{A Tween}

Today was a celebration all about my 10 year old Hannah. Her school teacher, Mrs. Lewis introduced her to the "tween" term and ever since she's been anxious to become a tween. Her dad and I. . . not so much anxious to have a tween : ( This year wasn't a party year, but she got to invite her best friend, Morgan, over to help her celebrate. She took Krispy Kreme Donuts to her school class. We had her requested broccoli cheddar soup and home made bread for dinner. She wanted an ice cream cake with chocolate cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream layers, her favorite color white frosting and sour skittle polka dots. (FYI: ice cream does not frost easily) We finished off the night watching the movie Ice Princess.

She opened a few gifts, including art and a purse from Morgan, a scentsy warmer and yummy scents from Gma & Gpa Dredge, the always loved money from Gma & Gpa Reynolds, a necklace from Emma and hair bandies from Ben. When it came the gift from Jake and I, she was a little skeptical about it being only an envelope. I had been asking her for over a month for ideas and she couldn't really think of anything. I guess she either has too many things already or she's satisfied with what she has. Honestly, I'm grateful it's more the later. Anyway, back to the envelope. . . it contained tickets to go with me to a Taylor Swift concert in November. She was beyond excited!! And I might be just a little bit excited to go with her : )

In honor of Miss Hannah . . . A few of her favorite things

Favorite Color: White

Favorite Song: Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz

Favorite Number: 8

Favorite Books: Percy Jackson and Harry Potter

Favorite Foods: strawberries, watermelon, & pizza

Favorite Candy: sour skittles and sour patch

Favorite Dessert: mint chocolate chip ice cream

Favorite Flower: gerber daisy

Favorite Friends: Morgan, Maiya, Emily, & Alana

Favorite Activities:  piano, swimming, friend time, reading, trampoline

Favorite Subjects: science & history

Favorite Movie: Ice Castles (the new version)

Favorite Thing to Wear: heart canvas sneakers, capri's, & a bright colored tee shirt

Favorite Dislikes: getting her hair done, homework, chores

{Seven}

It seems that overnight my baby boy turned 7, but I guess to be accurate, over the weekend my 6 year old boy turned 7.
Ben is such a great kid! He's the funny one at our house. He loves his sisters and plays so well one on one with each of them.
He is his daddy's buddy and while I'd like to say he's a mama's boy, he thinks he's getting a little big for that : ) But hey, you will still catch him cuddled up with me on the couch quite often and I'll take all I can get.

Ben had a mostly lazy, chore free morning followed by a trip to the golf store with his dad. After lunch his friend, Jason,
came to spend the afternoon. When given his choice of desserts Ben chose chocolate fondue with dippers over the traditional
cake and ice cream (yeah, no cake decorating for me : ) After all the chocolate yumminess, he opened lots of boy toy fun.
Next it was off to Golden Skate World for rollerblading, soccer & gymnastics fun all rolled into one. Is if that wasn't enough, we topped the night off with homemade pizza and the new Karate Kid movie. If you ask Ben, it was the best day ever!!

{Finally Four}

And I'm finally getting around to blogging about it : )
Be prepared for LOTS of pictures, LOTS of color, and LOTS of sweet four year old personality!

All of my kids have been really into art projects the past few months so I decided to go with an art party for Emma's birthday.
♥ I made fun little polka dot aprons for all the girlies to protect their clothes
during all the fun. Hopefully they'll be used for lots more art fun at home.
♥I printed frames from the ShabbyPrincess Yours Truly collection, then we
used ink pads, thumbs and fingers to make flowers, leaves, butterfly's,
ladybugs and bumble bee's. Keep lots of baby wipes near by for inky fingers : )
♥I ordered a super cute sugar cookie decorating kit from
"Snickety Snacks." The girls thought it was so cool to draw on their
cookies and still eat them. This was one of Emma's favorite activities.
♥We painted rocks then added googlie eyes and let the girls use a sharpie to draw noses,
mouths, and hair. We used a blow dryer behind the scenes to speed the drying process.
♥We made rainbow paper chains.
♥We decorated foamie door hangers with fun and easy stick-able flowers and butterflies.
♥We played with rainbow colored homemade play dough as the all the guests were arriving.
♥I painted rainbows and flowers on the girlies' cheeks.
♥I bought extra crayons, glue, markers, scissors and stickers during
the back to school sale and included them in their take home bag.
♥Below you'll see LOTS of pictures of the rainbow cake. I first saw this
over at the Idea Room, but use can also google it for lots of other versions.

Honestly, one of the best parts of this party was the afternoon Emma and I spent
together making play dough and the rainbow cake. She LOVES helping in the
kitchen and had such a great time cracking eggs, licking beaters, stirring, pouring
and mixing the colors. She even helped a bit with washing the dishes : )

Emma's birthday party was nearly a week after her actual birthday so she
got to celebrate twice with a family party on her special day. She was just a little
bit excited about her Pet Shop clubhouse : ) She loved her new twirly dress
from Gma Ginny and Gpa Doug. The swing from Gma and Gpa Reynolds was a
huge hit (with all the kids : ) There were much needed new slippers, and a fun
cash register. We topped it all off with a doughnut cake!

