Elsie's birthday weekend

Elsa's grandparents love her SO much that they even came down south for her birthday! Jeff's sister Jen came too, and Jan came over so it was a good old family affair. Elsa was beyond excited to have all these people that were super interested in what she was doing and saying, hanging out with her all weekend. Elsa wasn't the only one psyched about the visit- Thor knows a sucker when he sees one, and he was on my mom's lap roughly 67% of the weekend.

A whole lot of lounging and baby hair sniffing went on too. In between lounging though, I have to admit the parents rolled up their sleeves and totally helped clean the house, fold laundry, do the dishes, and take care of the front and back yards. My mom even mopped the house about 10 minutes before leaving for the airport so I came home from work to shiny clean floors. Thanks Esmeralda!

Some of you loyal blog readers may remember this post about a certain play kitchen for Miss Elsa. Well, Nonnie came through and a few days before her birthday it arrived! I previously posted about wanting the white version of the KidKraft kitchen play set, but when it came time to order it, the white one jumped up about $50 in price! Whatevs. So we went with red and I'm SO happy we did. I'm normally not such a red fan, but it's super glossy and awesome and hides her hand guck smudges and it's sassy as all get out. And still gender-neutral unlike their pastel pink kitchen which Henry and the Rasmussen boys would probably shun. Maybe.

It took Jan and I three hours to assemble. Seriously. And we were on our game! We're good at stuff like this! I love IKEA and Jan is totally OCD too with these kinds of kits. He spent his childhood building models and RC cars so he kind of knows how to put stuff together. We had a system set up where I was in charge of hardware and instructions while Jan assembled and figured out hinges and we made very few mistakes, and it STILL took us three hours. Not to brag, but non-Trondsen kids would probably take like 5 hours to put it together. Jeff took fantastic pictures of our progress. I'm being sarcastic, they are terrible pictures and he shouldn't be allowed to document anything anymore. Ever. Karen has totally spoiled me.

Uncle Jan was a little beat and sweaty after the ordeal.

And here she was birthday morning! She was instantly into it. Definitely a recommended toy for a two-year-old.

She LOVES it. She says "I COOK! I COOK!" as she clangs her kitchen utensils on the pots and pans set that Grammie got her. It even has a little phone attached to the fridge cabinet which she uses to call her friends to chat while she makes her soup. It's kind of the cutest thing ever.

Mandy made her this adorable little matching apron which is just too much cuteness that she can't wear it all the time or I'll fall over and die. Speaking of cuteness-overload...

Holy crap!! This was the gift from Jodi and Ryan (no offense Ryan, but Jodi is totally getting all credit for this even though your name was on the card) and it was a mini shopping cart filled with felt food that came in PERSONLIZED "Miss Elsa Gourmet Grocer" muslin bags!!!!! I die. LOOK AT THE SHRIMP!! She wheels the cart everywhere in the house now taking all her dollies grocery shopping while wearing amazing outfits from Auntie Lynne and rad mint green lace up Vans from Heather and Andrew. Super stylish.

She got so many other amazing gifts (even though I swear I wrote NO GIFTS PLEASE on her birthday party invite) that I'm sure will be popping up on this blog quite a bit for the next year or more...

But one of the best gifts of all was time spent with Nonnie, Marmie, Grampa, Auntie Jen and Uncle Jan. She is one adored child.

Elsie's birthday party!

What was supposed to be a little family and close friends get together for Elsa's 2nd birthday party, morphed into a 33-adults-and-6-kids rager. It got a little out of control towards the end when 3 hours post-party end time according to the invite, the neighbor brings over Grey Goose and asks me for shot glasses. Um no. This is a child's party. You and your vodka go home. Aside from that though, it was such a fun party and was so nice to see our baby so happy and surrounded by a ton of people that love her.

All of these pictures are from our family photographer, Karen, who again killed it.

Elsa ran the loop in our house about 87 times that day, usually with at least one balloon in hand and Henry chasing her. She was WIRED. 

I got a bunch of these animal balloons with little feet that had leashes tied around their necks for the kids to drag around the party. They were a hit, but Elsa was a possessive little jerk over them. I got one of the helium tanks at Target that you can buy, use, and then turn the tank back in to re-use them and it was AWESOME. I'm never waiting at Albertson's again to get 30 balloons filled up and then smash them all into a car to take home, hoping you don't need to see behind your car. Super convenient and just as inexpensive (I paid $21 for the tank and it filled up about 30 balloons).

I made 47 orangsicle and funfetti cupcakes with a whipped cream frosting, and they were dusted. Elsa had at least 3, and my mom probably doubled that.

 She still didn't really understand the whole "Make a wish and blow out the candle!" directive so I helped.

