Reena's Fresh Beat Band Birthday

I'm trying to finish this blog before our trip down to Utah for my sister's wedding, which was going to be in June, then July, and then finally they booked it for August two weeks ago.  Yes he asked my dad for permission in December and finally gave her the ring two weeks ago and they're getting married on the 6th.  This is now the 3rd wedding that I'm pregnant in.  Dan tells me I'm the Tiff in his family.  I was pregnant at his sister's wedding, I was pregnant at my sister Thao's wedding and now I'm pregnant at my sister Thanh's wedding.  If I'm pregnant when my brother gets married in a few years, I will just LAUGH.  No that was not part of my plan.  The only plan I had in mind was to not have all my babies before my siblings start having babies.  And HERE IS ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT...My sister Thao is expecting her first baby a few months after me which makes me an aunt officially, my own flesh and blood.  With our baby, her baby, my sister's wedding to Alex Brockman, my family is growing!!!!  We came to the States with just the 7 of us.  Now with Dan, Alan, Josh, soon to be Alex, Reena Dao, Debrie Camli, soon to be baby boy, my sister's baby and we're going to be at 15!!!  Yippy!!!!

Ok now to write what this blog is all about...
I can hardly believe we have a 7 year old?  Have I been a mom for that long?  And yet most of my non LDS friends are just getting married and maybe having their first child.  I even slowed down and waited 3 years before trying for a baby.  How is my baby already 7?!

How she was inspired to choose the birthday that she wants.  My kids are funny.  They spend all year thinking about what birthday they want.  Almost immediately after Debrie's Star Wars Vader birthday party, she was planning her next one and Reena is exactly the same.  The Fresh Beat band birthday came as inspiration one day when she discovered it on Nickelodeon's website.  She danced her heart out on it and I watched and was very impressed.  I bought the music and they dropped everything to dance.  Brie gets really into it as well.  Don't know if you could see the video but the girls have got some moves!! YEAH!

Ok here is her fabulous birthday that she still raves about.  We think it has to do with the bouncy house which our friends the Browns kindly lend us.  She also got to help make her party come to life and that helps with the excitement also.

The Invitations
   I had so much fun making these.  Love the part with the bar code to make it look like a concert ticket.

The backstage badges

Goodie bags

The Menu

Party hats

All were very fun to make!!!

 The Cake
        If you aren't familiar with the fresh beat band, here is an excerpt.  They are a children's TV show with original pop songs.  The Fresh Beats characters are Shout, Twist, Marina, and Kiki, described as four best friends in a band who go to music school together and love to sing and dance.  I've had in my mind for a while to make a cake with a drum on top and a keyboard on the bottom.  I really should've only done one layer because I'm pregnant and all, but I just couldn't convince myself to settle for it.  I made marshmallow fondant and did pretty much everything from scratch.  Yah, I'm a bit crazy.  Took 6 hours to make.

 The Food
         Because it's the Fresh Beat band birthday we tried to stay within fresher food, like watermelon and bananas, veggies and fresh wraps and sandwiches.  We did order pizzas as well so I didn't have to make so much food because we also invited four musicians.  We ordered Papa John's pizzas and had it delivered.  An hour after it was supposed to be delivered I called and asked where my pizzas were and they said that they thought we wanted it for pick up.  Great!!  I was so upset I told the girl on the phone to get her manager because I'm not paying for those pizzas.  Yep.  I got spicy and got free pizzas for us.  The manager happily obliged.  Not a bad deal though I would've rather my pizzas come when they were suppose to come.

The FUN - Greeting friends old and new
      She had about 12 kids at her party and that includes her sister.  It was much more relaxing than Debrie's party.

   Friend Breanna here from kindergarten.  She's a bout a year older but they're bff.  She has a few girls giving her bff necklaces and such.  So cute.  I love having a girl this age.  Developing long term friendships and sending cute bff notes.  I so remember these days.

 The adults - just hanging out

The Birthday Wish and Cutting Of The Cake

The Music

    The entertainment part of this party was nice and easy.  We played the Fresh Beat Band CD and had the music on the loudest setting and the kids danced and bounced away on the trampoline and bouncy house.  We also had instruments from my preschool and a few others I borrowed from our neighbors.  The kids entertained themselves and we enjoyed a relaxing time under the canopy.

 We also had some live music as well played by our very talented friends the Strobells and our neighbor Leon and Dan of course and I even joined in at the end on my little guitar.

We put on a fun concert for the kids and their parents at the end.  

 We did acoustic to start out, then Dan busted out the amp and electric guitars for a final jamming session.  It was quite a fun concert and dancing party.

