Birthday Party Fun!

We had a birthday party for Avery on Saturday (the day before her actual birthday). Avery wanted to go with a Princess theme- imagine that.  I wanted to keep with the theme but I knew we were getting Avery a special birthday present so I didn't necessarily want to focus the party on Princess.  I think we found a good middle ground.

Because I waited until the last minute I ordered my invitations from an etsy shop.  She actually just designed the invitation and I had them printed at CVS as a photo.  Easy peasy.

I asked my dear, sweet friend John who is an actual photographer to take pictures for me at the party.  He so graciously agreed and I couldn't have been happier! If you need a photographer (or graphic designer) he's your guy! He's worth every penny!

 Beware: the following post has lots of pictures. And this is the narrowed down bunch!

The morning started with some pictures of Avery and the fam (I actually took these).

I can't believe the girl is 4!

Such sweet sisters!

I love this picture of Avery with her eyes closed.  She just loves her sister so much!

After the photo session the fun really started. The girls go to pick their own princess wand,

decorate their own princess crown,

and even had princess jewels including necklaces, bracelet, earrings, ring and even lip gloss.  All the Princess essentials.

The princesses looked divine!

I won't bore you with the details of the present opening but there were lots of gifts. 



But the best gift we had kept hidden for 2 days!

We have been wanting to get a playset for quite some time.  We wanted one that Avery could enjoy for the next few years and something Ellie would be able to enjoy as she got older as well.  We found the perfect set at Sam's.  We even went to Sam's a few times with Avery to look at it and Avery was dying to play on it.  She would talk about it when we came home and she called it a tree house.  We knew she would LOVE it for her birthday! We did get some help from both our parents and we are so appreciative.

We had the playset put together before her party.  The guy started on Thursday and finished up on Friday.  It wasn't too hard to keep her out of the yard, it was just hard not showing it to her. Ronnie and I were so excited.  But we made the big reveal at her party.

I think it was a hit!

She loved it!  As did all her other friends.

Avery wasn't too happy that I made her come blow out birthday candles and take a family picture right after we let her see her big present. But she cooperated for the most part.  In hindsight, that was pretty mean of me! 

Thats my girl!



I did made Avery's cake. It was a 4 layer white cake with each of the layers a graduated shade of pink (it's hard to tell in the pictures).

And while I was pleased with how it looked, I was not pleased with the texture.  It was way too dry!  That's what I get for trying a new recipe before testing it.  I'm sure no one left the party thinking it was a total failure but the the cake was my first cake fail!

The party was great and we are so thankful to everyone that came out.  Everyone had a great time and we couldn't have been more pleased with how it went!  The next party will be Ellie's 1 year party!  Luckily I have a few more months to recover from this one!

More adventures to come!























What Happened?!

Well my dear friends, it's been a while hasn't it?  I have missed our little chats and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why I was such a faithful blogger for such a time and then dropped off the face of the Earth. I figured it out.

TV.

No seriously.  R and I don't have cable.  So it's easy to blog in the summer months when there's nothing on TV.  Then, the fall comes around, new shows are on TV and our TiVo starts to fill up with a bunch of mindless entertainment and I choose TV over my dedicated blog readers.  For this, I apologize...until the fall.

So here I am.  Summer months are on the horizen and I've seen all the season finales I care to this year. Hopefully, I can entertain myself with my blog for a while.  So a quick recap of what you might have missed over the past few months.

Valentines Day

Where we all got a little something.

Yep, those are Girl Scout cookies for Valentines Day.  Very romantic.

Avery got some special candy and her own rose from her daddy.

Don't ask about the Cinderella dress over the clothes. 

Challenging games of Pop the Pig

Have you heard of this game?  When you don't have cable and you let your kid watch kid shows on regular TV, you see a lot of toy propaganda.  Avery insisted on this game and Santa heard her cries.

It's exhausing.

You feed the pig these little hamburgers and then the pigs belly "pops" when it's full. It's quite entertaining.  For a 2 year old.

Avery was invited to a Royal party.

It was no party for Kate Middleton but I think Kate would have been proud!  Avery was invited to a Princess birthday party.

Including make-up and everything!

I gotta say, I think she was the most fashionable Princess there!

Pizza Party

Avery and her BFF's Chloe and Hannah got together for a pizza party.

Avery took her job of topping eater very seriously.

A good time was had by all.

Easter

Every year our town center has an Easter Egg hunt including a pancake breakfast (yum!), inflatables and Avery's favorite...

face painting!  Isn't she the cutest tiger you've ever seen?!

Yep, this is the only egg we came home with. 

We colored Easter eggs for the fist time this year!

And had an Easter egg hunt inside due to the less than ideal weather on Easter day.

My little Easter Princess with a new big girl haircut!



The family on Easter.  Not too shabby.

So there you have it.  The past few months in a big, giant, long nutshell. It's not easy summarizing 3-4 months in long abbreviated post.  There was so much more than just these moments. There was a very special 3 year old birthday party celebration in there but that deserves a post of its own.  Welcome back my friends.  Welcome back.

More adventures to come. 



Never a dull moment

There's really never a dull moment when you have a child.  Or at least not when you have our child.

Example:
The other day as I was just about to doze off for a much deserved nap, R comes to me a says "Come here. I have to show you something."
Now then, I have to admit, I wasn't real happy about having to get up. He led me to the kitchen only to see my car keys stuck in an electrical outlet.  Yep.  Avery had stuck one of my keys in the electrical out.

Parent of the year awards being handed out over at our house.

Every morning when Avery gets out of bed her first words are "I want to be a Pwincess." I'm not lying. Every. single. morning.

Avery practically refuses to wear pants. When we went on vacation, Avery wore the same denim skirt 3 times and the same dress twice.

Avery has an aversion to shirts that aren't pink.  Thankfully, it's not as strong as her aversion to pants.

Avery has her own opinion about what shoes to wear.  Tennis shoes?  Forget it.  The new pink Converse shoes I bought? Don't even try to put those on her feet.  Shoes must be "beautiful" and "sparkly". 

Avery get sweaty in the car and must have every vent pointed at her full blast.
So, you see, there's never a dull moment at our house.
I'm not sure why I was surprised when I went to check on Avery this evening after a few moments of silence to find this:

And although you can see R in the background of that last picture, that was AFTER we found that she had climbed up on the bathroom vanity and was gazing at herself in her "princess" dress.

I know why she was up there.  Most mornings that we dress Avery at home (on the weekdays she gets dressed at my cousins house) R takes Avery into the bathroom, sets her on the vanity, and they gaze upon her beauty. He tells her how pretty she is and she basically agrees. When she puts on a princess dress, she will sway her hips back and forth, smooth down the front and say "I a pwincess mommy." Normally R will do their routine and go to the bathroom and let Avery look at herself. 

Not tonight. There was no time for gazing on Avery's beauty.  Dinner needed to be cooked.  This momma was hungry!

Not a problem for Avery. She took matters into her own hands.

I'm extremely slightly concerned for what this may mean for the future.  Help me!

More adventures to come!