Just Because

I discovered this group last year but just found these videos on youtube.

And I've been thoroughly enjoying them.

And I thought I would share.



Straight No Chaser - I'm Yours/ Somewhere over the Rainbow



Straight No Chaser - The Christmas Can Can

If that's the case... I've got a list for Santa

So we had a bunch of neighbor kids hanging around the yard this afternoon. One of the girls had a hot pink ipod shuffle.

We started chatting about it and she told me how what she really wanted was an ipod touch.

I mentioned that those were rather expensive and she went on to tell me that she was going to get one for free.

Free?

Do share.

Oh, she explains, I'm going to ask Santa for one and if he brings it, it's free.

Free.

Nice.

I've got a list for Santa!

In Love with the Curls

So, baby girl's hair has grown out long enough that it has started curling at the back.

And I absolutely love it. The curls are so precious.

The only other one of my kids to have curls was our second boy. He kept them until he went in for his first haircut. I asked the lady cutting his hair if we could just keep the curls at the nape of his neck. She asked me if I wanted him to have a mullet. I said no and that was the end of them.

But I think these curls are here to stay.

She is growing up so fast and developing her own little personality.

We are throughly enjoying her.

and her curls.

I've decided that I'm not getting paid enough.

What's worse than having a kid throw up all over the entire span of your light colored living room carpet?

Knowing that you just gave that same kid a bag to throw up in 15 minutes before and then finding out that that same kid had apparently drank a copious amount of chocolate milk about an hour before because he thought it might make his stomach feel better.

Chocolate throw up.

We may have to get new carpets.

Happy Monday ya'll!

(any brilliant suggestions how to get partially digested chocolate milk out of the carpet?)

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for my sweet baby girl who turned 1 this week!

We find ourselves enjoying her so much. The kids love seeing her do new things and get tickled when she comes up with a new sound or a new word. They are each anticipating the day that she says their name.

We seem to enjoy each stage so much more than we did with the others. Maybe it is because the others were all little at the same time. Now, they really are enjoying having a baby in the house and they love helping out with her.

She has a sweet, infectious laugh and the cutest little baby talk. If she can find something that makes everyone laugh, she will do it over and over and over again.

We are having the best time with her and we love her dearly.
Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Nine

Mrs. Troop has left a new comment on your post "Princess Pampering Party";

Girl! I miss you in blog land! Post something! Even if you just post how many diet cokes it's taking to get you through the day I will READ it and LOVE it. :-)

Princess Pampering Party

The birthday party was a success!

Before the party we took some sibling pictures.

Go ahead and make fun of me for dressing the boys up in white and khaki. They actually wanted to dress up in some way and since I had not gotten around to making valient knight costumes, this was my best last minute idea.

The sisters picture almost makes me cry. I can't believe how much my girl has grown up. Until a year ago, she was my baby.

So, the invitations to the party were a little over the top. I'll admit that. When my husband saw them, he was a little concerned that the invitees might expect a more elaborate extravaganza than what was actually planned.
Maybe he was right.

But honestly, you need a royal summons if you are going to have a Princess party. And nothing says royal summons like a scroll invitation. I bought the dowel rods at Michaels and they also had the little dowel rod ends. We painted them pink and glued them to our paper.

They read:

Hear Ye, Hear Ye,
By order of the King and Queen:

Princess (indsert name of girl to be invited) is cordially invited to the (our last name) Castle to celebrate Princess (birthday girl)’s 6th birthday!!!

The royal celebration will begin at 3:00
in the afternoon on the 4th of September 2010.

The king asks that you come dressed as
your favorite princess in your most royal attire.
The royal cook has prepared a feast
of goodies for the celebration.

There shall also be pampering festivities for
the Princess including a royal pedicure, a royal hairstyling and fun for all. The excitement will heighten during the defeat of the royal piñata.

Have your carriage arrive for you at 4:30 in
the afternoon when the celebration commences.

Please RSVP with the Queen Mom at (phone number) or (e-mail) if you plan to attend this royal gala. It will be held at (street address) in the illustrious town of (insert town name) . This is a magical celebration not to be missed!

