Lexi's Tinkerbell Family Birthday Party: She is 3!

I cannot believe that my Lex is 3 years old. Well, technically, she will be 3 tomorrow, but tonight we celebrated because Chris will be gone all day and most of the night tomorrow. So, in my eyes, she is already 3. Anyways, Lexi wanted a Tinkerbell Birthday Party and so we had one. This year we celebrated with just the family. Chris and I have decided that we will have friend parties for the girls every other year, so every even year. That is why we celebrated with just each other.  But, even though it was just us, Lexi had a blast! She LOVES LOVES Tinkerbell and so when all the decorations were out and the presents were put on the table in Tinkerbell bags, she was mesmerized. Take a look at snapshots of our fun night:

Here are the decorations! 

Lexi loved these. We hung them from our light fixture. They added some flair to the party decor. 

Chris and I got Lexi this Tinkerbell outfit, the shoes, and the Tinkerbell sceptor with moonstone. The sceptor is from the Tinkerbell movie we have and when she saw this she was in shock, she loves it so much! She looked darling in this outfit and she was excited to have it, but then she got cold, so we put her clothes back on for the rest of the party. I love how pretty she looks in green!

What a cute Tink!

We mostly took video of her opening the presents so we could get her reactions, but this is a snapshot we took of her opening some presents from Gma and Gpa Farrelly. She is such a pro at opening presents now! 

My parents got Lex these train whistles and they were fun! 

She got a buzz and rex to go with the other toy story toys she got for Christmas. And, she just had to play with these immediately! She LOVED these presents. She also had to go get Jesse and Woody and Bullseye immediately, so in her words, "All the friends can be happy together." She loves toy story!

After presents, it was cake time! Here are the cute tinkerbell plates, napkins, and cups that Lexi picked out herself!

Here is the cake! Althought I am a VERY amateur cake decorator, and it did not turn out quite like I had envisioned, Lexi loved this cake, and that is all that really mattered, so I was happy with it overall! She loved this part of the party the most and was all smiles and even sang along when we sang Happy birthday! She blew out the candles like a champ and loved that we turned off all the lights when the candles were burning. 

Light the lights! On the table are some of the fun presents she got. Thanks Gma and Gpa Farrelly and Great Gma and Great Gpa King! She loved everything!

So happy! Happy Birthday Lex!

We had chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and vanilla ice cream, all requests of Lex. She loved the frosting and the ice cream the very most!

We love our Lex so much and I am so glad that we could celebrate this special day, the day she joined our family! 3 years has gone fast and I love watching her learn and grow and am starting to see her as a cute little girl, rather than a baby! It is bittersweet, the growing up process, I mean. So, one last time, Happy Birthday, Lex. We love you very much!

Lexi at almost 3 and Christine at 6 1/2 months

I have had a request to put some updated photos of Christine. So, while the girls were modeling their new shirts my mom got them for Valentine's Day, I took the opportunity to snap some good ones of Lexi and a lot of Christine.

This is fleece and lexi said it felt "cuddly"

She also loves to put her hands in the front pockets. She said it was a "home for her hands."

Isn't a cute shirt on a cute girl? She loves to laugh when I take her pics. It is cute.

She was laughing so hard she was falling over.

So pretty!

This is my favorite one! She is too funny.

She was just about to smile, but not quite. I like this one though, because you can see the cute cluster of three flowers on her shirt in the upper right hand corner. Darling shirt, thanks mom!

A Fun Valentine's Day

I cannot say we had the most romantic Valentine's day this year, but it was a lot of fun! To start the day, I made chocolate waffles with buttermilk syrup, homemade whipped cream and raspberries for my family.

This was a huge hit with Lexi and Chris. They loved these!

Then, Chris surprised us girls with flowers. He got each of the girls their own rose and I got a bouquet of pretty spring flowers. He also gave me a sweet card! 

you can see Christine's rose in this pic. Lexi was having too much fun flying hers around, so it didn't get in the shot

I love how fresh flowers make the house smell amazing!

Then, as Chris was running out the door to get to school, I gave him a U-Da-Man chocolate bar! 

He is Da-Man in our house!

Then, it was party time for me and the girls. I threw a little Valentine Party complete with games, passing out Valentines and eating way too much sugary goodness! Lexi had a blast, I hope the other kids did too! 

This is the valentine we made for Lexi to pass out to all her friends

Here are the kids making their "Love bug" treat bags to hold their valentines in. 

Here are the finished projects

So cute!

Game Number 1: They had to go around the apartment finding the hearts with letters on them. Then, they matched the heart letters to the ones on the ground, and when they were done, they completed the phrase, "You Rock!"

Game Number 2: They had to go find more hearts around the apartment and then decide if they were small, medium, or large. This was a little tricky for them, but they liked it! 

