Reena's Dino-mite birthday party

Every birthday party I find myself super busy and never the time to take pictures of the things I did. Whatever pictures Dan took at the party is all I have and then I give him a hard time for not taking pictures of this and that. Sorry honey. This time I took pictures as I go along. I had a little too much fun taking these pics. During the party my friend Aryn took some pics for me. Thanks Aryn! Happy 5th birthday to my beautiful girl. We love you.

My sister gave Reena dinosaur stamps for her birthday. I peaked, saw it and thought it was perfect for some cupcake toppers so Reena and I stamped away. Cupcakes and dino sugar cookies.
Each kid gets a cute straw bottle with their dinosaur name tag so no mixing up!

I made 6 pom poms. Super easy to make and fun decorations. Thanks Martha Stewart!
We made a pinata dinosaur eggs. Thanks to Reena, Debrie, Dan and Mike for helping out with the dirty work of dipping newspapers into flour mix.
I made a banner with dinosaur cut outs glued on each spike. I saw a roll of this patterned paper from Michael's and thought it would be perfect for table and banners.
Picture of Reena M&M's, Happy 5th Birthday Reena Dao Stevens, Triceratops M&M's from Aunt Thuyen.


The cake--The cake was probably the coolest thing for everyone. Friends and fb and people at the park saw it and gave a lot of compliments. It took me nearly 10 hours to make! My third time with fondant, second time with marshmallow fondant. I think I'm getting better at it. Thanks Natalie Cook Gunter for helping me mix and dye the fondant and for letting borrow your tools!

Each kid gets a dinosaur name closest to the real dinosaur name and then get to talk to a paleontologist about that dinosaur.

I put my hubby to work and he made this and helped me decorate the pinatas. He also did most of the food shopping.

Goodie stuff for the kids to take home. They each got to decorate a dinosaur with my craft stuff and take it home.

I have wonderful friends who were so willing to help make it fun. I got to hang out with 2 friends while making party stuff. They know I love parties so they got excited with me! I got together with my friend Nguyet and she taught me how to make these hot steamed buns. I call them the flower bun. They are perfect for an omninore's diet because they have pork, eggs, carrots, onions, cabbage, mushrooms and a few other vegetable inside.
The hardest thing about having an outdoor party is hauling everything out. Husband put up the decor. We had the party under a beautiful big dome with a forestry background at a park that is most popular in Redmond. We were lucky to be able to have it here and that it was available.
The kids started the party with chalk on the concrete. Everyone drew dinosaurs.
Each got to discuss their dinosaur name with the paleontologist and find out if they're an herbivore, carnivore, omnivore. We try to encourage all to be omnivores not just sweetivores since that's on default.

My handsome and very knowledgeable paleontologist. Dan was the best person for the job. He was very much into dinosaurs when he was young and having a daughter who is into dinosaurs rekindled that light. The kids loved the paleontologist. He also did story time with them

There were 12 dinosaur fossils and as each one were found they discussed each one with the paleontologist.

The craft table




The food table. This here has about 20 hours of work put towards it. The first signs that's turned the other way is actually a carnivore sign :) The fun thing about having a party at the park is you get strangers coming over complimenting you on your work and asking you if you have a blog or have a business doing this. It was fun. A business? That's too much work for not that much pay.
4 sections of food at the party. Carnivore. herbivore, omnivore, and sweetivore.




We worked hard making these pinata eggs so instead of smacking them we did the dino egg game...which one has the treats? It took them several tries to guess the right one.

Love this picture of Brie showing off the pteranodon Reena made with trio blocks.

This was a very fun party. Reena drew over 30 dinosaurs for her party. She loved it so much that at the end of the party she said "mamma, I want to have a dinosaur birthday party again next year!" Well, at least the next time around it would be easy. She had a great time. I had a great time and I'm glad I took pictures ahead of time before the party. It was all very fun. Here are all the pics. Enjoy!

We Hit 80

Wow!!Whoa!! Woot!! We hit 80 degrees. We experienced 80 degrees for 12 minutes on July 2nd, 66 minutes on July 6th. Hot enough for me to dig deep down in my box of clothes for those shorts, something I should've done when we were going to New Mexico!

Summer here takes forever to get hot (we're not complaining :) But we don't get that cold in the winter so I don't know why it takes so long. We hardly ever get below 40 and this summer it feels more like spring. However as I'm writing this it is about 83 degrees outside so maybe I shouldn't speak too early.

A lot happened in July. Our days were filled with strawberry picking and jam/syrup making and pancakes, crepes, and more pancakes on our breakfast, lunch and dinner table. We picked 26 lbs.


