Fairy Garden Party

This started out as a Fancy Tea Party. Then a Fairy Tea Party. Then the reality of trying to track down a fancy, inexpensive (or borrowed) tea set hit me and we decided on a Fairy Garden Party.

The Invitation:

After I took this picture, we hand wrote [Princess Sparkley] is 8! next to the fairy's wand, and I wrote Fairy Garden Party in fancy green cursive. Oh, and we glued on a purple rose above the white box.

The Set-up:

Idea from Family Fun here.
Canopy was PS's Christmas present from here for $16 or so.

Dressing-Up:

Skirt directions here (Tulle and ribbon from Michaels)
Wings (from Dollar Tree)
The fairy on the wings was under a dollar from Michaels and I hot glued it on to block out a striped bug body on the wings.


The flower peaking out of the goody bags are clipped to headbands (headbands from Dollar Tree 5 for $1, flower from an end cap at Michaels, $1)


Wand idea from here (flower from Dollar Tree)

The food:

PS loves treats as much as me and wanted to have a tiny food party. Here's the food we settled on.


Oreo Balls girled up.


Swirly Pink Cookies from here


Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups


Pretzel Wands


Toothpick Fruit Kabobs (idea from here)


Drink = June Bugs (found here)
Drink straw with Gummy Lifesaver decorations (idea from here)


Fairy Cakes (these weren't really any good. Make a yummy cupcake, cut it in half and add jam, frost with a powdered sugar/lemon glaze, add sprinkles)
Cake Plate - cheap version of this, only I wish I'd had more than one size plate.

The Birthday Girl:

Princess Sparkley turned 8 today!

The Guests:

I should have centered Princess Sparkley, she's on the left.


Buddy didn't get his own set of wings, this is towards the end of the party when PS had abandoned her wings.


Little Guy was also a guest. This is the only picture I seemed to get of him, moments before he ate all the candy corn off his sunflower cookie.

The activities:
I didn't really plan anything beyond eating, and opening presents. The party was an hour and a half. I let them get dressed up and play like they were fairies. After we opened presents, they played with the new presents some.


We did however make these Sunflower Cookies (idea from here) that I sent home with them in their goody bag.


And Princess Sparkley created a "Pin the Wand" on the fairy game.

The Goody Bag:

They of course got to keep their wings, wand and skirt. They also got a flowery pencil, a flower notebook (4 for $1 at Dollar Tree), a fairy beading necklace to make ($1 at Michaels), their sunflower cookie, an extra pretzel wand and I think that's it.



Overall, a success. Not counting food, I spent about $25 on the stuff to make the skirts, the wands, the wings and the stuff for the goody bags. The girls weren't so big on eating all the treats. I think Princess Sparkley was the only one that even tasted the fairy cake. But she requested it all, and I'm trying to be a good mom that doesn't plan every detail the way I want it. I suppose she is my daughter, and she's going to like treats more than the next person because of that.

Happy Birthday Princess Sparkley!!

My baby (okay, my FIRST baby) turns 8 today!!!

Somehow she went from this



to this

in the blink of an eye.


Happy Birthday
Princess Sparkley!!!

Princess Sparkley's Hair

I've been looking at hair blogs, trying to figure out how to do Princess Sparkley's hair for her baptism. I can't french braid, which seems the obvious choice. Any suggestions would be wonderful. Anyways, looking at all these fun blogs, I've been a bit more creative with her hairstyles lately. Here's today's church 'do:


Note, this is at the end of the night, 9 hours after I did it.

Fun Stuff To Do: Dress up like Mom and Dad

B told Princess Sparkley to come up with a list of fun, Sunday activities to do this evening. For some reason, top on that list was dress-up in Mommy and Daddy's clothes. Okay? And then B got out of it by having a Stake Priesthood Meeting. I let them pick two outfits, or this might have gone on forever. Here they are:



PS's aren't horrifically huge because she picked a dress and then a shirt, that had ties in back. And in the second picture, the skirt is pegged and tucked into the shorts she's wearing underneath. Buddy didn't even bother with Daddy's pants.

Airplanes

While I was getting dinner in the crock pot this morning, Buddy and Little Guy made themselves some airplanes.

Notice Buddy's army outfit. He likes to wear his army shirt with his army pajama pants and we pretend we can only see his head. He got army flip flops yesterday so he's been "hiding" his feet as well with this same outfit.

