Trunk or Treat 2014!!

I looooooooooooove Halloween. It’s really my favorite holiday … I think even more than Christmas. Anyway, usually we do an adult Halloween party that is totally ridiculous. I go all out for it. But this year we decided to put all our energies into the trunk or treat ward event. So I used all of my past Halloween party paraphernalia and constructed a theme for this year: Egyptian tomb. We decorated our trunk like a pyramid and tomb and then I dressed up like Cleopatra, Ray was King Tut and Daniel was a mummy.

I love that Daniel does all of this with me. Some husbands wouldn’t participate or support such craziness, but he does and I love him for that. Anyhow, here are the pictures from the evening. Oh and I need to explain one last thing – Noah always likes to pick a totally obscure individual to dress up as for Halloween. This year he went through several random people, starting with Martian Manhunter?? (Google image that one) and he landed on ….. Vitruvius, from the Lego movie. I made his whole outfit from scratch. Had to. Nobody makes a Vitruvius costume. shocker. Liam was Ironman and we even did the facial hair of Tony Stark on him and surprisingly, Liam really kind of resembles Robert Downey Jr. More pictures will be posted for Halloween night.

Not to be outdone, Christina decorated her car beautifully as well. They did a witch’s haunted house. Complete with a working, bubbling cauldron, a crystal ball with floating head inside (hard to see in the pictures) and amazing detail all together. Here it all is:

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Liam is 6

My little Liam. He is such a beautiful little man, with so many things going on below the surface. He is loving and sensitive and fun. He loves shopping with me, eating breakfast foods, playing with Ray and making people laugh. I went with him on his class fieldtrip a few weeks ago and realized he makes his friends laugh and he acts silly to get them to giggle. Funny little man. For school, we brought in army men cupcakes. When you bit into them, they were various colors of green:

He loves the movie “Frozen” and sings the songs from it! He reads books now, has about 50 sight words memorized and does very well in school. Most of all, Liam loves to dress up. I will regularly walk around the corner in our house and see Liam walking by normally with a mustache and hat on. Just another day … wandering around the house in a cape and gloves, or with a helmet on and a belt. He’s hilarious. So we had to make his birthday a dress up birthday!

But when I googled “dress up party” it brought up a bunch of girly parties. I needed a manly, dress up party and this is what we came up with:

I don’t know how this happened in my house … I never imagined we’d end up with quite so many weapons.

But my favorite part of the party was the photo booth …. huge success. I took a million pictures of the kids dressed up and posing. You should know there were a million pictures and I narrowed it down.


Noah, Luca, Liam and Enzo


For Liam’s Birthday Dinner he asked for – German pancakes, bacon, strawberries and OJ.


opening presents – I thought I had some awesome pics to show the Grandparents … but all of them were blurry. really blurry. But he has already worn his CAL shirt Gammie and was wearing the costume you got for him in the picture! And Grandma and Grandpa – he looooved the little Lego guy with a holster and the Lego battle pack! You guys had to know he would love it because he picked out everything on his Amazon wishlist himself! he was delighted to get all 6 things on his list from parents and Grandparents combined! Lucky kid.


Here’s a bonus – I’m actually in this picture. Do you see my torso on the left?? Also – there’s the cake. Liam dictated what it was. He asked for a two layer round cake that was blue with yellow stars on it and a 6 on top. He said he’d position his own Lego guys on top of it, but then he didn’t and then the blue and yellow turned out more pale than I planned and well, it turned out looking a little like a baby shower cake. But whatevs.


The little girls got separate favor bags than the boys. In their little bags they got a ring and tiara. Good dress ups to go home with, huh? For the boys’ favor bags they got tattoos, a stick on mustache, silly glasses with eyebrows and nose, an eyeball ring, fake money, a sheriff tag and chocolate coins.

Happy Birthday my Liam!

Noah is 8

I just don’t know how this happened.

I have always been the kind of mommy that loves to see her boys grow up and get bigger and more capable and independent … until now. Somebody stop this please. It was great to see Noah learn to tie his shoes (he was the first one in his kindergarten class to learn and would help everyone else tie their’s), but now he’s talking to me like an adult, getting baptized and telling me about how teenagers make bad choices and try to impress girls – what?! I love him.

