Family 11th Birthday Party

Now that I've seen some really cool Blog Books, I'm really excited to have mine printed some day soon. Which means there may be a few posts that pop up that may not interest everyone, but I want in there to document our year. (And I know one of the girls already put up some of the same pictures. So those of you who can view her blog... You can skip this post if you want.)

This is our Family Birthday Party we had in California when we were there for Heather's wedding. We have a few cousins who celebrate their birthdays in February and March so we decided to make it a joint party. Heather's wedding was the night before so we were all not looking forward to putting on another big "to do" party. We were all in favor of keeping it very lowkey.

The Birthday Kids

Max (9), Xoe (11), Rocky (6) and Xanthe (11)

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And if you didn't know, "Lowkey" to us means: using Grammy's St. Patrick's Day/Mardis Gras hats and necklaces and decorations... as well as the birthday decorations from her "Birthday Box"... reusing one of the layers of Heather's wedding cakes that didn't get eaten, and writing all the kids' names on it with storebought brown icing...and putting a #6 candle (and a few other random candles on it) for them to blow out...I think they were trick candles too... come on, that's what the Schultz family is all about.

What else? Oh! Playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey game that Nan already had probably from her Birthday Box...I can't really remember where she got it. I'm just glad she had it. And the prize was??? We had no idea when we started the game. So, we hurried and pulled out a dollar from someone's purse. Remember? Lowkey.

When Max, the 9 year old, cheated to win, his comment about the prize was, "Come on! A Dollar! I should have lost!" haha. Oh how times have changed. Especially cuz during present opening time, he made out with something like $55 and a few toys, and the girls made out with $45 and a bunch of clothes, headbands and jewelry. Rocky scored on a ton of toys and some bank too, I just don't remember how much!

Max swears he wasn't cheating...but check out this series of pictures while he's lifting his head to look under the blindfold. hahaha. We were all cracking up! Love you Max!

Present Opening

And of course what would a family party without some kind of shenanigans going on in the background?

Well here it is...

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARTY, my brother-in-law Matt, who has already earned his Dentist degree, has gone back to school to become an Endodontist (a Root Canal Specialist) and are living with my parents while finishing. He had to do some experiment on Ferret ?? teeth (was that what kind of animal, Matt?). And THAT NIGHT he had to change the solution and grind them down before the next day. What we were wondering was, why right at that time, and not say...an hour later when everyone was gone and the kids were down for bed?

All I know is... right in the middle of present opening, during the chaos of everyone screaming and gathered in the dining room next door, I open the garage door open to find this scene laid out before me...

I am STILL laughing remembering it. I had to call everyone over one at a time to witness it. My dad and Scott got the biggest kick out of it. They kept going back out there to watch him. I think my dad was laughing so hard tears were forming. We're still scratching our heads wondering how he did it in the environment he was in. hahahhaaha. Now that's dedication.

Let me show you once again if you didn't get a clear picture of what is really going on. This next picture is a little bit more panned out.

He's in the middle of a cluttered garage (before it got cleaned up...not to worry Amber...I gotcha back. She tries to keep it organized), with a food fridge and 2 freezers next to him, a set-up ladder, a full L-shaped wrapping table that he is hitting his butt on as he's leaning over, all the decorations from Sam's wedding stacked up behind him, and his experiment table is on top of a catering food hot box. What you can't see are two dogs walking around in the tiny space by his feet. One big dog, and one yappy chihuahua puppy who has been probably barking the whole time.

I think this picture will keep me laughing for years.

THE SECOND WEDDING

JAMES & HEATHER GEORGIANNA

February 27, 2010

(Warning: Some of you have already seen pictures from her wedding on someone else's blog, but I'm posting for my friends who don't see the other blogs...oh and don't be surprised if you see some of your own pictures I snaked from your blogs and Facebooks...just one ore two)

I mentioned in my post for my brother Sam's wedding, that there were two siblings' weddings that were the main reasons for our last minute plans to stay in the states instead of returning to Germany. Well, this is the second one...my littlest sister, Heather Megan and her fiance, James! Woohoo!

We've all been anticipating this wedding for a looooooooong time. Not only were they childhood friends in the same church ward (so then, of course, both our families were really good friends so of course also LOOOOOVED James and wished for years they would get married), after they started dating, he left on a two year church mission to Chile. Heather is one tough girl cuz she totally stuck it out the whole time he was gone. I don't know if I coulda done it. I know when I'm gone from Brian for more than a few weeks I go crazy.

So, here are the pictures from their wedding...

How beautiful is my sister? Ever since she was a little girl, we all knew she was going to grow up to be striking. She has definitely stayed true to that.

Cousins!!!

These are all of my mom and dad's grandchildren.

I wonder if this will be the last time for awhile they'll all be together at once.

I love these pictures. I love staring at what's really going on on the steps. The older kids get stuck holding on for dear life to the crying toddlers. Check out Harper on the bottom right. Usually Xoe & Xanthe & Max have gotten this job. Looks like it's been passed on to Rocky.

