Tori's Sweet 16 Party

We had such a fun time planning this birthday party! Tori invited quite a few friends from school and the Tomball ward. We decked out the back yard in "c" bulb colored Christmas lights, lit up the pool with our LED lights and threw into the pool a bunch of LED plastic ice cube lights as floaters. It looked so great! We fed the guests Brother's Pizza, chocolate fountain with all the dippings, nachos, candy, and of course something a little healthy, a veggie platter. We heated the pool and had the spa going all evening. The youth ate, sat in the spa, ate, sat in the spa, ate, sat in the spa. It was the most laid back party ever, and yet they all LOVED just hanging out together and laughing!

I wanted to buy Tori an outstanding Sweet 16 cake. But, after pricing cakes at local bakeries, I decided it would cost less for me to purchase everything I needed and make the cake myself! So, I DID! After research on the Internet and emailing a very talented woman (THANKS Valerie!) I had a pretty good idea of how the cake assembly should work. Now, was the cake perfect? Nope. Being it was the first time I had ever made fondant, I wasn't sure exactly how to make it smooth and flat. I finally figured out how to smooth the top, and it looked good, but the sides were bumpy. But, after I decorated the sides, it did cover up the bumps.

Tori loved the cake and that is all the mattered to me! She was glowing and so excited when she saw the cake in its final stages. Caitlin and Courtney were my apprentices, Caitlin made all of the flowers and Courtney coached me and told me what she has seen on Cake Boss. All of their tips and pointers really helped!

Tori we hope you had a very happy Sweet 16!

Brianne The Cook!

Some Saturday mornings Brianne enjoys cooking breakfast for the family. Not every Saturday morning, but when she is in the mood. (Don't we all feel like that sometimes?) A few weeks ago, Brianne whipped up some delicious ham and cheese rolls...from scratch. Yes, she made the croissants! They were so good that we had to photograph the food, I guess so we can look back and remember just how great they were. Thanks Bri for keeping us fed on Saturdays!

TMHS Homecoming...Well, "New"coming!

Victoria will be in the first graduating class of TMHS. This beautiful school just opened this fall, with only Sophomores and Freshman.


Her volleyball team won the school's first trophy last weekend at a Tournament! All of the parents were pretty excited for the team!

This past weekend was Homecoming at her new high school. They didn't call it Homecoming, some called it the Inaugural Ball, some called in Newcoming. The week before Newcoming, Tori was asked by a young man named Landry to Newcoming. She was so excited! However, I wasn't thrilled...it only gave is 1 week to find a cocktail dress and accessories! Seeing that Tori has a very busy volleyball schedule, we had one afternoon to find a dress. AND, we did it! We actually found a dress in about 45 minutes! We were both pretty excited!

All week long the high school had dress up days. One of the days Tori dressed up like a nerd.

Tori's birthday was on Friday, the day before Newcoming. She was fortunate enough to be turning 16, so she could go on her first date! (Our girls don't date until they are 16 years old.)

Landry, his Mom and sister picked up Tori at 3:00pm and they met up with a group of 20 youth about an hour later for pictures and dinner, then off to the dance. After the dance the "after party" was at our home, and the youth didn't leave until about 1:45am. We had decorated the back yard with colored Christmas lights, tiki torches and had the disco LED colored lights on in the pool. It looked pretty neat and the teenagers said,"This is so cool!" They were such a great group of youth! They swam, sat in the hot tub and ate and ate and ate! Wow, those football players can eat! Fortunately, we had enough pizza and food to keep all satisfied!




What a great week for Tori! Her Sweet 16 birthday, her Newcoming and her first date!




A picture taken in our backyard....the calm before the storm....(ACK! Tori's going on her first date!)


Tori celebrates her birthday in the locker room with her friends before their volleyball game last Friday.

Nerd Day for Newcoming week. Tori and friends at Seminary before school.

The Homecoming Mum! Texas tradition! I made this Mum Garter for Landry, Tori's date. The guys wear their mum on their bicep.

Landry's mom made Tori's mum. The girl wears it around her neck. The longer the mum with tons of trinkets, the better!