The 4th of July holiday is the busiest, especially on the lake. There were hundreds of boats on Lake Union waiting to watch the fireworks from the Space Needle. Dan took his brother here to go kayaking and they had to go around boats and big ships. They had a great time.
We had Dan's brother Lon here for the July 4th weekend, then my brother Mike came into town on July 4th. We had our friends over and had a great party with food and a new game called sit down long boarding.
To infinity and beyond!!


July 4th Parade
On July 4th we all woke up to a patriotic breakfast from all the strawberries we picked. Dan and Lon got to experience a whole new style of watching parades. Parades are fun when you walk all the way to the beginning where all the performers are and greet them and talk to them rather than waiting in one spot for them to come by to wave at you.
A miniature horse!
Miss Washington! What happened to your hair?
There was a long line of these hot rod cars.
Firetrucks! What kid doesn't love firetrucks?!


Isn't this just the cutest pic ever. Priceless I tell ya. Priceless. A fairy princess and her knightly uncle. Uncle Lon is famous around here. That's the real reason he came up to Washington.
I'm skipping a HUGE event to push through all the events of this month. The event I'm skipping is Reena's dinomite birthday party. I took lots and lots of pictures. Reena LOVED her party. There will be a separate blog on her party because 170 pics were taken!!!
After the party the kids and their uncle Mikey went to the Fear exhibit at the science center and then got to visit daddy at work. We were on the balcony and Brie threw a rock from the 8th floor balcony down below. We haven't heard if she actually hit anyone. Scary.

The next big event was having Lon, GayLynn, and their kids in town. We took them around town showing them the world's longest floating bridge and the cool I-90 freeway with tunnels, overpasses, and 2nd longest floating bridge. Afterwards Lon said that his kids would have a great time just driving on it over and over again. We opted for the beach instead and the kids had a fantastic time searching for shells, hiding and digging for dinosaur fossils.

We all went out to the pier and had fish and chips at pier 76. The fish and chips there is our favorite. More fish and almost no batter. Yum!
After we had fish and chips at the pier we walked to Pike Place Market to see the fish get tossed around while the men sing at the fish market.


















Dan has a pretty sweet view of the Space Needle and Seattle center from his work so from the space needle here is the pic of his building. It is the 12 story building in the middle of the pic. He also gets a beautiful view of South Lake Union when he goes out to the balcony as well.

Since my brother, the kids and I have seen the Space Needle several times now, we stayed below and played in the water at the fountain while Dan took Lon's family up to see the beautiful view of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle. The sky was a perfect blue with no clouds. They could see as far as the Olympic Mountains and Mt. Rainier was as though it was floating in mid air.
After the Space Needle we all went canoeing. We didn't spare anytime.


We ended the weekend trip with a visit from the other Stevens. Dave, Kim, Damon and MeLyn joined us for lunch and some sand art fun...something Reena has been waiting to do since she got it for her birthday present.



We squeezed in a quick trip to the Temple grounds. Reena fell asleep but Brie was awake. She loves her cousins. Can't wait to play with them again next week in Kennewick!
Overall, July was a really fun month, with visits from Lon and family, my little bro and getting together with friends and families for Damon's baptism. We were always on a run, or so it feels like. I haven't had much time to devote to taking the mock exams for Real Estate. My time has been devoted to making the preschool room and the program better for a pilot episode of "Just Serve" which features Mamma's Hands at the House of Hope and the street team program that I go to on Wednesdays to visit the homeless. The church's film crew have been filming, interviewing and asking me to greet and talk with the service team members about my plans for the preschool program I started there. They worked on a new school house for us and it looked fabulous. The organization is growing and they just recently purchased a third house totally almost a million dollars and over 7,000 sq.ft. It is a gorgeous new home that will hold more women and children in need. I feel privileged to be a part of it and I feel lucky that we will be featured in a movie that will go nation wide at Deseret Books and possibly throughout the world. This week has been a wonderful week. Dan has had to make many dinners for us because I was gone. It was hectic but it ended good. I got a solo part for a play I auditioned for in June. I will be playing the part of the Samaritan woman in the play "Jesus is the Christ" that our stake puts on. Yippy!!

Just one more...too cute.
This picture below is Brie. In time out. She's been bad. We think she had a Freaky Friday experience. This can't be our little girl! This is her time out spot. It is a corner, and you have to face the corner for 5 minutes. Sometimes we forget she's in time out, and after 10 or 15 minutes she's still there facing the wall.