Alex's Fairy Party

My opininated daughter decided months ago that she wanted a fairy party.  This sounded like fun to me so with the help of Pinterest and a weeklong vacation I went wild planning.  I don't think I have ever spent so much time planning a party, but in the end I LOVED how it all came out.  It started with me deciding that I wanted wings and a tutu for each little girl invited.  I scoured the internet and finally decided that mom and I  could make them, but I was a little afraid that we would spend a fortune.  Then I found the jackpot, Halo Heaven.  I was able to order wings, tutu, headbands, and fairy wands for each little girl.  Then I also found black capes and plastic swords to give each of the boys.  Perfect, I didn't have to make anything and they were cheap.  We did decide to embellish Alex's skirt just a little bit to make her more special and then I ordered her tshirt from this adorable little tshirt shop called Tee with Sugar in Southlake.  

I really wanted just a fairy cake, but couldn't find one I liked that wasn't through the roof in price.  So we ordered the Tinkerbell cake from Albertson's and then my mom surprised me with adorable butterfly cupcakes to complete the look.

I got this idea off pinterest.  I took pixie sticks and tied a tag around it stating, "Thanks for making my party a "fairy" tale.

Then I made butterflies for snacks for the table.  The only bad thing was the kids didn't realize they could take and snack during the party, so most of them just went home with the kids.

As the guests arrived, they were greeted with their costumes and then sent to have their faces painted by my mom.  Again I told Mom not to worry about this, but she insisted and the kids loved it!

Plus it was something the boys could get done too. Here is my best friend's little boy dressed in his black cape getting a knight (that I think looked like a Bell Raider) painted on his face. 

Here is an upclose of Riley's.

 

In my mind, I had worried that the boys would attack the girls with their swords.  No worries, they all attacked Uncle Travis!

Then we headed outside to paint Fairy houses.  Originally I had found these small birdhouses for the kids to paint. But I couldn't find enough "castle" birdhouses for the boys to paint. I went to like every Michaels in the area, but in the process I found these larger houses on clearance for a $1.  I still had the problem of what will the boys paint.  Luckily I have serious talent in my family.  My grandfather cut shields out of wood for all the boys to paint their own shield to go with their costume.

Here was one of the shield that my friend, Jenn, just accidentally painted for her youngest son.  I think I see a Blazing Sun in the making.

After all the painting, it was time to open presents.  Alex had so much fun posing with all her friends.  Here she was with Caleb, her cousin, and one of her favorite presents, a Bride's dress.

Finally it was time for some cake!!  This year Alex had no trouble blowing out her candle and being the center of attention. 

After cake, our party friends left and our family arrived.  We opened more presents, ate barbeque sandwiches I made in the crockpot, and posed for pictures with grandparents.

Great Grandma Betty & Grandpa Bill

Papaw & Nemo

And finally Nana & Gampa. 

Next time somebody please remind me to get pics with Mama Karyn & Papaw Richard!

At least I got one with Uncle Ryan

And Aunt Kelly!

First Day of Second Grade

How in the world is my sweet firstborn already in 2nd grade?  He is getting so tall.  Right now Riley is 7 years old and still as sensitive as ever.  He wavers between his favorite sport being soccer and baseball, although he currently is playing soccer.  His favorite food is probably pizza, although he can't seem to eat enough fruit.  Majority of the time, he is an excellent eater.  Typical boy, hard to fill up.  He is wearing a size 7 in clothes, although some size 7 jeans are too short. But size 8 jeans won't stay up. His foot is a size 3 and definitely looking to be really tall, which I really do love.

This year I also bought Alex a first day of school outfit.  She loves clothes so much, how good I tell her no.  I think she was as excited as Riley about the first day of school.  Although for Alex, she is just going back to Mrs. Tracey's with her friends, so not much to be afraid of.

The 3 of us all in new clothes!

