Fun but no Fireworks

How could you NOT have fun over a long weekend with these two?

Lily Kate was in a great mood all weekend. She was getting all of the attention she loves so much.
This one was mischevous, as always. Jonathan and I took him to see Transformers 3. It was fun just to focus on him for a little bit.

This is her "up-to-no-good" face. Don't worry, after a few knocks, she knows how to get down.

I worked on the kids' photo albums all weekend (trying to catch up on 2010 still) and Ace was content to lay in my office like this. He is just so sweet. He just wants to be close to somebody.

Stinky & Sweet

Lily Kate has turned into the biggest mimick! She will parrot noises, copy faces and do anything her big brother does. Don't get me wrong, this little girl has a personality all her own but it is waaaaay fun trying to get her to duplicate whatever we want.

This is my FAVORITE face. I guess I was giving her a real enthusiastic smile one day and she liked it so much she tried it on her own. Now, whenever I do it she copies me and it's hilarious. (I also love how you can see all of her teeth in this picture.)

Not to be outshone. This jelly bean HAS to have his picture taken whenever his little sis is getting hers. So this is his sweet face during dinner last night.
I wish I had a dollar for every ounce of joy these faces give me...I could wipe out the national debt. Oh no, better stop before I get my soap box out. Too much AM radio for me lately.

Disney (Ace)

My fresh-faced, little man had such a GREAT time at Disney.

Here's a few of his smiles.

With Pluto on the cruiseboat.

With Sashi and Honey on Day 1 of our trip.
Doing his "sweet boy" pose on a throne on the boat.
(Thanks Lele for the awesome Woody costume.)

Brookelyn got buried and sculpted as a mermaid. Not to be left behind, Ace became a caterpiller (we kind of had no idea what other thing we could make him!).

He had this candy necklace eaten in no time flat.

Lookin cute.

We stayed at the All Star Movie Resort after we got off the cruise. This was a cute picture spot outside our hotel room.

I love these boys. This was the last picture we took at the parks as we left Epcot and headed to catch the bus and our airplane.

My Meme used to take us on fabulous trips before she passed away. This vacation was totally in her honor and I think she would relish how much fun we all had. The last night in our hotel, there was a Mickey Mouse cookie jar and cooking utensils in our room with a note from Meme. A perfect ending.

Disney (Lily Kate)

Over 700 photos...

Here are a few of my favorites of Lily Kate.

At the airport, waiting to board the plane to Orlando.

At the hotel with Sashi and Honey. I think Lily Kate learned to wave on this trip and loved this picture that captured that.
My beautiful, beach baby.

Dressed like Tinkerbell in the Atrium of our cruiseboat.

With her eyepatch for Pirate Night on the boat.

We cracked up because Lily Kate wanted her leg propped everywhere she sat (highchairs and strollers). She takes after her Daddy and doesn't sit very ladylike.

She won the first heat of the diaper dash but lost in the final. Honey and Jonathan TOTALLY cheated by dragging food and jewelry down the race lanes - her two favorite things.

With Cinderella.

With Daddy in Animal Kingdom.

There are so many more photos of her that I love but these are the highlights. (A note about the hot-pink, flower headband...yes, she wore it a lot. I made it before the cruise and it had a Mickey silhouette in the middle and we certainly got our mileage out of it.)

2011 Cupcake Girls' Weekend

This year, the Cupcakes headed to Alabama for a good ol' Southern time.

There are a zillion more pictures that I don't have time to upload. Suffice it to say that it was such a memorable weekend. Melissa (back row center) and Candice (on my right) planned a fantastic weekend of yoga, painting (glimpse a sample in the bottom right corner), horseback riding and training, yummy food and cute shopping. I am always amazed at how refreshed I feel after a weekend of unconditional love and abundant encouragement.

When poopy diapers and financial statements overwhelm me, I am going to close my eyes and return to a quiet morning yoga session where the breeze rustled the trees, the birds chirped, the water tinkled and friends laughed...oh, and, of course, the camera clicked. =)

This group is such a treasured blessing.

Ace Turns (TURNED) Four!

I totally cop to the fact that I found the idea for Ace's 4th birthday party on a friend's blog (Thanks Em!). We had Superhero Training Camp. I hardly took any pictures and the ones I did take were AWFUL. (New camera, here I come.)

I loved the invitations. I found these cute portfolios which looked like covert operative's folders.

They opened to reveal the training camp details.

I made a bunch of signs at each training station.

