Flower Girls in a Wedding

The girls were just so excited when their Aunt Cathy asked them to be flower girls in her wedding. She decided to only have flower girls, four of them, and a ring bearer. Here they are right before the ceremony started.
Princess G was concentrating so hard on walking slow like she was asked to she forgot to drop the flower petals. Plus all along they told her she would be walking with her sister, at the last moment they told her to go first and walk in front of her sister. I think she was just a little unsure since they did not practise at all.
Princess A had fun dropping the flower petal, very carefully one by one.

Princess A showed Princess G how to drop the flower petal just as they reached the altar.

My girls look so pretty with the new bride.

My handsome family!

I bought a new dress and even wore heels, the second time this year!

Princess G was having so much fun I let her draw on the condensation on the windows, of course now she keeps doing it at home.

They had sparkling apple cider for the toast and Princess A just loved it. She tried it a few years ago and did not like it at all, now she adores it. I am going to try and remember to pick some up for Christmas.

After a very, very yummy dinner it was time to dance!

Princess A even taught some dance moves to the bride.

I was being silly and showed Princess A how to dip so the rest of night her Daddy and I had to dip her over and over!

These two danced for hours! At times they were the only ones on the dance floor.

It was a beautiful wedding and the girls loved their first time being flower girls. They are also excited because now they can wear these dresses whenever they want. I told them we had to save the dresses for the wedding but now that it is over they can wear them all the time.

Visiting Santa

We love this Santa and visit him every year. Princess A informed me that sometimes Santa has helpers that dress up as him to help because he is so busy but that this is the REAL Santa!
I must agree he is a great Santa which is why we ended up waiting for almost two hours!

Princess A let Santa know that her list includes a Strawberry Shortcake Cafe, Barbie Three Musketeers (pink) doll and movie and 100 rose quartz hearts.

Princess G wants a My Little Pony Unicorn Bakery, a Three Musketeers (green) doll and a twirly whirly race car (I hope this is what she means).

As we were leaving Santa told them that since they were such good girls that he would wake up their Mom on Christmas Eve and tell me where he hid a special gift just for them. The photographer also told me that my girls were so sweet and that she remembers them.

The wait was forever but after seeing these faces it was well worth it, at least it will be a whole year before I have to wait in that line again!

Princess A Throws a Tea Party in her Room

After we had our tea party in the kitchen Princess A decided to throw a big tea party in her room. While I was making dinner Princess A and Princess G set up the tea party.

Pinky and Sunny got to have the good chairs and table. The rest of us got to eat off of the extra tables (pillows). Since the tea party could not start until Daddy got home the girls had to wait until after dinner for the party. As soon as we finished dinner (we did not even get a chance to clean up) we all went upstairs for the party. The girls just love when Daddy joins their tea parties. Since they spent so much time setting the party we did tell them they could leave it out for a few days instead of clean it up for bedtime.

Princess A Won a WOW Award at School

Once a month Princess A's school has an assembly and rewards students for being good. This month they singled out students who were responsible and caring. Princess A did not know she was going to receive the honor so she was excited and surprised when she saw us there.

Here she is after receiving her certificate and prize (a coupon for a free taco). Last year she won a WOW award for for "Kindness and cooperation in kindergarten." I am so proud of her!

After the assembly the parents were able to take a few pictures, here the girls are with the principal. Princess G just hopped in the picture!

We are so proud of Princess A. She is doing well in school in all aspects, academic and socially. Earlier in this year her teacher told me that she is the type of person she hopes her own daughter is like. That was so sweet of her to say.

Princess A left for recess and Princess G ran around. She really wanted to go to recess with her sister and when we saw the principal he said to go ahead.

Princess A was so excited when we came out for recess, especially since I told her we weren't.

Princess G ran straight for her favorite playground toy (it spins!)

Princess A just wanted us to watch her run the track which we finally did when I was able to get Princess G off of the spinning circle. I did have to push her and about six other kids first. Once Princess A started running the track (a gravel path) her sister wanted to join her. Princess A sort of slowed down for her but was still very far ahead. When Princess G was on the other side of the field an older boy tried to stop her. The kindergartners and preschoolers are not allowed out on the field so I think that is why he said she could not go by him. I was just starting to walk over there when Princess G was able to explain to him about her sister (I could not hear as she was about 150 yards away but I saw the hand gestures) and he let her go by. I was so proud that she can stand up for herself with a older kid (probably 3rd of 4th grade so not that big).

Once recess was over we went home for about fifteen minutes. Once we picked up Princess A all the girls wanted to do was to play outside even more.

Tea Party Just for Fun

Princess A had a half day at school and when we got home they were having a pretend tea party upstairs. I always meant to have some tea parties after Princess G's birthday party but I just never did. I decided to change that and grabbed the tea set.

The girls were so excited to have a tea party just because!
I also baked fresh strawberry scones for a tea party snack.

