Avery's 8th Birthday

Avery turned 8 this year and we decided to hold her birthday party on the Friday before her birthday. After Camryn's Frozen Party I was so worn out from the party that I felt like we didn't have that fun of a day besides the party so I wanted Avery's birthday to be a nice low key day. Here's the birthday girl. Did you notice she chopped her hair? Apparently it's the cool thing to do for a 7 and 8 year old girl.

We had swimming lessons in the morning and then stayed late to do some extra swimming in the pool, then we headed to the zoo. Avery loves meerkats so they are always fun to check out.

Do you get to pet kangaroos at your zoo? Well, we do. It's awesome. One of my favorite parts of our zoo.

After the zoo we met up with Dad for dinner at an Asian restaurant. Avery had been requesting sushi on her birthday. She's her father's daughter that's for sure! Crazy girl. 

After making all those cupcakes for her party a few days earlier, I wasn't about to make her another cake for her real birthday. But Merrick and Avery decided we needed something so we stopped at Ivey's Cupcakes after dinner and picked up 6 mini cupcakes. They were really, really yummy and we each got to pick our own flavor. Yum!

Avery had a great day and we can't believe we have an 8 year old now!

Cupcake Decorating Party

In our family we have a tradition that for your even year birthdays you get a friends party and odd years you have a family party. Avery turned 8 this year so it was her turn for another friends party. I tried to keep this one low key because I was still pretty worn out from Camryn's Frozen party but I ended up doing quite a bit of crafting in the end.

We decided on a theme of a Cupcake Decorating Party. It was a perfect mix of crafting and baking, which are two things Avery loves. I just found invitations at Target and they came with matching Thank You cards so that worked for me!

A lot of the printables I used and ideas I got can be found on my Pinterest Board. I found this cute happy birthday banner that had cupcakes on it I just printed off.

I set up my dining room table with a purple plastic tablecloth and pink and purple streamers from the Dollar Store. Then I made three boxes of cake mix into cupcakes - strawberry, chocolate and vanilla (I always prefer Duncan Hines brand). We set them up in the middle of the table and set out personalized cupcake placemats I made up.

I made the placemats in Word, printed them off on white cardstock, and Laminated them. I think they turned out cute and the girls were able to take them home as a party favor. 

Then I bought a bunch of cupcake toppings and set them out on my long buffet table. Mini M&Ms, mini reese's cups, gummi bears, mini chococlate chips, maraschino cherries, and 5 different types of sprinkles. I also prepared several piping bags with frosting in them. I made up a chocolate frosting and a vanilla buttercream that I tinted pink, purple, yellow, and blue. 

In my front room I hung a Cupcake pinata that I got from Party City (they had the same one at Hobby Lobby too). I liked that it had the pull string method. I know these girls can hit a pinata but I didn't have a great sturdy place to hang one so this worked fine.  

I set up a coloring station for the kids as they arrived. This is my go-to arrival activity for parties. I printed off some free cupcake coloring pages and they had fun coloring with crayons and markers. 

Then when they finished up with their coloring pages, I had them start decorating a plain white canvas apron I got from Walmart. I had them draw on them with fabric markers and they all had fun spreading out and designing their own aprons. 

The next craft was decorating these paper chef hats I made. In all it took me about an hour and a half to make up those 11 hats. I cut up cheap white posterboard into long strips about three inches tall, then made the puffy part with 2 pieces of white tissue paper folded and pleated and taped. They weren't perfect but they worked just fine!

They put their name on their hats with sticker letters, added a cupcake sticker, and then we made flowers to adorn the hats with coffee filters, regular cupcake wrappers, and mini cupcake wrappers. It was a quick easy craft that worked out pretty nicely.

Here they are all dressed up in their aprons and chef hats, haha. So cute. 

Next we moved into the dining room and started the main event - cupcake decorating! They each got to decorate seven cupcakes - six to bring home in a little plastic cupcake holder (I got those at the bakery at Publix for 50 cents each), and one to eat. They had a fabulous time making their own creations. 

Then we had snack time. I let them choose one cupcake to eat and we packed the other six they made up. I also made some snacks that were cupcake themed. Little clear plastic cups with popcorn cupcake holders taped to the outside held popcorn, and little plastic cups with colored cupcake holders taped outside held mixed fruit. I also found some free cupcake themed waterbottle wrappers I stuck on mini waterbottles. (Side note - We held the party from 2-4pm so this was just meant to be a light snack. If you wanted to make it a full lunch you could get a cookie cutter shaped like a cupcake to make sandwiches, or even turn it into a full on baking party and have them decorate their own mini pizzas.)

We then played a Sweet Shoppe themed Bingo Game I found here and the kids used M&M's and Skittles for their bingo card markers. Then we did the Cupcake Pinata. Here they all are trying to get their candy. Apparently Lily was in the back, not sure what was happening haha!

We took some pictures all dressed up.

