First day of school...sort of

We start school SO early here!  It's always so hot and we're just never ready for summer to be over.  The girls were both nervous and excited for the first day.  Unfortunately, Emily woke up feeling kind of queasy that morning (I figured it was just nerves, but it was a stomach virus) so she missed the first day of school =(  Can you tell that we are a little unlucky in the stomach virus department around here? 

Anyway, here are a couple of pics (this was taken before we realized that Emily was indeed sick).

Lindsey - First Day of Sixth Grade!

Emily - what was SUPPOSED to be the first day of Second Grade!

Carter, feeling a little lost without his Sissies at home all day =(

Emily and I made this little cutie to take to her teacher - she has a wonderful teacher this year, and we are both VERY excited!  I think her teacher liked it.

We had SUCH a long day waiting for the Sisters to come home!  I missed them so much.  I want summer back (even though I LOVE Fall!).

Here's to a great year!

Featured!

I was so excited to find out that Emily's pajama party has been featured at two of my favorite blogs - One Pretty Thing, and Under the Table and Dreaming.  I'm so honored!!!


Click these links to visit these great sites:

It's a Pajama Party {Emily's 7th Birthday}

{click to enlarge photo}

I have finally waded through all the photos from Emily's big 7th birthday bash - I took a bunch!  Unfortunately many of them didn't turn out that great because of lighting issues, but I hope I captured some of the fun!  Emily's first request was a sleepover party, but this tired mama (Carter still wakes up in the very early, early morning every day) didn't think that was such a great idea this year.  Our compromise?  A pajama party!  We held it from 6-8pm. and the girls all wore their PJs.  Here are all the little details of our party - get a snack, because this is gonna be a long one, folks......

Invitations:
I blogged about those here - they were pretty cute if I do say so myself!  We had to use a bunny since Emily sleeps with a VERY special bunny (aptly named "Bunny") every single night.  You will see more of Bunny later in this post =)  Here's what the invites looked like:

Decorations:
First - the inspiration!  Emily and I (if you think I am the only party planner in the family, think again!  Emily loves all of the little details, just like I do!) initially thought of an aqua and pink color scheme, with touches of black.  We went to Hobby Lobby (our mecca) to look for some plates, and found what turned out to be the inspiration for the whole party.  The colors are gorgeous - pink, chocolate brown, and the sweetest vintage aqua -  and the polka dots and paisleys are sweet but not babyish.  So, this is where we started:

I knew I wanted to use the pajama/sleepover theme in the decor, and I needed to do it on a MAJOR budget.  I also wanted to incorporate my love of all things sweet and vintage, yet reflect Emily's spunky personality.  I hope I did that!  Just about everything I used were things I had, or that I borrowed from my mom and mom in law.  I also made a lot of the decor.  It was a lot of work, but so much fun!  Emily helped me with pretty much everything.  We had some good mother-daughter bonding time getting ready for this party.

This front door bucket was a total last minute thing - I literally threw this together in about five minutes.  We wanted something to welcome our guests, and this was a cute way to do it.

When creating the table, I knew I wanted it to look like a bed.  My inspiration came from the very talented Melissa and her beautiful tablescape.  The table was beautiful, but I don't feel like I really got any great shots of it =(  I'm hoping that maybe my brother got some better pictures that he can share with me.  I made the pillow (with my mom's help), the table cloth is a vintage chenille bedspread, the gorgeous pitcher was a garage sale find, and Emily and I made the party hats together.  Emily's first childhood teddy bear is sitting at the head of the table, and yes, I made a hat for him (and for Emily's bunny as well).  Crazy, I know, but fun! Here are a few shots of the table:

After Carter's party, I knew we had to have a candy bar at Emily's party - the kids love them!  And they are so much fun to put together.  My favorite part of the candy bar were the cute "candy kabobs" my mom and I made!  They had little pink teddy bears at the top (in keeping with our sleepover theme) and they were just the cutest little things.  I made the "Emily" banner in about five minutes by cutting triangles of scrapbook paper and attaching chipboard letters, then gluing them to a piece of ric rac.  The location of the candy bar wasn't ideal, as it was in front of our fireplace/giant TV (my decorating nemesis), but I think it worked well.  Here are a few pictures of the candy bar, and the cute candy kabobs:

