Princess Tea Party

My little Lacey turns 5 tomorrow! In years past, we've just had a family party and she's been thrilled. But this year, my little social butterfly really wanted a "friend" party and wanted to invite every single person she knew!

We decided to have a "Princess Tea Party" and Lacey lowered her list down from about 50 to these six princesses. We sent out invitations asking each girl to wear their favorite princess or party dress.

We served lunch and this was the serving table. We had jars of candy filled with purple, pink and red candy (her favorite colors) and served sandwiches in the shapes of hearts (to the left) and princess crowns (to the right).

And we also served fruit kabobs that we made to look like a princess wand.

Her cake

Eating at "tea time." I used an actual china set for each girl (and luckily we didn't have any mis-haps!) and they loved eating all their princess food!

After "tea", we divided into two groups. One group started at the Cake Decorating station where we had a 3-tiered cake they got to frost and decorate however they wanted.

The other group started at the Nail Salon. Thank you to my two nieces who served as our manicurists!

Showing off their beautiful nails!

Then we played a fun princess game. We basically played "Hot Potato" princess tea party style! Each girl got a spoon and passed a heart-shaped candy from one spoon to the next and we used princess music. Very fun - they loved it!

Next, we opened gifts and then ate cake and ice cream. And what cake did we eat? The ones they decorated of course!

To take home, I ordered china tea cups and saucers from e-bay and filled them with candy.

5 things I love about my Lacey:

1. On a relatively frequent basis, she'll walk in to our room some time in the wee hours of the morning and say, "Can I snuggle with you?"

2. She is so friendly and social. She'll walk right up to a complete stranger and say, "Hi! I'm Lacey!"

3. She is so sweet and loving. Every time one of us leaves the house, she'll call out after us. We'll turn around and she just hold her arms out in front of her making a circle like she is hugging us and then she blows a kiss. Then she waits for us to do it back.

4. She is a people-pleaser. She just wants to make you happy and is always so excited to show you every project she has made.

5. She's a Daddy's Girl. You may wonder why I am listing this as one of the things I love the very most about Lacey. To be honest, there are definitely times when I wish she cuddled up to me as much as she does with her Daddy, but there is just something so sweet about how much she looks up to her Dad. She absolutely adores him.

I can't believe we have hit the half-decade mark! Lacey, I am so grateful you are my little girl. I love you a hundred million!!

She's Walking!

Riley Jane is 14 months old today. She has grown so much in the last month! The biggest change is that one month ago today, she wasn't showing any signs of wanting to walk and now.... she's walking! She started took her first step ~2 weeks ago and each day she seems to walk a little bit more and crawl a little bit less. As of now, she is still crawling probably 50% of the time and that makes me happy. Any baby-ness of her I can preserve, I want to for as long as possible. She also learned how to crawl down the stairs safely a few days ago and that, I am very happy about! She "talks" all the time but doesn't say many actual words. She did, however, finally say "mama" :)

Riley's favorite things:

• Giving high-fives
• Clapping
• Tilting her head to one side, resting her head on her shoulder. She loves to do this and then watch you do it and go back and forth like that
• Shake her head back and forth (like saying "no") really fast and then, like the head tilt, watching you do it and then doing it again. I prefer the head tilt because this one makes me dizzy!
• Blueberries! She can down a whole pint, no problem!
• Pasta
• Being held
• Going for walks in her stroller
• A good sleeper: Goes down about 6:30 every night and will usually sleep until at least 7am.
• Has pretty much given up her morning nap, but will usually go down about 11:30 and sleep for 2-3 hours.

We love you Riley and are so glad you are in our family! And I hope you stay my baby forever!

Eggnog Challenge

On our way home from the Eggnog Challenge completely sick to our stomachs and freezing cold, Dave turned to me and said "Do you realize that Kim and Pete can come up with the a totally crazy idea and Kim gives us a huge smile as she pitches her idea and we just find ourselves saying "Ok!" It's so true! Kim and Pete are two of our closest friends and they are always up for an adventure (they are also the ones who put our Ragnar team together, also the ones we went whitewater rafting with, etc, etc). And thus, our participation in the Eggnog Challenge!

The flag girls (Lacey on the right) and boy (Tanner, second from left)

On your marks, get set, Go!!

And here is Kim (smiling as she does it!) about to puke her guts out after Round 10. I videotaped her puking about 7 times. It was pretty funny.

What is an Eggnog Challenge, you ask? Well, you go outside in the 30's and windy. Then you down a glass of eggnog. Then you run a quarter mile, drink another glass, run another quarter mile, etc. The rules are: 1) If you walk, you're out. 2) If you puke, you're out 3) You can choose to quit.

Well, I made it 7 rounds and chose Option 3. I wanted to stop before I started puking. My friend Kim (the last female standing) was determined to keep going until puking forced her out. It did after Round 10. For the record, Dave made it 13 Rounds! He made it to the Final Four. The Winner made it 19 Rounds!!! And then the last 3 guys spent about 10 minutes puking their guts out. What sounds fun about running in the freezing cold, drinking eggnog (disgusting in my opinion - I had to force it down) and doing it until you puke? Well, nothing necessarily "sounds" fun about it, but trust me, it was.

Happy New Year!

If it looks like there are a lot of kids here, well that's because there are 12 of them to be exact :) Instead of putting our kids to bed and watching TV like we've done in years past, we decided to have a big party and celebrate with our kids - and invite other people over that are in the same boat. Might as well celebrate together! So, we invited over a few families and we set back all the clocks in the house by 4 hours. In other words, our party went from 6-8pm :) We ordered pizzas and we rented two movies. We got one movie for the "older" kids that we put on the Family Room TV and another movie for the "younger" kids we put on the basement TV. We popped popcorn and let the kids watch movies and play while the adults visited. And then, at "11:50" (7:50), we told everyone to put on their shoes and we all ran outside for the big celebration....

Happy New Year!!!!! We had glow-sticks, silly string, noise makers, crowns/hats and we watched the ball drop (on You-tube on an iPhone). It was Fabulous!!! The kids LOVED it and the adults loved it just as much! Then, everyone left to get their kids tucked in bed and yet we all still had fun ringing in the New Year! Hear's hoping 2012 is a year of health and happiness to all of you!