I still remember blogging about his first day in preschool. I was so nervous that the kids wouldn’t like him. He was so active and happy and I wanted them to have a little extra patience with my Noah. I wanted them to show him a little tenderness and answer his neverending questions. I wanted them to be nice to my little Noah and not crush his enthusiasm for life and everything around him. I remember exactly what he looked like running into his preschool class, so brave and without even looking back. He was ready and I was not. I feel that way again now. He is ready and smart and growing up and understanding the Gospel. He asks me thoughtful questions, talks to me about how he feels and what he likes and wants to do. He takes care of Liam. Sweet little, timid Liam needs his Noah. Noah teaches Liam his sight words and yesterday he took Liam in the backyard to show him “soccer moves”. He is in soccer now and soaring past everyone in his 2nd grade class in math! He has places to go and plans on the horizon and I am watching him grow up and walk away and not look back. That is my brave Noah.

This year is an important year for him. He decided to be baptized and we’re going to do that in northern CA surrounded by family. I can’t wait to see him grow in the Gospel. He has such a good mind. He sees things as right or wrong, very little gray area. He is honest and has a good heart. And he is happy.

This year, we had two parties for Noah. A small family one, just Forsyths, on the day of his birthday and then another on Saturday after his birthday where we invited cousins. The Saturday party was pretty low key (in comparison to other blow out parties I’ve thrown them). Noah took Liam and his cousins to play Lazer Tag and video games, then they came home and had lunch – specialty grilled cheese sandwiches, Noah’s favorite homemade balsamic dressing salad and pineapple (his favorite fruit). There were a few lego games to play here at the house and then cake and an ice cream sundae bar and presents.

A few things about Noah lately:

– he eats every dinner with chopsticks now. It’s hilarious. He talks a lot about Papa, who died but served his mission in Taiwan. Noah said he wants to go to China.
– He is seriously excelling in second grade. His school in MI was farther along than the one here in CA. Noah says, “this is one of those easy schools”.
– He helps Liam. With everything. Last week, they started a soccer fundamentals class. It was the first week of the class, so Noah and Liam were together on the field. We were a few minutes late and the coach already had the kids on the field, so Noah and Liam ran up and the coach told them to get a soccer ball. There weren’t enough balls. Noah grabbed one quick, but Liam just stood there and looked around. Liam looked so nervous, like he was about to cry as the realization that he was the only one on the field without a ball settled in and became obvious. As his little world looked like it was caving in, Noah saw what was happening and kicked his ball over to Liam and said, “here Liam, you can have this one”. Then Noah ran out to the coach and asked for another one. Noah is brave and kind and tender with Liam.
– He still loves everything that is Lego Star Wars. And Clone Wars
– He loves salad.
– He talks to me a lot about spiritual things and seems sure about his testimony already. Last night we had the missionaries over giving a lesson and they asked each of us to commit to reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know that is was true. They went around the room asking each person. When they got to Noah he simply said, “I already have”. Also, this year, he wanted to bring in a special treat for his second grade class and he said he wanted to bring them all Book of Mormons. I asked why and he said because he was listening to the talk in church on Sunday and they said to share the gospel. I told him to ask his teacher if he could bring in B of M’s and instead of shying away, Noah said he would. And then he did. He came home that day from school and I asked him about it and he told me, “No, she said we couldn’t. It’s the same as Hayes” (his elementary school in MI). Then he asked, “why do they call it religion? Doesn’t everybody believe?” I said people had different beliefs. He responded with, “But they all believe in God, right? If they do, then it’s all the same religion, right?” We talked a lot that afternoon about religion. It is so fun to have him be so interested in talking about spiritual matters.
– He likes to give people things to make them happy. The other day he said he was going to give Ben, his cousin, $50. I asked why and he said, “because I told him I would”. It wasn’t because he lost a bet or broke something. It sounded like he just told him he’d give him $50. Oh man, I love him.
– He is loving. I ask him to say goodbye to his cousins and most times, he gives them a hug … and a quick kiss. I worry that he might do that to some kid at school sometime. When we were at soccer practice he asked if he could stay after and play with his friend, Gideon. I said it was too close to dinnertime, so he said, “OK, well, do you at least want to meet him?” I said sure and walked over to the field. Noah called out to his friend several times, then walked over and told him he couldn’t stay and play, but then he pointed me out and said, “well, that’s my mom”. I waved, Gideon waved and then Noah gave Gideon a quick hug. I wonder if other second grade boys hug one another?

