FEBRUARY 26th! Kayli Hosts a Royal Tea Party to Celebrate Her 6th Birthday!

What would be the perfect birthday party for a "princess- loving- sparkle- and- glitter- girl"? Well, a royal tea party with her kindergarten princess pals! Yep, Kayli invited her friends to come dressed in their favorite royal attire to celebrate her 6th birthday...and we had soooo much fun!!!

Thanks, Linsey, for helping me keep my sanity when the party reached it's peak level of excitement!!! Lily was one of the best behaved little princess at the party, as she just followed along with all the "big girls"!

Everyone got to make a royal necklace...

There were lots of presents for the birthday girl...

Some of the bags were almost as BIG as the birthday girl!

So, my comedian just couldn't resist diving into the big bag while reaching for the gift inside...

Sometimes it got a little crazy as the girls clamored to see the presents Kayli was opening...

  Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday, while Kayli tried to think of a really good wish...

and blow out the candles...

We all ate cupcakes and icecream, then decided to play Kayli's new CD, which was a "Happy Birthday" Princess CD, with greetings and songs from all the D*isney Princesses that used Kayli's name as they sang the songs. There was a really great Happy Birthday song that the girls had a great time dancing to...

they were just too cute, and funny, and WOUND UP, after the dancing, and then some free play in the basement! We really didn't anticipate going through the activities so quickly, and having this extra "free play" time left, and, well, lets just say that the energy level in this house was a little escalated, soooo...Linsey said "Let's put a princess movie on for them to watch and help calm everyone down by the time their moms start to arrive." GREAT IDEA, Linsey! So that's exactly what we did, and it worked like a charm...

It was a memorable event for my little princess, and hopefully for all her friends too...

So, Can You Guess What Movies We're Watching?

Oh yeah, she really wishes she had a REAL surf board!

She's the queen of the waaaaave! Surfin' Barbie in a Mermaid Tale! We've checked this out at the library about 100 times!!!

Now, I know you can guess this one...

My Sleeping Beauty...

The other night I had taken out some books for Kayli to choose for me to read to her at bedtime. She carefully looked through them and pulled out the Cinderella book, saying, "Mom, we better not read Cinderella because you know it will just make me want to put on my Cinderella dress!" Yep, she's right, I thought, as I laughed out loud at the fact that she knows herself so well!

Valentines Day...Sweet From Start to Finish

Kayli and I just love a good celebration! We just finished celebrating the Chinese New Year, and now it's on to Valentine's Day! I let Kayli secretly pick out a card for me while we were at the store. She was thrilled with her choice and couldn't wait to write something inside the card, hard to believe my sweet pea is writing now...

I, of course, had some special valentine candy and trinkets for her. She's so easy to please! The next day, we both wore our red clothes and Valentine jewelry to school. Kayli had decorated a Valentine mailbox for the school party, and it was stuffed full of candy and valentines by the end of the day! I got to check out the classroom party, which was in full swing when I got there. The kids were up to their elbows in glue, hearts, and red paint, as they completed a Totally Fabulous Valentine gift for their parents...

The picture below just cracks me up... It's so typical of a kindergartner who has been immersed in playing and working, to the point that her skirt has worked it's way around her body and is now completely on backwards. Hmm, looks cute either way...

Washing hands, or science...Red paint turns pink when mixed with white soap...COOL!

 There were games to play, of course...

and yummy snacks...

and laughing with friends...

and sharing...

And at the end of the day, a sweet gift for me to hang proudly on the fridge!

My Sweet Valentine!

Oh Yeah, It's a Blizzard!

Kayli says "Wow, Mom, it sure is foggy out!" Well, not exactly, Kayli, this is what we call a blizzard. Kayli was dying to get out and check this out, so I decided we would take a walk to the mailbox on our corner. The snow was blowing at us so hard that we couldn't see where we were going. Made me think about the "Little House on the Prairie" stories! Kayli "tried" to play, but quickly announced "This is not good playin' weather, Mom, it's hurting my eyes." Today was definitely a day to stay inside and watch it snow, and snow, and snow, and...

and wonder just how much snow we'd end up with. The snow drifts were looking pretty awesome! We already knew that we'd have another day off, so we'd have plenty of time to play in this when the snow stopped falling! By morning, the sun was shining, and the clean white snow drifts were calling to us! (Lucky for me, I had several offers from neighbors to clear my driveway for me! Woohoo! More time to play!) Kayli climbed to the top of the "mountain" at the foot of our driveway and yelled to our neighbor "Hey, look at me!"  He waved back, laughing.

then we decided to make our own mini-sledding hill...

after a few more "sled runs", on our mini-mountain, we decided to head around to the backyard to check out the fun to be had back there...

I still can't believe how much snow we got, but we loved the days off, and we loved the beautiful, sunny day we had to play in the snow!