My 4-Year-Old Princess

My little girl turned FOUR on Sunday! She is getting SO big!
She is very much into all things GIRL these days. So of COURSE we had to have a Princess party.

The Invitation

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
All Princesses, Princes, and Knights in Shining Armor!

Her Majesty, Princess Adalen of the Royal house of [Our Last Name] requires your presence at the magical celebration of the 4th year of her birth.
The celebration will be held at our castle at [Our Address] on Saturday, the 28th day of August between the hours of 9:30 and 11:00 in the morning.
Royal attire is encouraged, but not required.
As we need to prepare for your arrival, please alert the Queen and King of your coming by phoning [Our Phone Number], or sending an email to [Our Email Address]

The Decorations

I spent about half a day making this banner. A little excessive, but I thought it was kind of cute.


The rest was just balloons and streamers. Lots and lots of pink, of course.

Anticipation

Mommy and Daddy like it when everything is ready before the guests arrive. The kids don't. Even if it's only 5 minutes, the waiting is torture!
So, we took some pictures while we waited.

The PARTY

As the guests arrived, they each got to pick a "royal cape". I got some really cheap costume satin fabric from Wal-mart, cut it into rectangles, finished the edges and added a little piece of velcro. I had blue and brown for the boys and pink and purple for the girls. They weren't super fancy, but I think the kids liked them.

I also had some foam crowns I'd ordered from Oriental Trading. They came with stickers and some little jewels. The kids got to decorate them. Some of them were more interested than others.





We had another game where we had the kids "Dig for the King's Treasure". We had trays of rice set out and we had buried candies in it. They had to try to find them. We gave each of them a paper bag to put their finds in. They were pretty good about it, for the most part. (No pictures, sorry)

Next, we moved on to "Musical Thrones". The kids didn't really get the concept, and some of them were more interested in playing with toys.




Then, we built "Castles" out of sugar cubes, gum drops and marshmallows, with frosting as the mortar. Some of the kids thought it was more fun to eat the building materials than build with them. I'm sure their parents appreciated that.





Then, Ady opened gifts. Of course this was her favorite part.






Then it was time for the cake. I made it... I made a few cupcakes too, and my original plan was to put the candles on the cupcakes. But, I made the mistake of leaving the cupcakes alone with my husband and children. They didn't survive. So, Brandon asked Ady where the candles should go. This is what happened.



We also had some pink punch - Sprite and raspberry sherbet. Quite tasty.


We still had a little time left, so we played "Freeze Dance". I played the music, and when it stopped the kids had to FREEZE. They had fun with it for a while. Then they got a little too wound up. We played duck, duck goose. Crazy results there too.



I think the party was pretty much a success. I think the kids had fun. I was pretty worn out by the time it was over.

After the party

After the party, we went to lunch at chick-fil-a with Gran & Papa, Ashlee & Drake, and Uncle David & Aunt Lois. Ady insisted on wearing her princess dress and princess crown. It was fun.

Later that day, we were driving around and it started to rain a little. We don't get a lot of rain here in Phoenix, so it's kind of exciting when it happens. Then, we saw something REALLY rare around here. A RAINBOW. Ady got really excited and said "I wished for a rainbow for my birthday, and I GOT IT!" So sweet!



That night, she got to sleep in her new "Princess Bed". We put a new mattress on the top bunk, and she got new princess sheets. She was pretty excited about it! (Gran and Papa gave her the new princess nighty. She doesn't like to take it off!)


So, now I offically have a Four-Year old girl. Who sometimes acts like she's 13. It's hard to believe it's been four years since she was just my tiny little baby girl. Only 5lbs 11oz!

Happy Birthday!

An update, news and stuff

We aren't moving.

We didn't get the house we made an offer on months ago. They bank wanted $30,000 more. We told them "No thanks".

We have decided that it will be a better financial decision for us to buy a house as an investment and rent it instead of buying one to live in and renting our current home. So, we are still looking. But we won't be moving any time soon.

We are expecting

I'm pregnant. Again. This baby is due March 27, 2011. I've known for a while, but haven't told anyone until recently. I'm feeling ok. Mornings are pretty good, but I hit a "wall" at about noon and get very very tired. And then kind of sick. But, I will survive. I've done all this before. I can get through it. (Or so I keep telling myself.)

So, now you know.

The End

I had a dream...

The night before last, I had a dream. And it was strange. I'm not sure that I could really even explain it if I tried.
There were floating hexagons everywhere. And the number SIX. And, I saw myself using hexagons to make Zadyballs with SIX sides instead of FOUR.

When I woke up, I couldn't stop thinking out it. So as soon as I could, I went into my work room to see if I really could make a Zadyball with SIX sides - and a hexagon on each of the ends.

Unfortunately, my super duper light box is in the shop. (Translation: It needed fixed, my husband promised me he'd make me a new one, it hasn't happened yet)
So, these pictures are terrible. But maybe you can at least get the idea. I just tried it with the black, white a red since I wanted to see the contrast. But I think it would look pretty good with other colors. There are also 50% more Zady strings than most of my Zadyballs - because there's more room to put them in!


So, what do you think? Good idea? Was it inspiration? Or just a crazy dream?

Fun with Uncle Quinten

My brother, Quinten came to visit us for a few days. He is in the USAF and stationed in Germany. This was only the second trip home he's made in the four years he's been there, so we were very happy he took the time to come and see us. We tried to have some fun with him while he was here.
We had lunch with Zander at his school. He got to invite 3 friends to come and sit with us.




On Friday, we went to the Arizona Science Center.








We did some other things that we didn't get any pictures of. Brandon took Quinten golfing, and shooting. (I wasn't interested, especially since it was 108 degrees out). He also took him with him to the Single's Branch (church) where he was speaking on Sunday. Which meant that I went to our ward by myself... with the kids... again.... (I've gotten pretty used to it)
I really hope that he had a good time. It was lots of fun for us to have him here!

The kids had lots of fun hanging out with their uncle!

Green Belt with Black Stripe

Zander loves karate. And he does really well with it. Last week was the karate awards where they got their new rank/belts. The students put on a little show for us so we could see what they had learned this semester.

Zander went from Green Belt to Green Belt with Black Stripe. He skipped a rank again - he went right past Green with White Stripe. We are very proud of him and happy that he tries his very best at everything he does!