Well, naptime is all spent. I need to get in the shower and do some Christmas baking (I love that that’s what I need to rush off and do :) ). Here are the party pics … both parties.

Our family birthday party

Noah asked specifically for mini lemon cupcakes for his birthday. I asked why and he said, “because I don’t want to have too many sugary things”

The Lego Party with cousins on Saturday:

It’s really embarrassing how long that lego box took me. I felt like it was super big when I was building it … but in the end, it was pretty small. I almost went cross eyed looking for specific lego pieces to make it all fit perfectly. Then, of course, during the party, it only took about 45 minutes before it was smashed into a million pieces (literally a million. I think I used a million pieces). I also taxed my eyes and patience, putting together the Happy Birthday Noah sign. crazy.

We are lucky, this was a Lego car game that Gammie gave us.

These two actually posed this way. I did not catch them mid-bite. They did it again:

Chiara aka, The Duchess


Aria pulled the nastiest long hair and junk out of her mouth right at that moment. Had to be there, but it was hilarious.

And this is the cake. In case you can’t tell, it is Mos Eisely’s Cantina. Noah asked for this specifically. Of course.


I think the best part of the cake was seeing how much joy it brought Noah and Liam to make sure the correct Lego people were on the cake.

The inside was lego colored – red, blue, yellow and green.

Halloween Party 2013

I think I’ve been holding out on this post because it’s something I love and wanted to present correctly. It’s the Halloween party!!!!!!!!!! My little sister, Aria, hosted it this year and she did a ridiculously good job! She even bought a chemistry set online and borrowed bunson burners from a Biology teacher friend. It was amazing. And so fun. Man I love Halloween parties!

As a rule, we never tell one another what we’re going to dress up like. Total secrecy. But this year, Christina, Aria and I all lived near one another and we were doing the party together and our costume ideas slipped out weeks before the party. It turned out that Christina was lying about her costume, just to throw us off the scent. But last minute Daniel and I changed our costumes, so jokes on them! Ha! What’s funny is that both Christina and Jeff and Daniel and I ended up dressing up like rock stars without knowing that’s what the other was doing. What’s sad? I look a LOT like Slash (who is a man … why do I look like a man?) Anyway, tons of fun and Aria killed it this year for the Halloween party!

Daniel and I were Slash and Axel Rose from Guns-n-Roses.

Jamiesons came too! They drove an hour to get there – woo hoo! That’s dedication :)

That’s me, Aria and Christina. Aria is Egor.

The front room. Aria covered the walls in tea stained biology book pages. And she made that chalkboard herself. I made the thing in the corner. It was supposed to be a transistor type thing that would hypothetically bring Frankenstein back to life …

This is above her piano.

John, the skeleton.

The bathroom had green and blue lights and was bird cage themed.

The drink table. It was cool cuz you could pour yourself a sprite then, add grenadine from little test tubes that were filled.

Brittany and Landon. We love them. Landon looks like Thor .. or Brad Pitt, right? A little? Brittany is so artistic. She did the paintings and all the photography.

The food table.

This was clear plastic sheeting that Aria used to cover the kitchen area. They splattered it with red food coloring dye to look like blood.

And there it is. Finally. The Great Halloween Party of 2013. Oh yeah, and guess who tied for Best Costume? Forsyths and Jamiesons!

Gabriel’s Mission Farewell

I never posted about Gabe’s farewell like …. 3 months ago. I thought I’d throw it in here. I love doing parties and a farewell was something new for me. Gabe was called to serve in Brazil, so those were the colors of the party. I used the Brazilian flag colors everywhere.

At the front, we had a mission journal for people to sign in and leave notes of encouragement, love, goodbyes … whatever. I left pieces of cool paper and washi tape for them to tape it in the journal and then Gabe could use the rest of the journal to write in.

Who are those devilishly handsome little boys … aren’t they the awesome?