Reena got some pretty awesome toys for her birthday.  She also got to get her ears pierced and a brand new specialized bike.  She loved her party and is already planning her next one.  Yep!  That's my girl.  We love her.  We're so happy she came first.  She is such a good example to her sister and her brother will be well behaved because of her (We hope).  She's very protective and is careful of not crossing boundaries.  Perfect future babysitter, which for a girl you could almost trust them to watch kids at 10 right? :)...unlike my little brother who freaked out when we asked him at age 15 if we could leave for an hour.  We love our Reena Dao.  Our sweet peach.  Do a google search : Define Reena and you will see the first link under urbandictionary.com the description of our Reena.  Here I copy and paste:  Reena is sweet and a smiley girl. She is rare and classy. Most of the girls who have this name are extremely beautiful and GOOD in every aspect. She's definitely a Good girl at heart ... and the meaning of Reena is "melody; serene, calm" Yep that's our girl.  Very accurate.  We love her!!!  Happy 7th baby girl.

I absolutely love this video below.  If you can't see it, go to our blog and watch it.  They've got some moves!!!

Highlands Day-Block Party

 

Block Party
   July was eventful as any summer month ought to be.  Our community put on a big annual party to celebrate.  They called it Highlands Day because our community sits on a hill called the Highlands.  They brought in several bouncy houses and about 30 different booths.  They had carriage rides and a lot of games the kids could participate in and local restaurants on the Highlands sold food to the adults and ice cream from Ben and Jerry's.  The kids had fun and we bought way more tickets than we had time for.  Hopefully they will use those tickets again next year.

 Our Garden
 We feel pretty proud of our garden this year.  It turned out much better than last year and hopefully will continue to get better as the soil are tilled and rocks removed. 

 Summer School

 New movie theater in our community
   Since last year the Highlands has dramatically changed.  About 20 new shops and restaurants are coming in and a new movie theater, which got done first and so nice that it's only a few minutes from our house.  They had a week where they were showing older movies for $2.  We took the kids to see The Croods (second time) and Alvin and the Chipmunks.  I also took the kids to see Despicable Me 2.  I would've rather watched Monsters University but Reena had a girls night out with her girl friends from school and already saw that so she wanted to see something else different.

 And of course we had to have Ben and Jerry's ice cream since it's just right by the theater.

 July 4th
      We celebrated the birthday of America just like any American would - with food.  We started off with raspberry picking and prepping for our block party.  I made some homemade potato bread and turned the raspberries into jam.  I brought it to the block party and it received glorious reviews.  Success!!!  Potato bread is a super yummy way to eat potatoes.

Best part about summer is outdoor swimming.  Both of my girls are so tanned now. 

 Block Party
   I can honestly say that we live on the coolest street in the world.  We have some super friendly neighbors that we've gotten to know and love.  It is through the block party that we got to know them as well as we do.  I think people in America are too comfortable inside their homes and don't come out to get to know their neighbors.  Mormons are just as bad. They mostly only associate with other Mormons, almost exclusively.  But how could the church grow if all we do is hang out with other Mormons?!  My intent on designing a big porch was so that we could put seats out there and open our house up as a friendly house.

 Everyone brought a dish to share.  We had some fabulous food!!!!

 My friend Teresa was the organizer behind the party.  She is a party lover just like me.  We decided to run through the water to show the other adults that they don't have to be so adults, they could be kids sometimes :)

We got soaked!!! But what a fun day to get soaked.  It was so refreshing!  Looks like I have a big water balloon underneath my shirt.

 Swimming camp
  I signed the kids up for a swimming camp since I can't or more like don't want to get in the pool to teach Reena anymore.  Brie has been taking lessons at Tiger Mountain Aquatics, a place we absolutely love.  It is small and a private pool so it costs a little bit more than the community center.  But it is cleaner and best of all class size is 3 or less kids.  It was a lot of work driving them to it everyday for 2 weeks, but it was worth it.   They learned so much and so quick.  Both Brie and Reena could swim by themselves in the water without floatation devices, although Brie gets tired quicker.

Birthday Treat
   We treated Reena to her first birthday gift that she wanted - ears piercing.  She wanted her ears pierced so she could wear my earrings.  Brie wanted to show that she's tough, too and also got her ears pierced.  On our way to the mall Brie fell asleep and woke up a little unsure if she wanted it but went through with it, too.  Both girls were very brave.  They had tears in their eyes from the pain but was very brave and didn't scream.  We're very proud of them.  Gotta be tough to show their little brother how to be tough.

 A little treat from the Disney store helps take away the pain

And frozen yogurt and a game from Toysrus helps also

 Reena lost another tooth
    Could she be any cuter with those missing teeth?!!  I seriously love this girl.  Her daddy was just flossing her teeth one night and the tooth fell out.  They were both like "huh?"  What a funny and sweet girl.  Since it was close to her birthday the tooth fairy made it extra special by giving her a certificate and silver dollar of course just like the first time she lost her first tooth. 

 And then it's oh goats!!!
         They're back!!! I miss my big tall grass!!  But let's talk Reena's Fresh Beat Band Party.  See you on the next blog.