Carmen's SPA PARTY

For Carmen's sixth birthday she wanted to have a spa party with some of her friends. My initial thought was "easy peasy, lemon squeezy!". But it was a lot of work and preparation, and two hours of pure craziness. But after all was said and done, I was glad we did it and I think the party was a success.

THE PREPARATION:

 All set and ready for mani/pedis

 I really lucked out the the goodie bags (everything from Target $ Spot!) Flip flops, eye mask, nail polish, lip gloss, pedicure kit and hand sanitizer and candy in each bucket.

THE SPA TREATMENTS:

 David was the Milkshake Man

 Each girl got a braid and bow in her hair

 Aliza, Nia, Hallie, Peyton, Leah, Abby, Nina, Carmen and Kastyn

 After all the treatments and presents and food - we decorated flip flops until the moms came. None of these pictures came out super great, but I was running around like crazy trying to keep 10 little girls in check!

The Growing Up Years

I really just love pictures and don't always necessarily have a story behind them. I have only a handful of pictures of myself growing up. Mostly of just when I was very little and then not any more until I'm a teenager. When I had my first child, I promised myself that my kids would never lack pictures of themselves and their growing up years! So any chance I get, I snap pictures of them. And sometimes the girls just ask to have their pictures taken and especially Charlotte, loves to pose for the camera!

After Carmen posed like this, Charlotte jumped right in and wanted to pose the same way. This girl cracks me up!

And to add some of Aliza - this was a very proud day for her. She could ride her bike and not be scared! We were all very proud of her and her new found talent!

Fun on the Downtown Mall

Ever since we moved here I've wanted to take the girls to the downtown mall to take pictures. I just never really found the right time until now. Unfortunately, Carmen was in school and isn't in any of these fun pictures. But at the same time, I think if she had been with us, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. Aliza and Charlotte had such a great time running up and down the walkways and we found this really cool wall to draw on with chalk, and there was a free carousel to ride on and we even found a cupcake store! It was such a fun day for us! I got a ton of really fun pictures, so it was hard to narrow it down to just my most favorite.

Easter 2011

Our Easter this year was really nice. I felt like it was the first Easter that I was really focused on the real purpose of this day, the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't have many pictures, in fact I didn't take any pictures at all this whole weekend. The girls had lovely matching purple dresses and David even had a matching tie!! I've always wanted to be a matchy family for a holiday and this year I finally pulled it off, but there is no cute family picture to prove it. Just this one of the girls that was actually taken several weeks ago when they first got their Easter dresses.

We ate Easter dinner at my mom's house and her and Poppy planned out a really fun egg hunt for the kids! And we ended the weekend by having ice cream at my Grandma's house. It has been a long standing tradition that Sunday nights are spent at Grandma's house and we always have ice cream. All the cousins would be there. So now it's fun to take my girls to their Great Grandparents house and be part of this tradition.

These other pictures are from a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.

 Carmen found the golden egg and won a huge chocolate bunny!

Spring Break - Part Four (The Finale)

We finally made it to Cade's Cove. This was the place that David's family often came for their family vacation. We all know that David is very nostalgic, so this was fun for him to take his family here. And after being kind of couped up in the car and not really being able to run and play a whole lot, this is just what we all neeeded! Cade's Cove is an area in the Great Smokie Mountains that is a nice area to drive around and visit old homesteads and a farm and watermill. There is also a really fun river to play in. We had taken Carmen here when she was just two months old! This was the place of our first vacation as a "family".

 Everyone else was asleep, so David and Carmen burned up some energy.

 I love how I snapped the picture just as Carmen threw bunny in the air! Aliza was running to the rescue!

 Shoes off and jumping in the river!

**I love that my girls are getting old enough to take pictures.  Most of these were taken by either Carmen or Aliza.