Riley with his handpicked teacher, Mrs. Gray.  If you don't think she is amazing, then just look at his class list with 3 teacher kids in it.  Which also means that Riley will spend another year with some of his best friends in class. :)

Since I didn't get to go to Meet the Teacher night with him, had to meet my own students, I went down early with him the first day of school.  We went and took early pictures because Riley knew that at 7:45 I had to be in my classroom greeting my students for the first day. It is always hard to not be able to walk him to class or be at those first moments, but I get so busy and wrapped in my first morning jitters that I usually get over those feelings quickly.  Besides it is good for Riley to be on his own and not always relying on Mom.

So here's to hopefully another fantastic school year.

Oooh Gross!

My neighbor, Michelle, and I took the kids to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History one Sunday to see Grossology!  It was gross, although it would have been alot grosser if we had really read what everything said.  We talked about our digestive system and farting.  We even made farting and burping noises by building up the air in our stomach.

We climbed the skin wall, complete with pimples, moles, and blisters.

Of course the kids didn't care, they were just climbing a wall.

Then the kids climbed through the body.  We have so much fun hanging out with our neighbors.  While there is 1.5 year difference between Riley & Chas, there is only 6 weeks difference between Alex and Addison.  So they make the perfect friends. 

After all the disgustingness, we headed into the fear extreme exhibit.  We learned about odds in several situations, and even layed on a bed of nails.

Finally we learned about several extreme jobs.  For this part of the exhibit Riley tried on different safety clothing including bullet proof vests and firemen's gear.

We had a good time going through the exhibits, but the best part was the regular Children's exhibit.  The girls could have spent all day buying & ringing up groceries, while the boys were content building train tracks.  Not to mention, if it hadn't been 100 degrees outside, then they would have stayed in the water exhibit forever.  Either way we all had a great time!

Bandera - Part 2

Thursday morning Mom & I headed out to Fredericksburg for a little shopping while the kids stayed back at the hotel with Gampa.  I'm pretty sure their day consisted of swimming, playing miniature golf, taking a nap, and more swimming.  Mom and I managed to buy her ANOTHER purse, some meat rubs, Mexican vanilla, and a shirt for me.  We spent a lot of time wandering into stores with pretty stuff that we couldn't afford.  But it was nice to look at boutiques without constantly worrying if my kids are going to break something.  When we got back we took the kids into town for Dairy Queen and then after Blizzards, we headed back for more sugar and more Smores!

Friday morning my dad and Riley got up to play a round of golf.  Riley hung out  for 9 holes of golf, and then Alex and I went for the last 9 holes.  After golf, we headed back to the pool and to relax some more. 

Saturday morning was National Cowboy Day, and Bandera is one of the Cowboy capitals, so we headed into town for a little festivities.

First off was to turn these city kids into cowboys and cowgirls by buying them real hats.

Then we had to see what they were really made of and have a run with the bull.  It was really cool that this bull ride could go absolutely as slow or as fast as each person wanted. Riley started out slow til he got the hang of it.

Then he wanted to go faster and faster.  Here is the result, but notice the small smile forming on his face.

Surprisingly Alex wanted to try it to.  That adventurous little girl was really starting to show. But not too adventurous because she didn't want to go faster and fall off.

Then we drank some frozen lemonaide and watched a gun fight.

As we turned to leave they unloaded a longhorn.  Don't judge me for letting me children sit on a longhorn.  How could I disappoint them?

That night we headed back to the Flying L for a barbeque down at the Ranch "town." We ate barbeque and did a little "chicken" dancing.

They had all these little stations set up for the kids to try.  Each kid tried their hand at shooting a bow and arrow.  Pretty good shots, Randy would have been proud.

Amazingly this was something my dad had never actually done, so he was excited to try it.  I had done it at camp and actually was pretty good, but sadly I was pathetic.

Sort of like how my son was at roping. But its not about the skill, right?  Its all about the full cowboy experience.

While Riley was roping, Mom was cooling off in the shade.  Did I mention this was the end of July and dinner was outside?  It was hot!

We ended the evening with Alex getting her face painted, in fact she was the last girl to get her face painted.

It all marked the end to a really great relaxing week.  Just spent the time having fun, enjoying each other's company, oh and staying up late every night on Pinterest planning Alex's fairy party.

