Rainbow Cake- Picture Story....

Six going on Sixteen.

Really- why does my dear, sweet, loving, little daughter have an attitude that makes me sometimes want to send her across the room? I wish I were kidding.  She was in tears today, her birthday because Mommy (ME) yelled at her on her birthday. She thought that since it was her birthday, that she could not, should not get in trouble, for anything!  I guess I remember that statute from when I was little, but at least it was in my head.  I stood my ground and insisted on respect and nice treatment of others all day, including her brother. 

Lars was the point of contention today.  She actually argued with me this morning about how she did not want to be nice to him.  She agreed to be nice to everyone else but she chose to stand her ground on this point (Lars) - wanting to be able to hit or kick her brother whenever she feels like it. Argh.

We did work through this, then on with the birthday experience.  Her day began with heart shaped pancakes by her daddy.  Then when her brother woke up he brought her present to her.  She loved the hamster and gerbils Little Pet Shop.  Awwww.  Then we were on to run a few errands and went to see Jess.  There Ella received more LPS- a whole container of pets and a circus!   Seriously more than any child needs in a lifetime.


Then we were onto lunch at the Hilltop with Daddy.  Ella and Lars played with the pool balls and watched Daddy play video games at our favorite local bar.  The lunch was surprisingly good!  I recommend giving it  ago.  The choclate chip cookies following the lunch (2 for a dollar) are always a huge hit! 





 




Next we went to gather up our pool stuff to go swimming at City Pool.  Lars was an absolute fish and doggy paddling underwater with his daddy.  Ella's friends came and Natalie, Chloe and Morgan all had a great time playing and splashing Daddy. I wish I had pictures of the four girls as the jumped into the pool in unison.  They really were just adorable and having so much fun together. Then the rain came. After about 1 1/2 hours the sprinkles turned to a downpour.  My plan was to head to a nearby shelter, but the girls looked at me like I was crazy. I began to agree with them as the rain showed no sign of sying off.  So we decided to take the party to our house where we could actually dry off.  We headed back and Vonn and his mother joined us.  The kids played some more and we ate pizza and sang and had Yummy's cupcakes.  Ella was exhausted by the end and I think it was a day of fun!  The rain added to our excitement and craziness but we all dried off and the kids screamed and enjoyed the running and fun of it all!

 I love the face and the movement in this birthday picture!

Ella's Fairy Tea BIrthday Party

If you think you want to know how to throw a fairy tea you need these essential items:

• wooded locale
• several children dressed up as fairies (princesses will do in a pinch)
  
• craft kit to make petal fairies from florist wire & beads
  
• tent with flowery walls
• plenty of rugs & pillows to sit on
• low table adorned with pretty tablecloth and dishes- need not match
• sweet jam cut out sandwiches
• cookies from De'luxe bakery
• mini cupcakes & cake with magic pudding filling
• lots of nature to choose from to make more fairy items
• imagination of several 3 & 5 year olds to play fairies for more than an hour!
• friends to hang out and watch the girls have a magical afternoon
  

Cute Ideas

I recently went to a great birthday party and was shown some of the cutest crafts for a birthday girl or guy. I have seen crowns similar on Amanda Soule's blog, but the detachable ladybugs are an idea I love for changing it for different themes or for fun playing! I have seen beautiful triangle flags on Secret Agent Josephine as well...so I hope for some this summer for Lars & Ella. Would anyone else like to place an order???

Three: Happy Birthday to me!

I am three! Such a cutie pie here!

Strawberry pancakes for breakfast was the beginning of his day.
The celebration seemed to go on and on!

First candle in my pancakes!

Opening presents with Nana and Papa on Sunday after we went to the
Children's Museum for some fun!

Ice Cream with Nana- yum!

Birthday dinner at Culver's with Grandpa.

Cheese!

When we got home from dinner there were presents from Karin awaiting Lars.
Oh happy dino balls and "rawr" dino!

Alice joins in to sing Happy Birthday after dinner!

Blowing out three candles.

Happy Birthday my sweet baby boy!

Pingg Perfect

A dreamy design from Pingg

I was reminded how much I love invitations in a prior post. I did forgo the paper invite this year and I used a website Pingg to create an track the invites for the recent birthday party. It is a free website and they have some of the best designs I have found. I like this site way more than "evites". I think they have way more options that you could take advantage of as well. You can add pictures and video as well.

Some of the cool things this site does is it tracks who has viewed your invite and it allows you to take a quick guest count. You can also connect to other apps like Facebook. You can also send out a reminder and thank yous using the same website. I think it was convienient and near everyone responded through email. I still insist I love paper invites but this was SOOO easy and did I say FREE??

Check out some of the beautiful designs I chose that you can choose from:

Lars- Two

We are now officially one week from Lars birthday. He is sitting next to me singing the theme song to Max and Ruby and hitting his sister. I am pretty sure he just wet his diaper in his refusal to use the potty for the day.

Above are pictures of his 2nd birthday party where we painted and made playdough. I called it his "Messy Party". The invites were adorable and we had a few neighbors over and it was loads of fun. Now - it really is a relief to have the party over for this year. I think we may do something small with grandparents next week.

I had to put this on on too. It is one of my favorites of all time. He was 2 and woke up with a faux hawk. His face reads why are you doing this to me?