2 Birthday Parties in 2 days!

My mom and grandmom came to visit us for a week! We had a great time. Since it was so close to Bianca and Gwen's birthdays I decided to do both parties while they were here. It was a crazy idea! I think next time I will just let us visit with family instead of doing the parties while they are here. I'll just have to take better pictures of the parties, which we all know I seem to be very very bad at doing!

So first off we did Gwen's party with her preschool friends on Friday. She had a great turn out! We did an ice cream party in lots of pink. Gwen is such a cutie girl! I always find it funny that she wants to have kids around all of the time, but she spent most of the party downstairs with the grown-ups cuddling with someone. She loves friends, but has a very limited amount of time she can be with them. I also notice that she would rather dig in the sand by herself at the park rather than run around with everyone. I am also always amazed at how generous people are at parties. I always put on my invitation, "no presents needed" because I don't want people to feel obligated or stressed about another birthday party kid present/money wasted/whatever, but Gwen got tons of stuff! I did not have the presence of mind to take a before picture of her ice cream parlor set up. Here are the pics for her party:

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

Clearly, I have lighting issues!

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Oh big 4 year old!
This one is a little bit more clear:

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From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

On Saturday, yes the very next day, I took on Bianca's bee party! For this one we invited our friends. I think that until the 4 year birthday party, the parties are still for me! Age 4 is when they suddenly want all their friends there. The plan was to just do cupcakes, but I had so much left over from Gwen's ice cream party, I put out the ice cream bar again! I actually got pictures of the decorations this time, but the sun was shining in through the curtains so they look all glowy and weird. I bought a better camera to do this stuff with, but the first time I used it, it broke. Gotta get that figured out still. So here are the pics:

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

I didn't even get a picture of Bee on this day! I think Brian has some on his phone though - so I will have to check.

Quick Look for less Bathroom Redo

I was feeling like our upstairs was a bit too pink. Pink, pink, pink. Perhaps we could call it pinkalicious! It was pink and grey with princess stuff everywhere. I was tired of it. So I found a color combo I liked on CB2's website.



Only problem was that one towel cost $24.95!!! Not going to pay that. So I went to HomeGoods and Target. I definitely found the Look for Less!!

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

From New Album 5/14/11 10:15 AM

I want to put up a shelf above the toilet to put the rolled towels on. The awesome bath mat is perhaps the softest thing I've ever touched! So glad I got it! And looks just like the inspiration rug.

Have you ever purchased a tumbler rinse cup for your bathroom from the bath section? Did you notice that they cost like $10 sometimes?? I did not want a $10 tumbler! So I found my adorable cups in the summer section for $1.50 each!

This is my favorite find from HomeGoods:

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Some happy girls!

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The best and surprise benefit to this redo is that the girls will finally use the bathroom again. They have been terrified of it since our electricity went out when they were in there with the door closed awhile ago. This morning I wake up to, "Can you please put toothpaste on my toothbrush, and Gwen is in the potty." Woohoo! Finally I don't have to hold their hands to get them in there!!

Bad Dreams

I have certain things that I still have bad dreams about! Often they involve vampires, people breaking into our house, ghosts, something bad happening to people I love, sometimes high school stuff that haunts me. There are more things I have bad dreams about, but that is a fairly good list of things to be afraid of when it happens in your dream, I think.

This one, I don't think you should be afraid of.

Naomi came to me last night at 5am. Her eyes were wider than I have ever seen. So much so that I instantly got scared she was sick (or it was one of my bad dreams where my kids are possessed!). When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she had a bad dream.

Here is the dream: I was in the bathroom. I washed my hands 4 times, and then I used sanitzer one them so I knew they were clean. But then I left my water bottle in the bathroom.

Say WHAT? This is what traumatizes the poor kid? I told her to go back to bread and do some deep breathing. Normally when she has a bad dream I let her sleep the rest of the night on our floor. I understand the fear of a bad dream, but I tell ya, that one really threw me for a loop!