Swimming!!!

We've been at our pool a lot this summer and it has definitely paid off. Buddy can swim!!! And Princess Sparkley can almost swim. I've been desperately wanting to film them in the pool, but typically, I'm in the water with them. Yesterday (8/7/10), B was home in the afternoon so we went to the pool together and I filmed a little bit before I got in at first, and then again after the lifeguard break.


Little Guy's little jump and PS kick boarding.



We bought Little Guy this star float at Walmart for $2. It's make taking three kids to the pool so much easier. He won't let go of that thing, and kicks himself all over the pool.



After the first few seconds, I pan over to Buddy playing a game he's invented called Kabob.



I was too slow with the camera on this shot. Buddy requested that B throw him up out of the pool. This is after he's gone back under water.



I bought Princess Sparkley and Buddy goggles last summer hoping that would improve our swimming experience. Yesterday, we added a swim cap into the equation for PS. It's helped too. She was a little apprehensive about wearing it but we assured her that all serious swimmers in the Olympics wear swim caps. So she had B draw a lion fish on the side for her "swim team."


Here's Buddy swimming.




Little Guys' Big Jump




PS dunks her head. She's getting used to having her head/face in the water, and kicking with the kick board, and floating. About two weeks ago, Buddy was at this same stage and now he's a fish.



PS "jumps." This was the closest she came in two days of trying to get her to jump. Once we lined up PS, Buddy and Little Guy, counted to three and everyone jumped in but PS. Then I got out and jumped in with her and she STILL wouldn't jump in. So this "jump," was a huge step for her. Then the video continues and shows fearless Little Guy jumping in. We have to keep reminding him he has to wait for us to be ready before he can jump to us (or not to us, he doesn't care).




Little Guy kicks his way under the rope. You can hear him saying "I can't do it." But slowly, he kicked his way over to B and was super proud of himself when he got there.

Buddy swims, kabobs and floats. PS floats. (Let me know if this is a repeat video, I don't think I posted it in this post already.)

Gone to Fight Crime

I have these cute photo holders with pink flamingos on them (little known fact, I LOVE pink flamingos!). I decided to fill them with pictures of the kids in the summer time, hence, this picture of PS from two summers ago, I think. B found it shortly after I'd added a picture, with this note attached.


Note: Gone to fight crime. Love, [Princess Sparkley] and Sweetie (her new, Webkinz hamster)

The Most Amazing Hamster Tunnel

Buddy created this hamster tunnel for Princess Sparkley's new Webkinz Hamster, Sweetie.

Party Preview

This year is Princess Sparkley's year to NOT have a birthday party. But because this is the year she turns 8 and is baptized, and her baptism isn't happening until two weeks AFTER her birthday, I told her we could have a tiny party with just a couple friends. She invited one friend from church and one from our church homeschool group, and we're having a FAIRY GARDEN PARTY. I'll be sure to post pictures once it's over, but for now, here's the invite:

I Vote for No End to the Summer...

...as long as I also get a say in the temperature and humidity.


Princess Sparkley is about to turn eight! And be baptized.
She asked the other day if I thought she'd be able to read The Secret Garden on her own, but I still can't convince her to read the original Nancy Drew books because they are TOO SCARY!



Buddy can swim!! Only a few feet now, but by the end of the summer (especially if it is never ending) will be our first swimmer!! And he asks almost daily if it's time to sign up for soccer yet.



Little Guy's new favorite phrases are:
"Lana got coned!" (from The Princess Diaries movie, PS taught him to say it.)
"Suusssann!" (from Monsters vs. Aliens, said in a creepy slow voice)
"I a doggy named Caterpillar." (When he's playing he's a doggy, he tells us this.)


Tuesday, August 3 we went to Beverly Park in Alexandria with some friends from our homeschool group. It's a neighborhood park, and people DONATE all these toys that just stay at the park. Some of them were super expensive and new. My kids were so excited when we pulled up and they saw all these fun toys. Have you ever seen a park like this?


All the sand toys are part of the park.


As well as kid basketball hoops, and a huge variety of tricycles and ride-ons.

Puddles!

