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| I love how Ella feels the need to stand on a stool if she was president! |
Ella brought this book home she made in kindergarten titled “If I were president…” On each page was a different thing she would do if she was president. The last page (above) melted my heart!
On Saturday night, the girls went with James to a daddy/daughter(s) dance (held at a local church)! The girls had a great time having a tea party, dancing the night away, and there was even a carriage ride at the end!
I let James take my old camera so the girls could take turns taking pictures of each other! I was pretty impressed with how the pictures turned out (my little budding photographers)!
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| safe in daddy’s hands |
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| a strong man to look up to |
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| only he can make her smile this big |
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| down on one knee! |
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The best pictures, though, were those that James took of the girls “interpretative” dancing(?)
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| these sisters love to dance! |
Here is the carriage that they rode in at the end of the night. Unfortunately, their picture in the carriage didn’t turn out, so James took this of random people.
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Is this Rapunzel’s horse? (check out the braid!)
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Today my girls had their Valentine parties at school (school policy: parties are only to be held on Fridays). I had to drag Asher around the school “party hopping.” You would think he would love all the goodies and juice boxes he gets (not to mention the attention!), but no, this boy does NOT like to go to his sisters’ events! This picture is very telling of how Asher felt about being at school for 2 hours this afternoon…
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Rilyn’s party:
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| Rilyn’s starting to get embarrassed of all the pictures I take… |
At Ella’s party, the teacher wouldn’t let them “read” their Valentines until they got home (think of 22 kindergartners opening 22 pieces of paper each…ugh). This is Ella opening her cards at home and relishing each one…
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| Yes, I will be your Valentine! |
Asher: He drew his first family portrait today. Of course I had to bribe him with a piece of candy, but he did it! 🙂 You can see he did draw five faces. I’m not sure when he will decide that bodies are important. 🙂 This boy loves letters and numbers! He knows all of them, upper and lower case, and about half of his sounds, but writing/drawing?!? No way, not for him!!!
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| Asher’s first family portrait-3.9 years old |
Ella: Her teacher’s aide came up to me yesterday when I was at school volunteering and told me that Ella made her day when she told her, “I don’t believe in luck, only blessings.” 🙂
Here is Ella’s first “book report” in kindergarten. At least she’s honest! 🙂
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| “Because it was short and it was boring.” |
Rilyn: She wrote us a chore list recently because she wants to save money to help buy an iPad for her birthday in June. (I guess 8 year olds have iPads these days!) Anyway, so she wants a regular weekly allowance, (currently we pay her by the chore.) We decided that we would pay her $7 a week because she is 7 and we told her to write down some chores that would be good for her to do each week. This is what she gave us: (of course my favorite is #8!) 😉
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Ella lost her third tooth today! She stayed home from school not feeling great, and that gave us, (it was a team effort), ample time to twist, yank, and pull her top tooth out! She is our child with the highest pain tolerance, and enjoys the process of losing a tooth! It had been pretty loose for a few weeks, but I kept telling her to give it time. Today, though, she wanted it out!
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| so proud |
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| putting her tongue through the new gap! |
playing Barbie and the Three Musketeers!
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| Ella in the purple, Anna in the blue, a friend from school in the white, and Rilyn in the light blue! |
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| love Rilyn’s sword jig |
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| fighting with ribbon! Take that! |
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| Welcome to my party! |
The decoration above actually came about because as I was opening Ella’s Barbie Rapunzel tower from the box, I noticed that the packing material they used looked like Rapunzel’s hair. But I thought, it’s brown so I can’t use it. Then I remembered the 90 foot gold ribbon I bought last year for Ella’s golden birthday and thought I could wrap it around and make it look more yellow and like it was in a braid! 🙂 I thought it turned out pretty cute!
My mother in law and sister in law made this beautiful 17 foot Rapunzel tower for the backyard! I was completely surprised at how elaborate it came out!! They are so talented! If you are interested in something so elaborate or crafty for your next special event, please visit my sister in law’s etsy store and message her and I promise she can make it happen!
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And this is Ella when we let her see the tower for the first time!
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| wow!!!! |
My sister in law also made this beautiful table centerpiece!
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My best friend, Jen, discovered she has a cupcake decorating passion and did these beautiful Rapunzel tower cupcakes for me that we found on Pinterest! All the directions are here.
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For the “pin the frying pan on Flynn” game, I printed these pans and just drew Flynn myself on poster board using Google images of the wanted poster from the movie. (Growing up, I used to draw all my siblings “pin the tail” game posters, so I really enjoy it!)
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To see all the party games, etc. from this party, click here.
We had Ella’s 6th birthday party yesterday, and I must say that it was the best birthday party we have ever thrown! It took a lot of help though from friends and family, but with all of us working together, we made it over the top special! I will put a post up tomorrow on all the decorations used, because they were so extravagant, and I have many people to thank for that!