The next few photos were taken, right before her date arrived...
Of course she had to stand by her new car!

I loved this dress! All of you LDS mom's know how hard it is to find a modest dress! We got so lucky! The material is shimmery, it is so pretty!

Sisters waiting patiently for Tori's first date to arrive!

Landry and Tori

Tori trying to pin on the boutonniere! Then Landry's mom tried, then I tried and was finally successful. I made his boutonniere and I think it turned out pretty good!

Group shot outside the restaurant. As a mother of a YW, I am so proud of Tori for selecting such a modest dress. I think she looks beautiful!

Tori & Her Letterman Jacket

Last year when Tori attended THS, she lettered in Shot put. She begged us to order her a Letterman jacket. We told her it made no sense whatsoever to purchase a Letterman jacket because her new high school TMHS was opening this fall 2011, and she would never wear a THS jacket. Well, we relented due to the fact, that she did work so hard for it all year, and it makes a great memory for her, even thought it just hangs in her closet. A few weeks ago, our area had "cool" temperatures one morning. She was so excited to wear her Letterman to school. We told her she was crazy, but she did it anyway. Well, needless to say, she said all of the Sophomores and Freshman at her school loved it and wanted to try it on. They thought it was pretty neat that she lettered last year as a freshman! Seeing that she is on Varsity volleyball this year at the new high school, looks like another jacket is in her future. This time a Blue one!

Birthdays, Birthdays and More Birthdays!

Victoria and I love September! Can you guess why? Yes, we celebrate our birthdays 7 days apart. The only downside to the 7 days is cake, cake and more cake, along with ice cream. Love you Tori! I hope you had a great Sweet 16!

Victoria's BIG Sweet 16 Surprise!

As I said in the last post Victoria has all the fun...

While Victoria was at the BYU football game in Austin, Ron and I did the one thing in life, we dislike the most...we were busy car shopping. We can't stand going into car dealerships and being lied to by salesmen. We much prefer purchasing vehicles off of Craigslist. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything we liked on CL, but we did find many cars on the dealership websites, and finally narrowed it down to about 8 cars/SUVs. Of course when we went to the dealership, none of the cars they had online {to suck you in} were available. We then spent about two hours listening to sales pitches and "what they can do for us, because they want us to walk out a happy customer". {Barf}. We found two cars we liked, and then we needed to leave. Brianne and Tiffany were participating in the Lest We Forget concert in the children's choir and it was getting late. Of course the salesman was begging us not to leave. I told him if he had a better deal for us, possibly we would come back later or next week.

Well, he immediately pulled the old trick, "well, if you want this car, you'd better buy it now. See that couple over there, they really want the car, and are going to buy it, if you walk out now." Whatever! Then the sales guy even went to the extent of having one of his partners walk in and ask for the car keys and he apprehensively handed them over to the guy. HAHA! It was great acting! Anyway, we still left.


About 8:45pm we received a phone call from the salesman asking if we were going to come back and look at the cars again. I told him probably not. Well, really we were, but I didn't want to come across desperate. We knew the dealership closed on Saturday at 9pm, so we walked in at 8:55pm. They were desperate to go home, but were also desperate to make a deal. So, to say the least, we walked out of the dealership with a car for Tori, and paid what we wanted to pay, not their rip-off price! I love negotiating with desperate car salesman after closing hours on a Saturday night! {evil laugh here.}


We knew Tori was going to be home around 1:00am from the game. So we quickly made a hot pink glitterized poster and printed letters to say "Happy Sweet 16 Tori!". We then tried a big purple bow around the car! It looked so cute!

We then sat and waited! Oh, that clock moved so slow! We did pass the time by watching the BYU game we had DVR'd! What a great game! Too bad we lost.

About 1:15am we saw head lights out front of our home. Of course we all leaped up and ran outside to watch Tori's surprise!


She had been asleep on the way home from Austin, and was still a little sleepy when they pulled up. Then her friend said,"Oh my gosh Tori you got a car!!!". Well that woke Tori up, and she jumped out of the vehicle and just had a huge smile on her face and ran towards her new car! She stood next to it and stared, in unbelief! It was just awesome to see how shocked she was!