Rather than have a cake this year, Emily wanted cupcakes, and her Mommy was happy to oblige!  We had chocolate cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting and silver and pink sprinkles - yum!  These absolutely ADORABLE "night owl" cookies came from Etsy seller TSCookies.  They were almost too cute to eat!  I borrowed the pink glass cupcake stand from my mom, and I made the cupcake toppers using her Cricut.  I tried making some cute cupcake toppers and other printable party goods, but I figured out that I need to leave that to the professionals!  Let's just say that they didn't work out at all.  Next time, I'm ordering some from someone who knows what they are doing!

For the favors, I made (see a theme here?) each guest their own chalkboard door hanger.  They were a big hit!  This was a very frugal project - the unfinished wood hangers were only $ .47 at Hobby Lobby, and I only used a couple of pieces of scrapbook paper, chalkboard paint (that I already had), and some other odds and ends that I had in my craft stash.  The girls loved these.

Our main activity was decorating pillow cases with fabric markers (while a certain little marker-stealer kept making trouble!)...

Big sister Lindsey and her friend Ariana did makeup and hair, and then led the girls in charades and some other fun games.  If you don't have a big sister around to help with little girl parties, I recommend inviting a few older girls to help out - the little ones just love the older girls!

Here are a few more pictures from our party...

{Emily's bunny was all dressed for the party, and perched in a doll bed right in the middle of the festivities.  Emily insisted!} 

The best part of all?  This little seven year old thanked me a million times for working so hard on her party - and she had a blast!  Making her happy makes me so very happy =)

Happy 7th birthday, my sweet Emily June!  No matter how big you grow, you will always, ALWAYS be my baby girl!  I love you!!!!

PS - I have to say a HUGE thank you to my sweet mom, Bebe, for helping me with all of my crazy projects.  She never judged my craziness, she just did what I asked her to do!  Also, my mom in law Johnnie, who watched the kids the morning of the party so that I could decorate without "helpers."  I couldn't have pulled this off without both of their help - thank you Bebe and Nanny!!!

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Emily's 7th Birthday

{hat made by my friend Jessica - thanks, Jessica!  Emily LOVED her hat!  You can find Jessica's blog here.}

Emily's birthday this year was not like any other so far.  It was going to be an awesome day - Daddy took off work (this is BIG!  Daddy rarely takes off work) and we were going to do whatever Emily wanted all day long.  Unfortunately, Emily woke up not feeling well.  To make a VERY long story short, Emily has had some stomach troubles ever since our whole family got Rotovirus at Christmas last year, and it still plagues her to this day.  So, we tried to make the best of it, but we didn't get to do as many fun things as we had planned.  Here's how her day went:

She woke up to presents, and bunny pancakes (that she only took a few bites of because of her poor little tummy).

One of Emily's gifts was a crayon roll, and in true Emily form, she asked if she could rearrange the crayons into "ROYGBIV" format!  She is an organizational nut!  SO funny.

After presents, Emily wasn't feel well, so she rested most of the day.  Around dinner time, she started perking up so we continued with our plans to go to Olive Garden with our whole family.  Emily only ate a few bites, but she was definitely more of her normal self, and I was so thankful for that.  Before we left, I took a few birthday pictures, including our annual ladybug picture.

Pictures from dinner:

After dinner, we went to Bebe's house for presents.  To say that Emily got a little excited might be an understatement!  Here she is with the little mice Bebe made for her - so cute.

She got 100 $1 bills - she thought she was a millionaire!

This is her, realizing that the computer mouse was not the only present - she got a laptop from Bebe and Bapop!  She was over the moon excited about all of her gifts. 

Even though Emily didn't feel great, she still had a great day with family.  This is one little girl who LOVES her family more than anything.  I was so relieved that she perked up at the end of the day - I spent the day worrying about her so much.

Happy 7th birthday, sweet Emily June!!!  Mommy and Daddy love you so much!