And I may have shoved the cupcake into her face. I would like to note that I kept it classy at my wedding and did not shove the cake in Jeff's face, so this is how I get to make up for that.

She loved it. And got whipped cream up her nose and didn't realize that sticking both fingers in her nostrils wouldn't get it out. 

Awww... besties:

There were some cute kids at her party! Little Miss "Shoam" hamming it up for the camera.

And while we had Karen at our house, we took the opportunity to take a family photo which we so rarely get. We got a few snaps in and suddenly Jeff yelps like a kicked puppy and Elsa gives him this look:



Apparently my little snapping turtle bit Daddy. He may have been saying the "S" word here:



So it took a few takes, but we got a good one in!



Thank you SO much to all our friends and family that helped to celebrate our little Elsie's entry into toddlerhood! Next post will be on all the goodies she got spoiled with!!

Happy birthday babies!!

About two years and an hour ago, Elsa came into our world! Happy birthday you little munchkin. Mommy and Daddy (and about 182 other people) love you very much!

And even more exciting, Jerod and Karen's twins were born yesterday!!! Way to not trample on Elsa's birthday, guys. She appreciates getting to keep her special day to herself. Although Jerod and I want to throw joint birthday parties for them in the future, Medieval Knights themed!! Elsie will be the princess and the Rasmussen boys will be the knights fighting for her honor. Or vice versa. Who know how these kids will turn out.

Meet Anders Austen Rasmussen, 7lbs 2 oz, 20.5 inches:

AND Oliver Ayre Rasmussen, 6lbs 6 oz, 20 inches long:

Pretty freaking cute family they have. Look how amazing Karen looks just minutes after giving birth to twins!! I looked like a bloated Korean girl after 7 hours of labor with Elsa so I'm a little miffed she was Glamour Shot ready so quickly after. How!?

Congratulations friends!! Can't wait to meet the little rugrats!

Embroidered dreams

My embroidered Siamese cat with a bow tie came in the mail this week!! He is just as perfect as I thought he'd be. The skinny bright blue plastic frame was awful, but how fortuitous that I just so happened to have THE perfect frame to replace it. TA-DA!

We have too many cats in the bedroom as it is (is that really such a thing?) and the living room wall real estate is filling up, so it found its home in between the Friendly Yeti and my Sewing for Victory poster. Love him.

Elsa sagging her drawers, LBC style.

Happy Independence Day!

Pictures from the Fourth of July party at Andy & Kim's! 

Nonni sent a little package of patriotic fashions from Osh Kosh the week before so she rocked some of that. The top in the picture above is MY FAVORITE! So dang cute. The dress below is great except the ties are supposed to be bows over her shoulders but they were too far apart so they kept slipping down her arms so I jerry rigged it:

Andy & Kim set up their pool for the kids which was a hit. It was hard to keep Elsa out of that thing. And any excuse to put her in that swimsuit is one I will jump on.

Mandy and her patriotic babies! I love Elsa's possessive hand on Shalom's head, and Shalom's look at me like "Do you see what your kid is doing right now?"

Parties at A&K's are the best. They set up all these play areas for the tots, they go nuts for them.

 Daddy diaper pit stop!

 And back in the pool...

Eating broccoli. For about 1 second. Then she discovered the cookies and fruit chew snacks Kim laid out.

Another little girl brought this toy camera that Elsa was enamored with. And I use the term "toy" camera loosely. It was a digital camera, just with simpler buttons and settings and big grip handles. Might have to get her one of these for Christmas...

FIREWORKS! It was so fun to watch her because she was all over the place with her feelings about the fireworks. She was blasé in between them being lit and would stroll over to the launch pad, then high tail it out of there as soon as one was put down to be lit. She alternated between looking at them with awe and smashing her hands over her eyes and ears and hiding behind her dad. These pictures that Mark took capture the moments pretty well. :)

 AMERICUH!!

Gran jefe no caca Thor

Poor Thor couldn't poop this week and so we paid $1200 to clean him out. Cat enemas are NOT cheap. If anyone knows of reasonable cat health insurance, hit me up. Our boys are around 5 years old (we think) so we likely have about 16 more years of vet visits to fund. Long story short- give your show cats more wet food (no gravy and sauces if you want to keep them svelte) than crunchies and make sure they are brushed and drink lots of water. Drinking water was never Thor's issue (he guzzles it like he's a pro athlete) but we shopped around with different crunchies because they didn't care and ate anything so the vet thinks it was the new food that plugged him up. Anyways, after one overnight visit to the emergency vet and one visit to his regular vet, and several x-rays and enemas later, Thor is flushed out and back to normal, just with a little arm haircut to show for his troubles. Thank the God of Show Cats.

Is it weird that I retouched this photo to take out his eye boogers?