Game Number 3: This was called, Heartbreakers. They had to match up the hearts based on number. One side had the written number and the other side had the same number of stickers. So, they had to match em up. This was more complicated for all of them than I thought, so I am glad I also color coded them as well. 

The food was a hit!

Jewel and her daughter joined us later, and I am so glad because then Lex wasn't the only girl :)

What sweet kids!

These are some cute sugar cookies that my friend, Caroline brought. 

These are the chocolate cupcakes I made. I was going to pipe the frosting, but I got lazy, so they are not as cute as they could have been, but yummy nonetheless. 

The food table consisted of pb and j sandwiches cut out in hearts, chips, strawberry milk, and the cupcakes and cookies. Simple, but a hit with the kiddos. 

Our friend, Bella. 

Even Christine had a good time! She was so good, I just had to hold her the whole time, bummer. 

All in all, the party was successful, and again, Lexi had a great time. Thanks for coming, guys. When her friends left, Lexi looked at me and said, "I already miss my friends, can we have another party soon, mom?" She sure loves to be around kids her age. 

Our Valentine's Day ended with Chris coming home from school at about 9:30 p.m. and I went to the gym. Then, I made Chris his chocolate finale dessert which was Chocolate Molten Lava Cake. This picture does not do the dessert justice, but Chris was in Heaven! He said it tasted a lot like the Chili's restaurant one that we love so much, which is good, since the recipe was suppose to be a knock off  of that one. So, all in all, I did good. 

It was a fun day filled with chocolate, friends, and of course, love. I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's day too! 

We also were fortunate enough to receive some fun valentine packages from my parents and my grandparents. Thanks so much guys. There are no pictures, but we loved everything!

Happy Valentine's Day: A Homemade E-card

We just wanted to tell all of our families: Happy Valentine's Day, wherever you may be. We love you all! I know Valentine's day isn't officially until Monday, but we wanted to kick start the holiday weekend with this card. Again, we love you all!

S is for Snowman Day!

Yesterday's Snow day inspired me to do some preschool "S" activities, with a specific theme of snowmen. I found these amazing homeschooling sites that let you use their printables for FREE! Thank you tip junkie for the great tip! So, I printed them off, cut them out, and today Lexi and I did some educational games and activities. Lexi had a blast! I was doing preschool stuff with Lex on a regular basis, but when Christine was born I kind of got out of the habit. Well, after today, I realized I need to do more, because Lexi just loved it! The activities were really easy for her, easier than I had anticipated, so all of our fun lasted for about 20 minutes. However, Lexi wanted to play some of the games multiple times so it ended up being 45 minutes of fun! So, without further ado, here are the games! Warning: It is kind of a long post.

Build A Word

She had to find the matching letter to build the word

She was having so much fun doing this. She kept singing, "Come on Let's build a word, let's build it, let's build it now!" That happens to be from the PBS show, Word World, a fav of Lex

She completed the word, snowman, in less than 5 minutes. And, she knew every letter! Look how proud she is!

Counting Game

She had to pick a card from the pile, and whatever number that card showed, she had to put that many pom pom balls on the circles on the bottom of the snowman card. 

When she got all 10, she won! This was one of her favorites, we played at least three times.

Biggest to Smallest

I mixed up all the snowmen and then she had to put them in order from the biggest to the smallest. We also went from the smallest to the biggest, and doing it that way was harder for her, for some reason. 

She played this game like a champ. I thought it would be harder for her than it was. We even talked about the middle sizes and she understood perfectly. 

Again, this game was a big hit, she has played it a lot today! I cannot even count how many times. I loved this one too, because she could do it completely independently. 

Snowflake Match

She had to find the pairs that matched

This game was way too easy for her. She completed it twice in like 2 minutes. It was not a fav, because it was so easy. I was kind of surprised, because we do not play that many matching games. But, I guess I will have to make it more challenging next time. 

Tracing the Letter "S"

Now THIS was a challenge for Lex. Do you see how I have a lefty on my hands? However, she surprised me with how well she got to the lines. 

Not too bad for doing it entirely on her own, for in her exact words, "I can do it myself, mom, I don't need help." Miss Independent....

She was being so goofy and i just love this goofy face she is making. 

Oh, that is better! 

During snack time, she asked me if she could place her goldfish on the letter S, so that is what she did, entirely her idea!

So, there you go!

Snowman Pancake Lunch

To keep the theme going, we made snowman pancakes for lunch! We used blueberries for the eyes and buttons, fat-free american cheese for the scarf, baby carrot cut into a triangle for nose, and chocolate cookie icing for the smile and arms. (If it sounds like a weird combo, it kinda is, but it is what I had on hand, and Lexi ate it all, so it was all good)

She loved this. She even ate the blueberries for crying out loud, that is huge for my picky eater!

She dipped the pancake circles in pure maple syrup. It was the perfect lunch to end a fun, perfect snowman day! Don't you just love her cheesy smile in this one? I think she was done smiling by this point.