My daughter had us read it out loud to her quite a number of times and then she would just giggle and laugh and say read it again!

So our party started off with a Princess sign in sheet and once they signed in, one of our valient knights gave them a royal wand and a personalized princess booklet.

All the princesses went to the royal living room where they had royal chairs set up for them with royal pillows on top covered with royal satin and tuille ribbons cascading down the backs of the chairs.

We discussed the Qualities of a True Princess and then each Princess was crowned and we confirmed that they were a Princess of the King of Kings

Then the pampering began. On the inside they had 6 areas of things to do and when they were done with that particular activity, they got a princess sticker to put in the circle for that activity.

One of my friends and her 2 teenage daughters were very sweet and came over to help with all the princess pampering. They were so sweet and we couldn't have pulled off the pampering without them.

All the princesses got a royal updo.

A royal pedicure. A royal manicure, their royal makeup done and they each made a royal personalized bracelet.

The valient knights when around and presented the princesses with their choice of rings and princess shaped silly bands.

The time flew by and fun was had by all!

Their royal carriages picked them back up after the party and we gave them their royal party bags!

It was so much fun and I really wanted to go ahead and have a Princess party for her while she was still young enough to want one and to enjoy it thoroughly.

She spent the rest of the afternoon dancing around in her Princess gown with her royal updo singing, "I feel pretty,.... oh so pretty,... I feel pretty and witty and gay!" It was fun to enjoy her pure happiness.

Makes me wish for just a minute that I was 6 once again with a pretty pink princess dress to dance around in.

The Castle Cake Tis Finished

If I was Dora, I'd be singing.... I did it! I did it! Yeah, I did it!

The castle cake is finished. The princess party is in 5 hours. And I'm already worn out.

So I decided to post the pics of the cake so you could see it because I seem to need some sort of peer based approval.

I have to say, it was a wee bit more tedious than I planned on, but isn't it always? Somehow my perception of what I should easily be able to do always supersedes my actual abilities.

Anyways, there is it! I will be thrilled if the whole thing stays together without toppling until all the princess guests arrive. But my sweet girl is already tickled beyond belief and that's what really counts. Right?

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Girl

So, my girl just turned 6! It seems like just yesterday I took these pictures of her. She is really such a blessing to our family. She is sweet and kind, thoughtful and a tremendous helper. We are so thankful for her.

Grandpa & Grandma came down for a visit and it was $1 days at the Dallas Arboretum so we decided to take the day off and go on a field trip. We had never been there before and we absolutely loved it.

There are 66 acres of gardens and ponds and streams and wandering paths to explore.


I've always heard the best times to go are in the fall for the mums and pumpkins and in the spring for all the bulb flowers. I was a little concerned we wouldn't enjoy it as much going at the end of August, but it really was so very beautiful. There were flowers everywhere and enough shade that we enjoyed ourselves.

It's a beautiful place to go and take pics of the family!

Everyone wanted to take a picture with the birthday girl.

She really does have the best brothers.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Her Princess Spa birthday party is on Saturday so I'm off to bake a castle cake and get everything ready. Wish me luck!

Thankful Thursday - Beach edition

Well, we started homeshool this week. And as much as I love homeschooling my kids, and as much as I am grateful and thankful that I am able to do it, well, let's just say it's been a long week already.

The kids have honestly done great. I think it's just balancing a 10 month old along with a 3rd, 2nd and 1st grader and having one of them constantly needing to talk to me about something very important that has pegged out my child tolerance meter.

So I'm going to focus my Thankfulness on something I was thankful for a couple weeks ago. I can do that, right?

Because last night, after my husband got home, I needed to run an errand. And the thought actually crossed through my mind that if I kept driving south, in several hours I could be back at the beach house we stayed at a couple weeks ago.

And I could walk along the quiet beach, all by myself, and collect pretty seashells, and let the waves wash over my feet as I walk in the sand........

But I didn't go. So I'll just reminesce.

