Pool Party Birthday Bash

I often times forget to mention the girls birthdays.....well let's be honest I don't forget to write the post, I forget to post the post. Yes, I have two years worth of birthday posts just hanging out in my draft folder waiting for their day to shine. I know, I know it's awful. Well not this time! Nope, I'm going to post and upload all at once that way I can't miss one again. :)

Now Nanner's birthday was waaaay back in March. Beanie's was in May. I understand that the party didn't actually occur until August, that's life around here. We had a fantastic roller skating party planned for Nanners....for the second year in a row she fell and broke something right beforehand. Spunky was the beneficiary of that skating party this year, hey a non refundable party must go on!

So once again a week before the party we're rushing her off to the ER for a X-rays only to show that yes, in fact, she does have a break. This year it was a distal radial wrist fracture. She got a rockin', heavy as all get out ER specialty cast and we were on our way.

Party postponed. People called. Facebook announcement made. Nanner's in tears because she never gets to have her party around her actual birthday. Mommy feeling like crap because the dramatics aside, the kid was right.

Beanie was supposed to have a combined party with a cousin, who ended up backing out last minute. Crap! Okay, on to plan B. We have many people in our lives who we know we can always count on, and lucky for us we have a whole 'nother family that loves us and as a bonus the have a POOL! Yay! Problem solved. Back to pool party.

Nanners and Beanie agree to have a combined party - Thank GOODNESS! We set a date, we shop for decorations, we buy food. Special cake ordered (that's a story in itself, if you've never seen a 15 year old cry over cake, tell her there's no way you're buying the special made, hand crafted fondant version of the band One Direction).

The party was fun, everyone had a blast playing in the pool. We ate nachos. We had an amazing cake. We took lots of pictures. We laughed. We spent a ton on their gifts because they totally earned them. These girls are amazing when it comes to self sacrifice and they deserved something special this year for sure.

Here are a few of the favorite pictures from the party.

 Lots of people playing in the pool!

 Nanners sporting her major accessory for the day - the Dry Pro. Seriously, if you ever break something you should get one of these! They are amazing!

Uncle Justin meeting Billy the Boyfriend for the first time......awkward....

Emi playing

The final result of the cake. This was a struggle folks, but they finally agreed on something, and the taste was awesome!

Nanners is 10! Beanie is 15! WOW!!!

Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl

Present time!

Showing each other their wares

Wait for it....

wait for it...

OMG!!! SQUEAL!! It's a Nintendo 3DS!!

Beanie had 2 boxes for her big gift....she got to chose only one

dun dun dun dunnnnnn.......FAIL!! After 12 minutes she decided to take the white box and it was EMPTY!! She let me push her in the pool to open the other one.....it had her laptop. :) 

Beautiful girls. Healthy girls. Smiling faces. What more could I ask for??

Memory Monday

Nanner's 7th birthday party. She choose a super simple design (YAY for me!!), and wanted polka dots. Seriously this couldn't have been any easier! I took a ton of construction paper, traced out different sized circles from all different colors and TA-DA instant decorations!

To keep with the theme we played Twister with all the kids, and they loved it. We served everything in round dishes, and asked the guest to wear polka dots if they could. Auntie Trina bought her a polka dotted cake.

Many people did, and it really helped to add to the atmosphere. With so many dots I figured I'd make good use of all those pictures and show them off.

We taped the pictures on the dots and hung them all over through out the house and the back yard where the party was. Everyone commented how fun it was to see the pictures of her through the years.

Everyone had a blast and it was crazy easy for Mom - WIN WIN!!

31 Day Photo and Prompt Challenge

**Linking up to It's Gravy Baby's 31 Day Photo and Prompt Challenge**

Day 8 - a birthday celebration

Since we just had to replace our hard drive finding pictures was a little bit of a challenge. These are from last year, but it was one of my favorite parties because my little girl picked it out completely on her own, and it didn't contain a character.

We were getting ready to go to Disneyland so The Boy and I gave her the option of having a big, lavish (read expensive) party at a pizza place or some other kiddie land or having a bbq at home and getting to spend some of the money we'd be saving in Disneyland. Nanner's made a very wise decision and was able to spend an extra $40 bucks on vacation. Smart girl!

We traced plates, saucers and a big can of food on contruction paper of all different colors. I literally cut out hundreds of them. The good news is that you can cut about 10-12 sheets at a time without mangling the paper. To add to her polka dot theme we taped pictures of her through the years to some of the dots. She helped pick out the pictures and tape them on. We stapled the dots all over the fence and taped them up where we could. We asked guests to wear polka dots if they had them. She chose a polka dotted cake. We got tangled up in a game of Twister. We had confetti dots sprinkled everywhere. We served polka dot burgers, or you know just regular burgers since they are round anyway. :) Most importantly she loved it!