The Kandells: 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

She.

No more, "it", and "this". Now its "She" and "Her".

We are so happy. All I needed to see was that heartbeat but the rest was great too.

This is my family. Well, minus my little brother Austin who had finals up at BYU Idaho this week and we unable to attend the surprise 50th birthday we threw for my dad. My dad turns 50 later this month. For the past couple of months my mom and I have been planning this surprise for my dad. You see, my dad, is a really humble guy. Doesn't like surprises that are for him, doesn't like attention. But we wanted to celebrate him anyway. We thought a nice way to do it would be a Viking Yurt dinner with 32 of the people closest to him.

He was told that he was having a small birthday dinner at my house with just our immediate family, only to be taken up to Park City to the base of the Canyons and surprised by all of his siblings, my moms siblings, his parents and a few close friends. Luckily, he had a good time and didn't want to kill us.

If you have known me awhile you have heard or seen my post about the Viking Yurt before. Its so much fun and such a unique dinner experience. At the bottom of the mountain you board a sleigh pulled by a snowcat, and are taken up the mountain to 6,000 ft. to a small Yurt where you are immediately warmed up and given glogg (yummy warm spiced cider drink)

Followed by a 3 or 6 course meal, we chose 3 due to come time constraints. It is really lovely.

Our arrival at the Yurt

After our soup and entree course we had a couple of my dad's siblings tells some memories and stories of him. My Aunt Stana played a lovely tribute to her little brother, then my Uncle Scott, made everyone laugh hysterically telling stories of their childhood and my dad's fear of calling girls and hate for cat hair. It was so funny.

Then both my grandmas spoke and got to tell him how great he is. (I dont know how much he loves that stuff)

But he endured all the attention then his birthday cake was brought out flaming and they put the Yurt Viking helmet on his for the Happy Birthday song.

(Dippidee did this great cake, with some things my dad loves on it, a law book, japanese flag, all his kids names etc. It was perfect (except my name was mispelled... and I placed the order..)

It was overall a wonderful night to celebrate my dad and let him know how much he means to all of us. And we of course appreciate him being a good sport about it.

(him and his siblings minus Shauna, who couldnt make it)

(my dad and his parents)

(my parents with Uncle Bryce and Grandma Hatch)

Then it was time to bundle up and get back in the sleigh for the ride back down the mountain. It was a chilly but very pretty clear night out which made the sleigh ride nice.

Thank you everyone who came and helped make this surprise successful and special.

Happy 50th Dad!

On Stage.

This last week Ady had both her Winter Sings program at preschool and her Christmas Dance Concert. She did great at both. Her Christmas Dance Concert was so cute and she did a really good job not being shy on stage. Her Jazz class did a dance to "Santa went up the Chimney"

(she is 2nd in from the left on the front row)

She had a big cheering section to watch her dance. Mom, Dad, Maxwell, "Uncle" Bandele, both Grnadma Sue and Grandma Smoot, and even Aunt Breanna came down. She loved all the attention. {and the flowers from daddy}

Thena t her winter Sings program, she did so well singing with her class and doing all the cute actions. Then Santa visited her classroom and she told him what she wanted for Christmas.

We are so proud of Ady!

Snow Day

I really could not be more behind on blogging, pregnancy sickness has left with with little desire to do anything but the bare essentials. But I do plan on getting caught up on Thanksgiving, Grandma Sue's visit, Ohio and other events.

But this morning my kids cute snow man is all thats making it to our little blog.

They had so much fun outside in the snow this morning. We will skip talking about the drama of getting bundled up. How dare I insist on gloves and water proof boots... worst mother ever. I clearly was just out to ruin their morning by making them wear layers.

But they made it outside to play. And loved it.

We used left over gingerbread house candies to decorate the snowman. And boy did he look good.

Eric was most excited to use his snowblower, he just bought it a month or so ago and has been waiting for it to dump snow. The other night we got home from somewhere at like 11 pm and there was about an inch of snow dusted on our driveway and it was still coming and he wanted to get out the snowblower.

Christmas Cards

We are getting ready to send out our Christmas card this year. If you have moved or not recieved a card from us and want one, please email me at hailey@thekandells.com.

French Baby Shower.

Last weekend I threw my good friend Andrea's baby shower. She is almost the last of our friends from High School to have a baby, so we wanted it to be really special for her.

Luckily, because of the bad economy beautiful restaurants who usually charge an arm and a leg to have an event in are practically giving away the space if you will use them for food. So, we got to hold Andrea's baby boy shower at the lovely LaCaille.

Because of the location I decided I wanted to do a french theme. And I thought it all turned out darling. We had our little luncheon in the attic of the restaurant, a really pretty spot, I had never seen before. And we based the entire shower decor and details on the lovely shower invite Ann Elizabeth did for me. She is the best.

LaCaille's event coordinator Colby had the idea to do a cute little clothline between the flower arrangements with pics of Andrea and Alex (the baby's mom and dad, when they were babies)

It looked so cute. And Sax Romney's flower arrangements were beyond lovely. I love hydrangeas.

Sorry so many detail photos but its my favorite part of any party, the little things... and Ashlee Raubach (my photographer friend) captured them all perfectly.

NOW... here is the actual shower

Lindsey (our friend who flew in from Chicago for the shower), as a gift to Andrea surprised her my picking her up in a limo, and even bigger surprise is we were all in it to come get her! Thanks Lindsey, that made it extra fun. It was like Prom all over again. (without the boys)

Here is all our friends and party guests, a bunch of whom are also pregnant. I was so surprised no one got "sick" in the limo.

(from left to right) Melissa (shanley) Cook- prego, Callie (salmon) Anderson-prego, Chelsey (nyborg) Bell, Kristin (defa) Neilsen- prego, Me-prego, Andrea (hyde) Mason-obviously prego, Nicole (knight) Knight - just became unprego( had her baby) Katie (dickamore) Flanders, Lisa (williams) Hasleton and Lindsey (cooksey) Lunt

the gifts

These are the book of games, a trivia game with questions about all our friends childbirth and pregnancy stats and stories, a match which friend to which baby picture game, and gift bingo. All so fun. The booklet was tucked into the napkin at each girls place setting.

The mini cakes, by Carrie's Cakes that were the party favors. And so good, well mine was until I threw it up (ahh joy of pregnancy)

the lunch

the cute mommy to be.

the group. and yes, I told everyone to wear black, I know how annoying and obsessive of me, but I thought it would be cute if we all matched Andrea's shower colors.