

The cake was made.

I found on google images a cute bucket of popcorn cake, too cute !

We sang "Happy Birthday"!

We opened gifts.

She loved playing with her friends.

They stayed up and watched movie
and played the rest of the time!

And they got these when they went home.  Thanks target for your dollar spot for the cute popcorn containers. 

I filled them with a box of candy and a can of silly string. 

What a great time had by all!

Love ya, girl!

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