I ran into the grocery store the other night (it wasn't raining), with Buddy and Little Guy (who insisted on coming but once we got inside was freezing cold and insisting that I carry him). We grabbed the few items we needed, checked out, loaded our bag, and started to the exit. It was POURING down rain. Like, step outside and you're taking a shower kind of rain. B was nice enough to watch for us and was pulling up to the curb, but I still had to carry a heavy grocery bag, and a heavy 2 1/2 year old, open a car door and shove him in, followed by me and the bag. In that 30 seconds, we got DRENCHED! So we drove home and the kids were super excited to play in the pouring down rain, but by the time they got boots on, etc. It had stopped. Yet only a minute earlier, when we'd been making the trip from the car to our front door, it was still pouring. If only we'd stuck it out in the car a minute longer!

They still had some fun playing in the puddles!


Favorite Quote of the Day:
"I got water in my boot," said by Princess Sparkley. Followed by Little Guy saying, "I got water in my flip flop."

Buddy's New Blankey!

I FINALLY finished Buddy's blankey. And it was actually rather simple and very quick. I got out all the fabrics (8 of them) that he picked out and ironed them one night. I was planning on doing a rag quilt with 5 inch squares but was terrified of actually cutting out all those 5 inch squares and lining them all up right to make it look good. Then I had the brilliant idea (thanks to Etsy) to do strips instead. (This helped too.) The next day I cut each half yard into 6 inch by 41 inch strips and had Buddy help decide how we'd put them all together. I didn't know if the front and back should be identical, or if we should create basically two different quilts. He ended up liking the layout where all the orange fabrics were on one side. And I eliminated one fabric that was more babyish and knocked the Nascar fabric down to only one stripe. I'm sneaky like that. And I sewed it all together. Here's the final product!


The orange side is the frayed side, so I guess the front. I really like how it turned out.


The back.


Folded in half so you can see both sides at once.


Zoom in on the one corner. I eliminated one row of the Nascar fabric (because I didn't really like it, and didn't think it matched well) and added a row of street sign fabric (that I only had a little bit of) and a rectangle of scraps from Little Guy's blankey fabric (since what started this whole mess was Little Guy stealing Buddy's tiny blankey I made to replace the burp cloths that had always been his blankeys). And the white fabric with little cars on it next to the navy blue and white stripe, is some of the tiny scraps I have leftover from Buddy's original blankeys, two burp cloths I sewed for newborn Buddy. He still has those burp cloths, they are in his bed or under his bed or scrunched down in the toes of his bed, they just aren't AS important as they once were.


Happy Buddy!

On the Camera

Princess Sparkley is apparently training Little Guy on how to take care of babies.
We had a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book club (no one ended up being able to make it) and made Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle sugar cookies (PS added a flattened ball of dough to the top of our gingerbread lady to give Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle a bun) and Ann & Joan (sisters from one of the stories that fight all the time) sugar cookies.



Princess Sparkley and Buddy created Lego Springs Mall and Polly Pocket Mall on my book shelves.



While I was sewing Buddy his new blankey, Princess Sparkley orchestrated the First Family Horse Race. Here are the kids with their "horses." Little Guy came in first (hence the trophy) and PS was nice enough to let Buddy come in 2nd. Somehow (probably because she was behind the camera) she failed to get a picture of her with her third place Post-It.

Swimming Pictures from the Cell Phone Camera

The townhome we rent is part of a giant apartment complex with a pool and a kid pool. We've been taking huge advantage of this over the summer.

Little Guy

A few weeks ago, Princess Sparkley and Little Guy came to the mall with my to shop for me summer clothes with my birthday money. Little Guy fell asleep in H&M and started sort of waking up. Then he got his hands all folded together like he was praying and put them under his head like a pillow. So cute!

The Cutest Little Runner

One of my goals for the year is to be able to run a mile without stopping. I haven't run since... maybe before Princess Sparkley was born, EIGHT years ago. I could be wrong. But, whenever it was, it's been a long time. B runs. He ran track and cross country in high school. For his exercise he runs or swims. We've been trying to exercise as a family so we go to our neighborhood junior high school's track (not nearly as frequently as we should) and I walk laps, B runs, and the kids walk a few, run a bit and kick a soccer ball around the middle of the track when they get bored. Usually I push Little Guy around and around in the stroller, then convince one of the bigger kids to push him while I run a bit. Lately Little Guy's been begging to get out and run as well... so after a few laps, I let him. He's such a cute little runner I had to capture his picture with my cell phone camera.






As he approached these trees ahead of him, I caught up with him and heard him say, "Not get me birdies" and he scooted in toward the inside lane. So dang cute!