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!

Easter Beauties

These two clean up pretty snazzy-like!

Lily Kate has a killer pair of baby blues. Her hair is growing a lot and I'm testing it daily for the time when we can clip bows into it...until then, her assortment of headbands is continuing to grow.
Cotton-candy fingers add to his sweetness.

I did my best to tell Ace the real story of Easter and not confuse him that the fact that Jesus was tortured and put on a cross to die is a good thing. Now, when he goes down for his nap he wants "that Jesus story where he kicks death's hiney."

Taking time

I had a moment this morning. One of those "smelling the roses" moments where I'm thankful for every second that ticks by. I saw these little cleats on the stairs: a sign of a healthy little boy wish sunshine in his hair and energy to power cities. Also a sign of someone who loves his routine and is following directions by taking his shoes off when he comes in and putting them on the stairs.

Little moments are what I'm relishing:
A laugh and a toot at the same time
Ace's dimple when he's trying to get out of trouble
The way Lily Kate smells like her nighttime lotion when I wake her in the morning
"Mommy will you come wipe my hiny"
Two little hands that have learned to reach for Mommy
"Do you smell that?" (always after Ace toots)
A smile so big it wrinkles her nose
Ace's constant questioning as to when he's getting married
Watching Ace's endless car and truck races
The sound of Lily Kate learning how to giggle
Snuggles
Lily Kate's infatuation with her brother

I'm thankful for an end to busy, tax season. I can now breathe a little between projects and appreciate more pieces of my puzzle.

Honey saw the painted hineys in a magazine a few years back and we recreated the look when we were together at Great Wolf Lodge a few months back.

From the left: Braedyn, Brookelyn, Ace & Lily Kate.

School Pics

I have a library of TERRIBLE school photos of my own. But this little guy won't be embarrassed by this one when he gets big. Handsome!

And Mommy didn't even realize it was picture day.

My favorite part is his little crossed hands. Angelic.

Of course, I know there is a little devil behind this facade because we've been wrestling him so much lately. Ace has started to do EXACTLY the opposite of what he's told to do so we've instituted the token system around here (plus, we are tired of spankings): If you follow directions, you get a token. If you don't, you get a token taken away. Once you have ten tokens, you have $1 to pick out a toy at Target. Mucho motivation if you've spent any time around Ace.

He stayed at 1 token from Monday - Thursday with his waffling behavior but I'm happy to report that he's up to 6 tokens at the moment. He'll go touch #1 and say, "I got this for cleaning up the playroom." It's really cute that he remembers. No so cute: his behavior at the wedding last week that ushered in the token phase.