Whew!! If you made it this far, I'm impressed. As a reward, I'm giving away two polka dot aprons
we had left over. Leave a comment and I'll choose a random winner on Saturday.

{Little Miss Birthday Girl}

Unbelievably, my littlest princess turned one today. She has brought such joy and delight into our lives this past year. She is always so quick to smile and has been such a content and happy baby. I have developed quite a soft spot for my sweet daughter as we have enjoyed many tender moments together. I have seen great blessings in our life this year as we have had Sarah in our home and I am grateful. I'm looking forward to another year of beautiful moments with my sweet girl.

Having her cake and eating it too : )

{Flashback Friday - Hannah's Ninth}

**In an attempt to blog the unblogged I'm going to do some flashback Friday posts.
When I post the next flashback the current one will be moved to it's chronological
date within the blog. I thought since Hannah's 10th birthday will be coming up in a
couple of months, I better get around to posting details from the 9th : )




Hannah and I decided to go with a cooking theme for her 9th birthday. She's done a little sewing and has wanted to do more so we decided we would make aprons for all her guests. We had fun going to JoAnn's together to choose the fabric and ribbon. One side was the turquoise with a striped section along the bottom, the other side was brown with polka dots. We used ribbon for the neck strap and ties. With guidance, Hannah did most of the cutting and sewing and ironing. I was really proud of all the time and effort she put into the project.

In the process of making chocolate chip cookies, we did a little staging for an invitation photo. Her chocolate cake was designed to match the aprons. We started things off by making dessert. The girls each frosted their cupcakes, sliced marshmallows for the petals, arranged them on the cupcake with a yellow mini marshmallow for the center, and added colored sugar as a finishing touch.

Next up, we let the girls make individual pizza's. They rolled the dough, spread the sauce and added the toppings. We had a little lesson on getting things in and out of the oven and then let the girls try it out with there pizza's. Some had done this before, but for others it was a first.

While the pizza baked, we started on smoothies. We had a few fruits for the girls to choose like strawberries, bananas, blueberries and pineapple. They followed a recipe to add the various ingredients and used the blender to mix the smoothies.

When everything was prepared, they had all sat down to enjoy what they had made. They laughed and talked and laughed. There was lots of 9 year old girl craziness and silliness and fun. After dessert and opening a few gifts, I sent them all out to jump on the trampoline while they waited for their parents. Each girl went home with their decorated cupcakes, an apron and a mini dessert cook book by Betty Crocker we had found in the dollar bins at Target.

After all of Hannah's friends had gone, we continued the celebration with a few family gifts. There were doll clothes for her American Girl doll, speakers for her MP3 player, nail polish, a brush and comb, and a NEW BIKE! What a fun birthday celebration for our wonderful girl.

{six}

The Science Party!

I didn't number these so follow along left to right and top to bottom : )

1. The invite
2. & 3. The volcano cake. . . I used used two cake mixes, one in a bunt pan the other
in a glass mixing bowl. I stacked them and made a hole in the bowl cake. I placed a votive
in the hole with dry ice and water to get a steamy effect. We tried to put sparklers on it
too, BAD idea (luckily we had tried this before Ben's friends came : )
4. Our scientist performing the egg in a bottle trick
5. Blobs in a bottle (lava lamps)
6. Foamy fountains
7. Soap souffle
8. Slimey polymers
9. I took macro pictures of a few of Ben's favorite things (toys & clothing items)
and the kids had to guess what they were.
10. Super-hoop gliders, the boys had fun with these while we waited for everyone to arrive
11. Fun boy toys
12. I loved how intent they were on checking out the toys
13. Enjoying the cake

Each boy went home with a bag of supplies and instructions to repeat some of the experiments at home,
as well as a magnifying glass and some magnets. We also did film canister rockets, but I didn't get pics. This
party was a lot of fun and the boys had a great time, but it was also a lot of work.

Below you can see some of the fun from Ben's family birthday event the night before the party.
1. Woohoo, this car is AWESOME.
2. Could hardly wait to get building with his new Lego's
3. Not sure who was more excited about this car, Ben or Jake : )
4. Thanks for the pogo stick Gma Ginny & Gpa Doug, he's up to 26 consecutive bounces
5. Cool Lego's with thanks to Gma & Gpa Reynolds
6. A challenging 3D dragon puzzle from Hannah
7. A cool card from sweet Miss Joy
8. Plenty of six year old fun, including a new watch so Ben can practice telling time (analog of course : )
9. Bakugon's, yes between us and his friends, he's gotten quite the collection

Ben was soooo excited for his birthday, almost as excited as I was to have him join our
family 6 years ago : ) He is a delight and he is mine. Love this boy!!