Then Avery opened presents and it was about time for the girls to go home. They each went home with an apron, a chef hat, a placemat, a coloring page, and a 6 pack of cupcakes to take home and share with their families. 

I thought it turned out great and the kids were all smiling ear to ear. I felt a little rushed getting things ready so if I had had just a few hours more time to prepare I would have made a cupcake garland like this and probably made a few tissue paper poms to hang down from the dining room light fixture. But oh well, that would have been just for my own enjoyment. The girls had fun without them. 

I'm very glad that Lily is turning THREE this month and I won't have to do a big friends party for her until next year. These parties are sure a lot of work! :) But Avery did write me a sweet thank you note with one of her extras and that made me really happy and proud to be her mother.

Cousin Time

My sister Britney and I have been "taking turns" having kids all these years. It's just worked out that way. She recently had her 4th - Baby Thomas - and my kids were excited to meet him as well as see their other cousins they love.

They were here Saturday night - Wednesday morning. Sunday was our first full day and they went to church with us in the morning. The kids did great going to classes together.

It was Father's Day so we did a few little things to make the Dads feel special. I found these cool free prints I had made on Engineering Paper at Staples (they were big and only $3 each) and I had each set of kids write about their dads on them.

Then in the evening we took them on a hike through our neighborhood trails. Isn't it wonderful how well they all get along?

Monday we took a stroll through Downtown Nashville. I found a great place to park for us - it was across the river in one of the free parking lots of the Tennessee Titans Stadium. There was a great walking bridge we strolled across and got some great views of downtown.

We tried on boots at the store that does Buy 1 Pair, Get 2 Free, we sampled some candy at Savannah's Candy Kitchen, and ate a yummy BBQ lunch at Jack's BBQ. Then we headed back home and did some swimming in our neighborhood pool. The kids had a blast. 

Here's little Thomas, 4 months old, and he was the best baby ever. So mellow and sweet the whole time. 

I borrowed a corn hole set from one of my neighbors and we had a great time tossing beanbags in the evenings. It was really hot when they were here so the evenings were the best time to be outside. 

Tuesday we went shopping at the mall and they used our discount at Journeys Shoes and Lids. :) We also stopped for some yummy froyo at Sweet Cece's and then finished off the day swimming again at the pool. We had a great time and are so grateful that they made the trip out from Iowa!

Hello Houston!

Memorial Day weekend we took a road trip to Houston, TX to visit my parents. We hadn't been back since the previous Memorial Day and in the meantime my parents bought a gorgeous new house so we were excited to visit again and see their new place. We had a great time! My brother was also living with them at the time so it was great to see Jordan there too.

On our drive down we always seem to stop at Raising Kane's for their awesome chicken tenders.

My parents home is on a golf course so of course the men got to go golfing one day.

The girls went shopping at the mall. My mom spoiled them with a few outfits and some books from Barnes and Noble. They were in heaven! Then we went to check out their neighborhood Memorial Day BBQ. It was at their pool and we had fun splashing around with our kiddos. Our own neighborhood pool hadn't opened quite yet so my kids had been excited to do some swimming!

Thanks to Jordan for all the pics! I was so busy having fun this trip I didn't think to take any pics of the rest of our fun.

But we had a great time eating out at some great restaurants, going to movies (the kids saw the new Wizard of Oz with their grandparents and Merrick and I saw the new XMen with Jordan), playing baseball in their backyard, playing clue, and hanging out with our family. Thanks Mom and Dad for the great visit! We hope to be back again soon!

Last Day of School

In Tennessee, the kids get out of school way early- like May 21st. It all seems great until they go back to school super early too - August 8th this year! Yikes! That means our summer is over halfway over by now. So here is a quick recap of the Last Day of School.

Camryn's teacher made up a CD of all the pictures of Camryn she took this school year. Here she is with a few of her besties. 

And we'll never forget "Kamryn with a K" as they called her. Our girl was called "Camryn with a C", haha. At the end of the year I guess they started calling each other Camy and Kami a little but it was definitely interesting to have a double name for the first time!

Here's Camryn with her teacher, Mrs. Dawson, on the day they did their Kindergarten Program, all dressed up. We sure loved that teacher!

Camryn's friend Kayla came and rode the bus with Camryn every day this year. She doesn't live in our neighborhood but it worked out for her mom to drop her off every day and that way they had a friend to sit with on the bus. Her mom sent me these cute pics. 

Here's Camryn saying goodbye to her teacher before we left. 

Avery's teacher suggested that we do a party for the Summer Birthdays for our last day of school celebration. Since Avery is a summer birthday I sent a little classmate gift in for her to give everyone. I designed it myself - no Pinteresting this time! I think they turned out cute.

And here's my A-girl saying goodbye to Mrs. Rogers. What a great teacher she is. Avery had a wonderful second grade year and we continue to be impressed with her elementary school. 

Now on to 1st and 3rd grades!!