1. They had to make a cape.

2. They brought their cape to me and got shut into the phone booth to become superheroes.

There was a door cut out of the back of the phonebooth where I changed them into their cape and gave them their superhero mask. I've had numerous comments from moms since then that they haven't been able to get the capes off the kids. Love it!

3. They had to shoot down the bad guys out of the windows. (We cut windows out of some wardrobe boxes we painted and set some toy soldiers up that they could shoot with water guns.) Ace will tell you that this was his favorite part of the party. It was water gun mania most of the time.

4. They had to rescue babies. I drew babies on some hard boiled eggs and they had to carry them in a spoon around and back to the beginning without dropping them. All I can say is that it's a good thing these kids aren't in charge of rescue ops. My boiled eggs were pretty smashed up by the end of the party.

5. The kids got to throw a pie plate with whip cream in "the bad guy's" face. My dad ran around the party smashing cascarones (eggs filled with confetti) on all the kids heads. He was our villian. The kids LOVED throwing pie in his face. They all went back three and four times. He was a GREAT sport and was a huge hit.

The other stations I didn't photograph:

6. They had to shoot bazookas through two hanging hula hoops.

7. They had to walk the balance beam and punch out two bop bags.

8. They had to throw ping pong balls into buckets.

9. We had a bunch of cardboard bricks that they were supposed to build up and knock down but (as is typical of ALL Ace's birthdays) we had some extreme weather (wind this time) and there was no way those blocks would have stayed put. As it was, everything was staked and duct-taped in place.
At each station, there was a bag of adhesive-backed felt stars that they could stick onto their capes.

Ace insisted on a Transformers cake (scream! I didn't even get a picture of it).

10. They had to find three balls marked with a black "X" in the bounce house.

Ace's friend Claire is my hope for Lily Kate. She knocked around with the best of the boys and her bow didn't even MOVE!

He was totally pooped after it was over.

And our little miss had a special outfit too!

It may have been 30 hours of prep for a one-hour party but it was all worth it when I went to Mom's Night at school on Thursday and on the wall they had asked the kids why they loved their mommies. On Ace's, he had told the teacher "because she plans my birthday party."

The Royal Wedding Festivities

I have a thousand photos of our Royal Wedding party last Friday but I've narrowed them down for this post. This is what happens when three over-planners get together for an event.

Aunt B took care of the decorations. We had photos of Westminster Abbey, the north door where the guests entered and Buckingham Palace around the room. We used her gorgeous china and golden flatware.

We were up and dressed by 1:30am. Honey provided our outfits, jewelry and tiaras. She printed materials that detailed the route, the guest list, etiquette and even the program followed by the wedding guests.
Here's a photo of our table. I did most of the cooking and printed Prince William's royal seal on our menus.
Aunt B had pillows made with the royal wedding invitation printed on them. It WAS 1:30 in the morning and I put mine to serious use even though I had on 10 pounds of jewelry and an impossibly ruffled dress.
We hung a photo of the balcony at Buckingham Palace in the doorway to our gameroom and pretended we were standing with the royal family. Yes, Lily Kate was also awake in the wee hours of the morning. I figured she'd thank me later.

She even wore a fascinator (with a peacock feather).

Breakfast: Union Jack pizza, streaky rashers, chocolate chip scones and clotted cream.

Lunch: Bangers and mash hand pies & bubbles and squeak (and diet coke...we broke from english tradition and added ice).

Mom had a wedding cake made. Although the actual cake was a fruit cake, we substituted a strawberry filling. Note the awesome cake topper and poster of Will and Kate in the background.

Tea time: Sausage breads, BLT and chicken salad sandwiches, cheese and olive balls, cinnamon pickles, summer sausage rolls, salt & vinegar chex mix, assorted biscuits & sweets, cheddar dill scones, cinnamon pecans and cupcakes decorate to look like the sapphire engagement ring.

Honey make a chocolate biscuit cake just like William's groom's cake.

After resting up and an early morning T-ball game, the girls went to the Royal Tea Room. We sported all of our jewels and our royal sashes.

We got some stares but could have cared less!

One last photo of us in all of our regalia.

There were so many gifts and memories a-flying. It's hard to fit into one post. Honey made us house slippers with diamond crowns on them and bought us a commemorative paperweight. Aunt B gave us royal magnifying glasses that we used to follow our programs and made us placecards at the table. I may have to fit more details into another post if I can find the time.

It was such a fun day of memories and I'm so glad that Lily Kate got to experience it with us. She will either inherit the obsession or roll her eyes at us!