1. Thankful for the beach house.
This was the beach house we stayed in. LOVED it! I was standing in the ocean as I took this picture. It was so nice to have a house this close to the beach. And they had a shower underneath so you could rinse off. It was so nice. 2. Thankful the beach wasn't crowded.
This house was on a public access beach but it was a little more secluded. We never saw more than a couple people at a time. We were told that in July and August there was more seaweed/kelp on the beach, but it really wasn't that bad.

If I was Blue, I would SO skadoo right into this picture. Right now. I'm just sayin'.

3. Thankful that the few storms we had were very brief.

This is from the 2nd story balcony right before the storm hit. It was such a beautiful view.

4. Thankful for the other family that went with us. He was a groomsman in our wedding and they have 2 boys the same age as our 2.

5. Thankful that we had a great time and no one got hurt.

6. Thankful for the beauty that God created for us to enjoy. I can't imagine what heaven must be like.

7. Thankful that my husband will be home in an hour and a half and I can go to Starbucks.

I realize that last one had nothing to do with the beach, but that's just what I'm thankful for at the moment. :)

Okay, so that's all I've got for the moment. I'll try to do another post about all the fun we had on the beach because we really had the best time!

Have a thankful thursday!

Is it too much to ask to just stand there and smile?

So we went to the beach last week. Had a great time. Took the traditional white and khaki clothing to try to get a "beach" picture. The problem was that we honestly weren't there long enough. The best times to get beach pictures are right when the sun comes up, when it is a little overcast or around dusk. Otherwise the sun is just too bright and everyone squints.

Because of the bright sun, several small storms during the day, and other various reasons, we only had about 20 minutes before dark to take pictures.

And I had no idea that during the whole "photo shoot" that one member of our party was having the time of her life posing.

It wasn't until we got back in the house and I started looking through the pics that I asked my dear sweet daughter, "What in the world were you doing????"

Just posing like a princess, Mom.

Great.

The first one is distinctly her Pocahontas pose.

And she tried her head this way.

And that way.

She tried various poses with her hands.

The throw back her head and kick her leg up pose.

Another eyes closed dreamingofmyprincetocome pose.

And a pose involving the proper placement of princess hand.

At this point, her brother was getting tired of the picture taking gig and started playing the game where he pretends to pinch off the head of someone standing in his close vicinity. Fortunately there were a few that turned out.

Not as many as I would have hoped, but enough. And one good one of the family. So I'm happy.

And I have to say, I had a close friend whose 1 year old neice died last week while we were on vacation. And things like that really make you re-think your whole view of life. And it makes you realize what is really important. And it helped me to embrace the beautiful little girl I have with the brilliant personality. No matter how many pictures she puts her own personal touch on.

But I need to know, is it just me or does anyone else have a poser in the family?

10 months

Baby girl is 10 months, give or take a few days.

It is kind of hard to believe. The days sometime seem to go by so slowly. But somehow the weeks are just flying by. There are moments that I would just like to freeze and capture. Like when she nuzzles her head into my neck or when she gives me an unprompted kiss on my cheek.

She is now standing independently quite well. We don't think she will start off taking a couple steps at a time. We really think that once she decides to do it, she is just going to start walking.

She crawls really well right now. In fact, we were borrowing a friend's bumbo because we were too cheap to buy one for the last kid. Her legs now get stuck when we sit her in it so we've decided to return it. The other day we were working in the garage and she was getting into everything.

We wedged her in the bumbo and gave her some toys to play with so she'd stay put so we could get some work done. A couple minutes later one of the other kids starts laughing hysterically and we turn around and she had flipped herself over onto her hands and feet and was doing a bear walk with the bumbo still stuck to her seat.

And she was laughing about it.

Because she knew she had won.

That would be one of the first signs that we are in trouble.

And she has also discovered the stairs.

But her most favorite new past time is unloading items from their designated area of residence. It took her 1 minute and 10 seconds flat to unload these two drawers.

She throws them out hand over hand just as fast and hard as she can.

And then she turns around and laughs about it.

That would be our second sign that we are in trouble. Because it's not just drawers that she's unloading. It's cabinets, boxes, bags, purses, the pantry, the dishwasher or anything else that contains any removable item on interest.

At least if we are going to have trouble, we've got the cute kind.

It's the best kind to have.