The Princess Tea Party

I really wanted to go ALL OUT for Lily's birthday party this year, but between her getting sick and my mom being here the week before and just sheer business of life, it didn't quite turn out how I wanted but she had a blast with all her friends and after said to me "Mom, can I have this same party next year?" So mission accomplished! I decorated with silk flowers I still have leftover from my flower clip making days.

For the craft we decorated these little white favor boxes for the girls to fill with treats and later put their treasures in

In the Favor bags we had: a fabric rosette hair clip, a little card from Lily, m&ms, little mini bottles of bubbles, a plastic bling ring, pink and white saltwater taffy, and a sparkly glitter lip gloss.

I had wanted to blow up all these old fashioned fancy lady pictures I have in a scrapbooking book, but due to the cost and time pinch I settled for just this one in an old frame from DI.
Before the party, Lily was getting ready in her room and dumped out the entire contents of her jewelry box to accesorize
Downstairs, it doesn't look like much, but it took me a very long time to clear out ALL the toys, and hang these white lights everywhere and these table runners from my wedding that I thought looked like they could be royal?
Lily picked out these paper cups and plates (I wanted to use real ones) at the dollar store and LOVED them because they had rainbows and unicorns on them. I had to keep telling myself this was HER party not mine :)
She was so excited while waiting for all her guests to arrive and was just running all over the house dancing.

The princess girls all posed in front of a backdrop for me when they first got there, and I got such cute pictures of them all except Lily and Ella.







Then came the DANCING

I turned on some disney songs, and HSM and they just went to town!




At the end they all joined hands in a circle and were just laughing and dancing until they all fell down and then repeated that over and over, maybe one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life!

The Tea party basically consisted of treats I never let her eat normally including: curly cheetos, oreo caksters, (grapes, PB&J butterfly shaped sandwiches I thought they needed something somewhat healthy) , and strawberry kiwi flavored soda.

They were so cute and polite and were killing me with their conversations about which princess they most resembled with their dresses and things like that!



We found these little wands (I think they were supposed to be a cake decoration or maybe a drink mixer?) and all the girls got one at their place setting. We sang happy birthday to her during the tea and have a video of it but its taking forever to load.
After the tea, the girls went upstairs and all helped Lily open her presents and then ran downstairs to play barbies until the mommies came to pick them up. It was so much fun and I am amazed at my beautifully charming four year old who was the perfect hostess! I love her so much and can't wait to see what this year will bring her (besides her self haircut she did about 3 weeks later, that blog post is coming)

Lessons Learned from today

1. If your child has not pooped in over a day, and you feed them treats all morning so they'll leave you alone while you clean and prepare for a baby shower, that child will have a major blowout poopie diaper and in my case proceed to smear it all over the stairs during said shower.

2. Paper garlands are my new favorite and least expensive way to decorate for a party!

3. Going on a walk with your kids will teach you a lot about their personalities and your patience. While attempting the 1/2 mile track by my house I realized: Lily is such a detail girl. She stopped to admire EVERY flower/grass/interesting leaf/bug in her path and then wanted to discuss which fairy or animal might use that piece of nature the most. Ella is slow but steady, she tried to balance herself on a little concrete ledge the whole time because she saw Lily do it for 5 seconds. She moves VERY SLOWLY and when she stops and looks around she gets distracted by watching what's going on. I am not that nice after walking for 15 minutes and only getting 1/3 of the way around the 1/2 mile.- I'm working on the patience, and finally just had the girls lay down in the grass with me to listen to birds because I figured the walk was not what was important but the JOURNEY was.

4. Ella is really trying out her new found independence and cracked me up so much today by saying, "I'll be right back Mom" only to walk around the corner and be by herself for a sec and then come right back.

5. DO NOT attempt to feed a goat through a hole in a chain link fence. The goat will get greedy for more grass and attempt to come through the hole, only to get stuck in the chain link, and as you are attempting to shove his horny head back through he will continue to try to keep coming out further. You get a freaked out mom, freaked out kids as their mom is telling them to get AWAY from the fence, and scratched and scraped hands from the pokey fence. LESSON LEARNED.

6. Lily is not in the phase of life where she takes responsibility for herself yet. She almost burned herself on my soldering iron today and fell at the park and bit her lip, and both times continuously made me feel bad because it was my fault. I tried to teach her that hurts can increase our learning and Heavenly Father wants us to learn from our mistakes. She kept repeating, "You shouldn't have let me do that mom"

7. Chad and I made Lily's night by both of us laying down by her. That is her favorite thing in the world to have someone lay by her at night and most nights it doesn't happen because I need some MOMMY time at night. So just tonight we surprised her with a Lily snuggle sandwich and she LOVED it and was out in 2 minutes, such a simple pleasure!

8. My friends are CRAFTY

9. I am exhausted!

Easter Morn

So Easer Morn brought a GIANT bunny, thanks to Gma and Gpa Harmon, and some treats. Because it was also General Conference we put little sticker and coloring books in the girls basket and an art set to keep them busy. After eating yummy cinnamon rolls, we just lounged around, then had a little easter egg hunt downstairs.

Butterfly Kite

My amazing aunt Diane, who my girls adore, got them a couple of cool butterfly kites that are HUGE!! We tried a few times to fly them but didnt have string long enough to get them up high, but they are still so fun, I am trying to figure out where I have the space to hang them because they are just magical!

Easter Egg Hunt Party (April)

Before the annual easter party the girls delighted me with some fun posey shots.
























So much fun, but oh so cold! I think Ella was happy to be bundled up in her stroller eating cookies most of the time, while Lil was happy to run around with her friends, decorate cookies, and get her face painted despite the chill.