The Hostess...

Tiffany and I on St. Patty's day rockin' our green outfits.

Well, the last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy!  We have been having fun being the host .. or in my case the hostess.. after Craig's dad left we filled up that next week with 3 play dates, a date night, a potluck, a St. Patty's day party, and 2 NCAA tournament parties to watch BYU dominate themselves into the Sweet 16.  WOW!!  It was Jace's spring break from school so I wanted to keep busy ... mission accomplished!  Trampoline jumping @ April's on Monday.  Airport drop off for friend Tracie on Tues. Later on Tues. April came over and taught me how to make her yummy enchiladas.  She even makes the enchilada sauce from scratch - she is an amazing cook and this recipe is to die for. Maybe I'll post it on here later. We took the enchiladas to the Latin Fiesta Night at Craig's school.  Tea Party with Lucy on Wed. as well as the ThunderKids St. Patty's day party.  Super cute!  The kids made 3 leaf clover necklaces and had green everything snacks then they went on a treasure hunt for gold all over the campus.  A Leprechaun had a left a map and they finally found the pot of gold over the rainbow at the playground.  It was full of gold chocolate coins.  The kids had a blast!  In my haste of play date planning I scheduled one the next day - St. Patrick's day...without even realizing it.  It was lots of fun.  Tiffany had all of her kids all decked out in green everything.  It was awesome. She is the Queen of cute outfits and matching accessories.  I think I should take a class from her.  It was nice to visit with her.  Those tricky leprechauns turned our milk green again this year.  We couldn't figure out how they did it?? ;)wink wink.  I was going to make our traditional Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage but we decided to have all the BYU fans over that night for the NCAA college basketball tournament so I just went and picked up a bunch of Papa Murphy's Pizzas.  We had 6 adults and 8 kiddos running around.  It's a good thing we have a fun playroom!  On Friday we had a Couples Night date through the IWFC (women's club @ Thunderbird).  We got a babysitter and had pizza at Old Chicago.  I'm not a huge pizza lover but man that place was good.  I would highly recommend it.  Thai pizza is awesome.  On Saturday we hosted another NCAA tournament party.  This time we had 14 people in total.  BYU had such a good game.  We were all in a great mood.  Right after that we went to a regional night at Craig's school.  They have them every few months.  This time it was Americas night so they had free traditional food from the USA, Central and South America as well as traditional dancers.  We saw a Native American hoop dancer, Chilean dancers & singers, and Samba dancers.  It was super fun.  The kids were so exhausted by the end of it that they fell asleep in our arms.  

Erik, Charlie, Ellie, Brooke and Jace in their Green gettup.

NCAA tournament party #2.  The kids were in the play room.

On Sunday we had the Wariners come and stay with us for 5 days for their family vacation. Nate is one of Craig's really good friends from high school. He and his wife Emily have 4 kids: Kierra (6), Arianna(4), Payson(2), and Daxton(3 months). They wanted to get out of the Utah cold for their family vacation. Unfortunately, they brought it with them. Instead of being in the high 80's like it was the week previous... it ended up being in the high 60's with rain that first day. It brightened up some later on and ended up being in the 70's for a good portion of their trip. Craig was super busy with a big paper he had due so we hardly even saw him the first 3 days. I was a good hostess though and we showed them some fun parks, the zoo, the chocolate factory, and we had fun movie nights and tea parties for the girls. Brooke was in heaven. She LOVED having girls around to play with. I loved having a baby here to snuggle too. It was great to see them and be able to spend some time with them. They took us out to The Cheesecake Factory as a thank you for letting them stay with us. It was delicious and lots of fun.

Kierra, Arianna, Nate, Daxton, Emily, Brooke, Me, Jace & Craig at the Cheesecake Factory.  Good Times!!

The kids loved looking at all the cheesecakes and other desserts.  YUM!

Kierra, Brooke, and Arianna at dinner one night.  They loved sharing each others clothes.

Kierra & Arianna at the Tea Party.



Brooke & Payson at the Tea Party.



They all had a grand ol' time at the Fairy tea party they had.

Jace had his field day at school on Friday morning so we all got to go watch him compete in different races.  He's definitely not the fastest runner in his class but he did the best at the bean bag toss and the obstacle course. He's such a cutie.  When we got back from that we took all the kids to McDonalds and let them play together one last time .. then they headed back home.  Brooke was heartbroken.  She loved having friends around 24/7.  Later that night I had a Ladies Night Out with the club and Craig took the kids over to the Thomas's house to have some male bonding time.  The girls did Fondue and games ... the boys did pizza and The Karate Kid. lol.  Yesterday we planned dinner out with Tracie and Mark...we went out to dinner at Abuelos and stayed up late chatting.  Hanging out with them is always fun.  Tracie adores Brooke and vice versa. 

 Me, Ashley, Shirley, Mariale, Xao, Emily, Jessi, Carlina, April, Ximena, Jen, Tiffany, and Sangmi was the photographer.

Ladies Night Out!  This time we did Fondue and Games.  It was SO much fun.  We played Apples to Apples which is always a great game for a big group and then we played PIT.  PIT is a ton of fun.  April made the chocolate fondue and the cheese fondue from scratch.  We had fruit and bread to dip.  So Fun!  I love girls night! :)  This time we had representors from Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Korea, and the USA.

 Today is the first day in 3 weeks that we spent the day just together as a family with nothing else going on .. besides church.  I think it's nap time... I'm exhausted!!