Friday, July 30, 2010

Lily's Birthday Party

Lily's birthday is only a few days before one of my good friend's daughter's birthday so we usually have to coordinate not to have our kid's parties on the same day. This year we decided to just combine the parties. This turned out so well for me. I never could have thrown such an awesome party on my own. Christine and I threw a tea party for the girls. We searched thrift stores for real tea pots and tea cups and surprisingly only broke one!
We had over 70 people attend the party and it was such good fun.
We used Lily's old curtains for table coverings, Christine's camp canopy for shade, and borrowed small table from all the neighbors & friends.
Lucky for us, Christine and her husband are almost finished with their new masters suite addition to their house so they had a big empty room that we could use as our costume closet. We collected up costumes and dress up stuff from friends and neighbors and set up a wonderland of dress up stuff.
We also borrowed a friend's teenage neighbor to run our nailpolish and makeup station (This the is the other Birthday girl, Freya getting her nails painted)
We also roped Christine's 19 year old nephew to do character face painting
There was a pinata too but I didn't get pics of that, only videos that all turned out poorly.
We had two separate cakes for the girls. I made Lily's Barbie cake and Christine made Freya's birthday present cake.
The costumes were so funny, some kids got into it way more than others. Lily was excited about the costumes the day before while we were setting up and the day after when we were cleaning up, but maybe it was just too much for her because most of the day she didn't put on costumes at all. She put on the bug suit for a little bit at the end because you know... pirates always wear bug suits.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Lily's 4th Birthday

Lily picks out her own clothes, I guess she wanted to wear something extra special for her birthday. Unlike her brother who does not enjoy wearing clothes

We decided to have a picnic lunch at the beach so on the way, we stopped at the convenience store for her first ever pack of gum. My mom didn't allow us to chew gum until we were 4, so I just used that as the timeline for my kids too. It was really funny because I think I stressed the 'don't swallow it' a little too much because she was even afraid to swallow her saliva. I had to re-describe it to her telling her it was ok to swallow the sweet taste, but not to swallow the actual gum. She will chew it for a minute, maybe two then spit it out and get another piece. She went through this whole pack in a day & a half.
Grandad got her the whole collection of toys from Toy Story so I let her write her name on the feet like Andy did in the movie.
These toys were the hit of the day for sure. She has slept with Andy and Jesse every night. For some reason, Bullseye has become the designated bathtub toy and poor Buzz Lightyear... she won't sleep with him because she says he makes too much noise for bed.



Luckily there are enough of them that it is ok for Eric to play too. They have now gotten to the age of fighting over toys.
I'm thoroughly disappointed in the toy that Ross & I got for her. We bought her a sewing machine. She has been talking about getting a sewing machine for months and months and Singer makes a child version with a safety cage over the needle so that is what we got her. It turned out terrible. This sewing machine is complete garbage. It won't even work enough for Lily to sew one seam! She was so happy and we got her her own little pink sewing kit with all the tools and everything. She measured and cut out her own fabric and the damn machine would break. I'd get out the screwdriver, spend 20 minutes fixing it. She would sew again, and it would break again before finishing the line. It is pathetic. I am an experienced sewing, standing over her, watching everything ... she did everything right but the stupid piece of garbage machine just doesn't work. So, of course, now she has completely lost interest in sewing.
I truly wasn't trying to push my love of sewing on her, she wanted to do it. But the thing that makes me so angry, is that any kid who has any interest in sewing and gets this machine, will no longer have an interest in sewing. It is sad really. Singer should be ashamed to put their name on this hunk of junk.
sorry, back to the good stuff...
For dinner, Lily chose to go to Chick-Fil-A. The Round-up gang got to go too. We didn't do cake on her birthday because she was having a party a few days later. We just had ice cream with Dinner.
Next post.... the PARTY!