Oh, and these pictures were taken right after I totally biffed it on the steps. I was running up the steps to make sure I got a picture of the grandchildren when I missed one and fell onto my knee (can you say way embarrassed? Especially after everyone came running to see if I was hurt, cuz "you fell hard"). At first it didn't hurt that bad, but it ended up getting so painful that I slowly was feelinhg nauseous and lightheaded. I was worried I had cracked my kneecap. It hurt for probably four weeks afterward. But as my SIL Nikki said, "Well, at least you didn't put a hole in your tights." Yes, Nikki, that truly was the silver lining cuz I had only purchased them about an hour before. I would have been ticked!

Had to get these next pictures of Spencer. He totally didn't want his picture taken that day. But his bowtie and suspenders were so dang cute, I just couldn't resist.

Family pictures....can you tell I was trying really hard to hide my pain? I didn't take such great pictures that day. Plus it was starting to drizzle and we were trying to do this super quickly.

The camera focused on the background instead of us so we didn't get the greatest family picture that day. At least we got one right? Lori took this one. She's my sister-in-law who is Hannah's mom. Hannah, my pseudo amazing nanny at Sam's wedding broke the news to me that she had showchoir competitions this day. Imagine how bummed I was! But Lori knew that all of us were in a bind because most of our babysitters were all in that same showchoir competition. So, a lot of the brothers and sisters needed help babysitting. She totally came and helped out watching kids while everyone was in the temple and helped me with Spencer when I became a gimp. She was AMAZING!!! You rock, Lori. I love family!

All the brothers and sisters w/ mom and dad...Sam was SERIOUSLY leaning all his weight on me. It was all I could do to hold him up on my gimpy knee. hahaha.

And just the siblings...aren't we cute? Although, I think I'm the whitest one there. Wow.

Sisters and sis-in-laws...

Bridesmaids...Great thinking, Heather, on the cute umbrellas since it was supposed to rain that day.

Would you believe these flowers are spray painted?

My girls are ADDICTED to James. Probably cuz he's so amazing...and makes them feel like a million bucks! What girl isn't addicted to a guy who makes them feel that way? haha.

James's sister, Jordyn. The girls love her just as much. They got their dance moves on at the reception together.

So, this next part is when I took Spencer back to the house. He did NOT want any pictures taken of him, but again, I couldnt' resist. He totally melts me in his bow tie. (Heather made the bowties by the way).

RECEPTION

Here's the fun part. The reception!

One thing you have to remember is that our whole family has been involved in weddings our whole life in one way or another. Not only does my dad own a wedding catering business that we all worked for during our formative years and adulthood, but we've all started businesses within the wedding industry to support ourselves at sometime or another. So, we've seen our fair share of weddings. Heather was one of these. Her area of expertise was doing hair and makeup for high-end clients. So she has seen some pretty amazing weddings. PLUS she has an amazing style all her own with clothes, fashion and everything in her life. So, of course this wedding was going to be breathtaking and well-planned out.

Her theme was classic vintage 50's... She had rented a ton of fun stuff, like an old truck (called the "Old Navy" truck, like the one Old Navy has in all their stores), cafe tables, cotton candy machine, old soda fountains, beach cruiser bikes, etc. The place Heather was having it was an old outdoor ranch that has a ton of personality, with an old historical house, old-fashioned cars and areas that were covered by awnings.

I guess fate had other plans that day. Cuz the day before it was sunny, and the day after it was sunny, but on the day of her wedding, it was pouring rain. Did I mention the reception was outdoors? Plus it was February, which also equaled cold. So, much to EVERYONE'S chagrin, we had to move it inside to a big reception hall. Heather was so bummed cuz everything we had planned was supposed to coincide with all the different areas of the outdoor part. Everyone had gone to so much work to create signs, decorations, flowers and lighting to bring the whole place together.

And because we had to move it in at the last minute, that also meant a lot of rearranging, planning and stress to give it somewhat of the same "look" she wanted. There were so many people that were involved who made it look pretty amazing. There were crews of family (brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, husbands, cousins, etc.), as well as friends and workers helping out. I can't even begin to say how impressed I was with everyone.

Have you noticed yet that her colors were shades of oranges and blues? Her palette that she chose was so beautiful and we tried really hard to recreate it. We had 4 different styles of centerpieces, which changed...I'm not kidding you...at least 4 times within the 2 days before her wedding, including on the actual day of the wedding. Originally, the centerpieces were perfectly planned out to have a bunch of big'uns and a bunch of small ones. We were doing smaller ones on the table that were going to be tucked away under trees or in little corners. But once we got them into a big room, the small little arrangements didn't work. So we had make more to double and triple the centerpieces to get three on a table instead of one. My favorites are the orange vases with the balls of flowers on top.

So, without further adieu, here are the pictures.