I used the decaffeinated (Lipton)tea I bought for the tea party in July. We usually drink hot herbal tea (they like the Celestial Seasons Zingers, Peppermint, Chamomile and Sleepytime the best) but for tea parties they like to have 'real tea' with sugar (poured from the creamer). I still have not remembered to buy sugar cubes, do they even sell them anymore?

I really need to make a point of having a tea party at least once a month since it is not that hard to do and the girls love it!

Making a Kite, a Tutorial

Last night the girls were watching Dragon Tales and in the show the characters made a kite. The girls decided to make one too. They grabbed some computer paper, two dowels, a long thin ribbon and three wide short ribbons (for the tail) to make the kite. They started laying out about ten pieces of paper in the shape of a diamond. As I was watching them I notice a pile of tissue paper (still not sure why that was out) and thought it would be better for making the kite.

Here are the girls flying the kite once we were done.

In case you want to make one here is how we did it. I used a rubber band to hold the two dowels together, I just wrapped it around a few times until it held the dowels tight. We then laid the two dowels down over two sheets of tissue paper.

We folded the left side on the tissue paper so the fold was right at the end of the dowel. I taped the folded over edge of the tissue paper to the each dowel and slightly wrapped around each dowel.

I continued around the kite until it all four sides were folded and taped. We then tied the short ribbon where the dowels are connected for the string. The other three ribbons were tied together and then taped to the end of the kite for the tale. The whole thing took less than five minutes, probably only three.

I never made a kite before but vaguely remember reading how to do this as a kid. Since we made it out of tissue paper it really is not for actual flying. I think we will try this again when the weather is better, maybe with some plastic bags or some other material and try and make a kite that will really fly.

Wordless Wednesday: Pulling Santa's Sleigh

I heard the girls giggling and dragging something across the landing upstairs. This is what I found when I went to investigate. They are playing Santa.

They each take turns being Santa in the sleigh (decorated rocking chair) and the other is Rudolf the reindeer who pulls the sleigh. They even wrapped up some presents and delivered them to their rooms using the sleigh.

Teacher Gift Tutorial: Flower Brooch

After we made the flower headbands I thought a brooch made from the flowers would be a great teacher gift. The girls have six teachers together and that is a lot of gifts. Princess G has four teachers at her Pre-K and Princess A has a student teacher in addition to her regular teacher. We had some leftover petals from making the headbands but I also picked up some more at Walmart, they had a mixed bag of flowers that had fallen off the fake flower stems. I also picked up pin backings for the brooches since I did not have any.
The girls picked out the petals and the order of the petals for each flower and the gem to place in the middle.
First I warmed up my glue gun and picked up one of the pin backings.

I took one of the flowers they designed and flipped it over.

Starting with the bottom petal (now on the top of the pile) I glued each petal on, one at a time. The pin backing had three holes so I lined the hole in the middle of the petal to the middle hole of the pin backing to ensure the flower was centered.

I continued gluing on petals while shifting the each new petal slightly clockwise to create a fuller looking flower.

Finally all of the petals are glued on, it really does not take long.

Lastly I glue the gem in the middle for a little sparkle and to hid any glue that seeped through.

Here are the six brooches all done! The girls wrapped them up last night and placed a candy cane with each.

I think they are rather pretty and I hope their teachers like them.

Picking our Christmas Tree

I already showed the tree after it was decorated but here is our tree as we picked it out. When we first arrived Daddy discovered he forgot his wallet and I did not bring my purse. Once we had our wallets picking the tree went very fast.

The second tree we looked at was the one!

We loaded the tree on the car and went home. The girls were a little disappointed that we soaked the tree in a bucket in the garage over night instead of setting it up right away. When we finally did decorate they were so excited as you can see here!

Christmas Parade

We were a little late but we finally found her troop and got her dressed.
Over fifty minutes later we are still waiting to get started! (Now I am glad we were thirty minutes late!)

I was not planning on walking in the parade but I thought Princess A would want me to stay so I wore a Santa hat just in case. (The moms walking all wore Santa hats.) Right after I took this picture we finally started walking the parade route.

Here is our cheering section: Daddy and Princess G!

My little elf singing her heart out: Jingle Bells and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Daddy and Princess G moved to another spot to watch us walk buy again. This time as we passed by I asked Princess G if she wanted to join the parade and she did!

Poor Princess A she was freezing but still had fun!!!

All three of Daddy's parade girls!

The parade was still going on but we hurried to the car and went out for soup, Pho since it is so hot. The girls were so excited they told out waitress all about the parade and she gave the girls a spring roll. Daddy also surprised them with strawberry bubble tea. They loved the strawberry part but were not so sure about the tapioca balls. Princess G decided she did not like them at all but Princess A did like them.

A wonderful but very cold time!

Princess A in a Christmas Parade!

Princess A's Brownie Troop decided to be a Christmas Parade. The night before they all signed their banner for the parade.
The girls were dressed up as elves or reindeer. One of the co-leaders made this great costume and no sewing either!

Here is my little elf. They practiced sing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells as loud as they could, and it was loud!