James put his video talents to use and made a 2 minute montage video of Ella’s party! It’s really cute!
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| the cupcakes were Rapunzel towers! |
The first activity we did (while the princesses were arriving) was “decorate your own Rapunzel braid with fun foam flowers”! I made all these braids with yellow yarn. Super easy, but if you want to do it, I would suggest starting several weeks in advance as it is time consuming. I started in November, so I could make one a night in my free time!
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| decorating their braids! |
Ella’s braid was the longest because she was the birthday girl! We attached the braids with bobby pins and a rubber band, but you could use anything.
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| fancy! |
After all the princesses arrived, we made them close their eyes and walk to the backyard to unveil the tower!
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| wow! |
And who was in the tower, but the birthday girl Ella!
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Next, we had each girl paint a small paper lantern with their own set of watercolors (given as party favors)!
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During that time, we let each girl “climb the tower” (or walk upstairs!) and get a picture in the tower window with the long hair (which were 5 plastic yellow tablecloths taped together that I bought at the dollar store.)
After they painted their lanterns, we played a Tangled game where each girl got a partner and they had to tangle their partner in yellow crepe paper in the allotted time! The judges decided which girl was the most Tangled and then they switched and let the other partner get Tangled!
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| I think Rilyn was letting out some sister frustration here! 🙂 |
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| all Tangled up! |
The next game we played was “Pin the Pan on Flynn’s nose”!
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Then it was time for cupcakes! I bought a sparkler instead of candles for the first time and I think Ella was surprised, don’t you?
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| what is this? |
She tried to blow it out, but sparklers don’t “blow” out! 🙂
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“Just hold it and watch the sparks” we told her…she looked a little nervous though!
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| am I going to get burned?!? |
Enjoying the treats!
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Then it was present time! I think Ella liked getting a Flynn doll!
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And the last game we played was “throw Pascal into the frying pan”. I bought a 10 pack of sticky lizards and made the girls stand behind a line to see how many each girl could throw into the pan.
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| I guess it was a pretty exciting game from Cinderella’s face! Do you see the blue Pascal flying through the air? |
During the afternoon on Ella’s birthday I brought her Sonic for lunch at school, and brought cookies to her class.
In the evening, we let her pick one friend, Anna, and we took them to Gattiland for dinner!
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| I’m six! |
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| whooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! |
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| They were all finally tall enough to drive bumper cars! This was their favorite by far! |
This next picture concerns me, because if I wasn’t so busy trying to get a good picture, I would of realized what a dangerous situation having that baby in the carrier so close to the crazy bowler next door! Ella’s balls were flying everywhere! Thank goodness, no one got hurt!
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| daddy helps Ella score big points! |
Ella was the “score keeper” for Rilyn and Anna. She loved cheering them on!
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After Gattiland, we went home to open her “big present”. (Can you tell I like to spread the birthday fun through the whole day?)
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This was an empty box. We had set it up upstairs so I told Ella wait until I got upstairs and then she could come up and see her new Tangled Barbie tower!
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| wow! |
Who knew that Rilyn would be even more excited than Ella?!? Having sisters close in age means their presents are your presents too!
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| YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| love the clip on hair extension for Rapunzel Barbie! |
The tower opens up to reveal three rooms to play in.
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| play time! |
Can’t wait for Ella’s Tangled party!!
We always start our children’s birthdays with waking them up holding a birthday donut/kolache lit up with candles and singing to them! Ella’s birthday was on a school day so it was too early for her to wake up!
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| trying to wake up…! |
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| still trying… |
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| blowing out her six candles! |
Then our kids get to bust through lots of crepe paper to get to the kitchen to eat their breakfast treat!
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At breakfast, the kids get to read their birthday cards from me and James and open a couple presents. I don’t remember when, but somehow, (I just can’t imagine why?!?) James and I turned making homemade birthday cards for our kids into a competition. This year, I’m pretty sure I won. 😉 I might have spent some extra time on the crafting blogs and found a super fun idea! So, here are our cards…(mine is the super cute one…okay, they are both cute, but mine is the bigger one and bigger is always better, right?!) We both chose Tangled cards because Ella will be having a Tangled party on Saturday!
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Now here is why mine is so fun: I found this blog where it showed how to make a “scratch off card”. So easy too! I made the windows on the tower scratch-offs for Ella to use a coin and see who is in each window!
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| scratching, scratching, scratching… |
Look who is in the tower!
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| “I love mommy’s card best!” jk, she didn’t say that, but she might of been thinking it. 😉 |
Ella with one of her presents!
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| here’s to hoping I didn’t just give Ella a future of cavities! |
the paquettes 