Bandera, Texas- Part 1

From New Braunfels, we headed down to Bandera for a week long stay at my parent's timeshare. We decided to take a year off from Disney because I simply could not plan one more thing this summer, so I asked Riley if he would be ok with a week in San Antonio in its place.  He not only agreed, but was quite excited about the whole thing.  I do love the beautiful nights and all the nature we see while there. 

Our first day there we hit the waterpark attached to the grounds, had dairy queen for dinner, took the trailer ride, and capped off our evening with smores. YUM!  Who doesn't love smores?

On Monday we drove into San Antonio and visited Sea World.  Since we have been several times, we chose to not bring the camera because while I love watching the Shamu show over and over again, I really don't need 200 pictures of Shamu. One big moment of the day was that Alex walked the entire time without being carried!  This is a major feat for us.  She started the morning complaining that her leg was hurting and she needed to be carried.  My mom told her if she would just walk all the way to Shamu, then she would buy her some popcorn.  She did it without a complaint and then walked the rest of the day. 

On Tuesday, we went horseback riding!  Riley was finally old enough to ride, so I signed him and me up to take the hour long trail ride.

Here is Riley with his horse, Tremer.  He did so well.  He was timid at first, but by the end he kept telling me what to do.  Flying L Ranch offered something just a little extra that I had to leap at.  For $5 you could purchase a horse shoe with your name & the horse's name on it.  I thought this way a great way to commerate his first real horse ride.

After we got Riley all loaded up, I got on my horse.  Alex didn't actually get to ride with me, but they let us put her up there to pose for a picture. 

Then we headed off for our hour long trail ride.  I got the difficult horse that doesn't listen.  I swear I have, "I'm a teacher" written on me and they decided I could handle it.  My horse wanted to stop and eat every chance he could get.  If he wasn't eating, then he would have to stop to poop.  What horse stops to poop?  Don't they usually just keep going?  Not mine!

Right after our ride, we took Alex over to ride the pony.  Her pony's name was Brownie.  I also ordered her a horse shoe since this was her first pony ride.  She only got to ride for about 10 minutes, but she thought it was really cool!

After all the horse riding, we continued with the theme and went to throw horseshoes.  Riley & Gampa were doing pretty good and really getting the hang of it.  Alex, on the other hand, didn't see the point of throwing it.  She prefered to just walk up and drop it around the pin, silly girl!

Then we headed over for a little putting practice.  My dad already had plans to take Riley golfing with him one morning and wanted to at least show him how to putt on the real course.

After all that hot stuff, we decided it was time for more pool action.  We loved their small waterpark.  It had just enough slides and just a big enough wave pool to keep us all occupied  Plus you could walk to it from our room and was included in the cost of the rooms for the week.  Tuesday night we had barbeque dinner outside on the picnic tables, followed by SMORES, of course.

Wednesday we travleled back into San Antonio for a day at Fiesta Texas.  Our first stop was to head to the Scooby Doo ride that Riley chickened out on last time, but was determined to gain redemption on this trip.  Along the way we found a ride that was like the swings ride at Six Flags, but on a slightly smaller scale.  Alex actually decided she wanted to ride it, and LOVED it!  So they rode it twice and then we raced over to Scooby Doo.  We didn't really know what it was, all we knew was it was indoors and had a really long line last time. Turns out it was a laser game where you ride around and shoot at things trying to get the highest score.  Another huge hit with Alex. Since it was early morning and hardly any one was in line, we rode it like 3 times in a row.  We finally decided to check out other rides, but then HAD to ride the swings again.  Whatever it took because suddenly Alex had learned that rides aren't scary.  She had the best time that day and became adventurous.  After the heat reached its peak, and we all were reaching our low, we headed over to Fiesta Texas' water park.  Talk about fun!  The kids had a blast in the kids' area.  I just wish that Riley and I had left to ride the big slides sooner.  Having no idea what time it was, I convinced Riley to ride the 4 person intertube, but didn't make it to the slides he wanted to ride before the park closed.  I felt kind of bad, but he did really enjoy the big intertube.  After the water park closed, we decided it was time for us to drive the 45 minutes back to Bandera after grabbing dinner. Another fun filled and exhausted day.