What a fun family memory! Happy Sweet 16 Tori!

Tori running to her new car!


2008 Nissan Altima - Black

Victoria has all the FUN!

I would really like to be blogging about our family Labor Day picnic, but unfortunately I can't! (Note to my daughters: The person who borrowed my memory card, better have it back in the office pronto!)

So, I will blog about Victoria... last weekend one of her good friends asked her to go with their family to the BYU/Texas football game. This family has season tickets to the UT games, and seeing that Texas was playing Tori's favorite team, they invited her along. This was Tori's first {live} college football experience...and she had a blast!


Tori ran into her dear friend Sarah at the game!


Tori and Allyson

Victoria....

Just a few more pics of Tori, being Tori!

First Day of School Pictures

Tori at 5:30am. This year she is the seminary class president. She is enjoying her calling and it is challenging her to be on time to class!

Tiffany's First Day of Kindergarten

This year every one of my sweet daughters went to school on August 22nd! I will admit, I was sad to see Tiffany go. It's always hard when your last little bird leaves the nest to go out into the BIG world. You hope that you have taught them how to make go choices, to be kind, to listen to and respect authority and manage problems when Mom is not around to tell you what to do.

The first day of school Tiffany rode the bus. It was a new adventure and she loved it! However, living in Houston, August is hot and humid. We have been having temps up in the 110*s, then add on the heat index and it is just so hot you feel like you are melting. So, her time on the bus only lasted three days and she began to not like it very much.

She was quite bored the first week of school. She was hoping to learn something new, but all she heard was rules, rules and more rules. The second she saw me after school let out, she'd run and jump into my arms and tell me how much she missed me. She kept telling me school is too long. (Which I totally agree. Kindergarten in Houston is ALL day. It is just too long for these little ones. But, it's free daycare and parents love it.) On day three of the first week, she woke up and told me,"That's it, I am not going to school! I am tired. Can I just not go today, but I will go the next day. Ok Mom?" It was quite humorous. I told her that she had to go Monday-Friday, and then she would stay home on the weekend. To which she said,"Are you kidding me?!?!"

On Monday she was a bit apprehensive to go to school, but I told her this week her teacher would begin teaching her new things. That made her happier and she became a little more eager to go. She went everyday this week, no complaints, and has now slipped into her routine of going to school.

Oh the first week of school is so hard. Change for each one of my daughters is difficult. They have never been very good at it. I long for the second week of school to be over, because I know by then everyone will be feeling more comfortable with school and all the tears are dried up and long gone.

So, this is my success post! We made it! Yeah! So, now some of you may be thinking, "What is Danielle doing with all of this free time while the girls are at school?" Well, I have been cleaning this house and getting it organized after the bomb that hit it this past summer! I am really busy with my calling right now, I have been reading, running and just enjoying time to myself. I have had a child/children at home with me for the past 16 years, now the house is quite...I have to admit...I do miss my girls. Some days, I reflect upon a blog post of mine from earlier this summer~ http://rdvccbt.blogspot.com/2011/06/butterflies-life-lesson.html

Here is a little poem I stole from my friend's blog. I think it sums up how I feel pretty well...

I wonder what you're doing right now,


and if everyone is treating you kind.


I hope there is a special person,


a nice friend that you can find.




I wonder if the teacher knows


just how special you are to me.


And if the brightness of your heart


is something she can see.




I wonder if you are thinking of me,


and if you need a hug.


I already miss the sound of your voice


and how you give my leg a tug.




I wonder if you could possibly understand


how hard it is for me to let you grow.


On this day know that my heart breaks,


for this is the first step in letting my baby go.

Volleyball

Tori has been playing volleyball for about a month now. I am just extremely slow getting information on the blog.



Here is a picture I took before she left to go to her first game. Can you just see how happy she is?



There are 12 girls on Varsity and 14 girls on JV. Tori made Varsity, she was so excited! We all were so very excited! I found myself a wee bit teary eyed, just because we really thought that Varsity would be made up of all Club players. Seeing that Tori has never played Club ball, we were shocked, to say the least, that she was put on Varsity. Way to go Lefty!