American Girl Party-part 2

our family before the party



Sophie with her dolls at the doll table before the party

   

Sophie and Maddie



Meredith and Sophie



Mary and Sophie



Emerson and Sophie



Allie and Sophie



Ella and Sophie



Carley and Sophie



Jordan and Sophie



Lauren and Sophie



Taylor and Sophie

       

the doll table

all of the girls (minus Ashton-Lauren's little sister) with their dolls

Here's several pictures from Sophie's birthday party.  The girls enjoyed painting their picture frames and then had a nice picture to take home from the party.  They had a great time at the party and I think it was a memorable party for Sophie!

An American Girl Celebration-Sophie's 7th birthday party



This is the scooter that we gave Sophie for her birthday.



Sophie and Molly are ready for the party.



Some of the girls playing musical chairs.

  



Kendall, Allie, Sophie, Ella, Lauren, Meredith, Carley and Emerson.



Maddie, Emma, Jordan, Mary, Taylor, Abbie, and Ashton.

Sophie with her "7" cake made from cupcakes.

Treat bags!

Keri, my cousin, and Martha (my sis) who are both expecting babies this year and were a big help at the party.

This year we did an American girl party for Sophie's birthday.  We had it at our church and 12 of Sophie's friends were able to come alongwith Abbie and one friend's younger sibling.  I will have to post some more pictures soon because we had some really cute pictures of each girl and her doll with Sophie on another memory card.  Each of the girls painted a picture frame and then Matt went to Walgreen's one hour photo so that each girl would have a picture from the party to place in her picture frame.  I also had about 4 different games planned including pin the hat on Molly, musical chairs, toss the handkerchief (like duck, duck goose) and the egg on the spoon relay.  We had a special table for the dolls to sit and little lip glosses in the shape of cupcakes so it looked like the dolls had something to eat too. 

Thankfully, my mom, Martha, my cousin, Keri, and Kathryn helped a lot with serving the food at the tea party.  I had made place cards for each of the girls with an American girl doll sticker on it.  Each of the girls was served a turkey and cheese sandwich (shaped like a flower), a cupcake, mints that mom and I had made, and an ice cream cup.  We also served some punch.  What I had not counted on was that we were pretty much done with everything by 3:00 and we had an hour left.  Sophie opened her gifts (to kill some time).  All of that sugar kicked in and the girls got kind of hyper.  We decided to take them back into the gym and let them do a few more relays to burn off some energy.  Then, we came back and let the girls put stickers on their picture frames and finish that, get their treat bags, etc.  All in all, the party went really well and I think the girls had a good time.   I'll try to post more pictures from the party soon! 

Sophie's birthday cont and Birthday Party Preparations



Here's Sophie on the morning of her birthday.  She's so excited!



We let Sophie open one of her presents on the night before her birthday.  She opened this Lego Friends set from Mimi and Paw-paw Tom and loved it!  She started putting it together right then.  Her Lego set even had a Sophie in it.

As I mentioned earlier, Uncle Phil came over and Sophie's birthday and we went to Chuck E. Cheese with he and Nana and Paw-paw.

Uncle Phil with Abbie (none of our pictures was good of both girls so I cropped)

I was busy making things in the days and weeks leading up to Sophie's American Girl parties.  Maybe there's a little bit of Martha-Martha Stewart that is, somewhere inside me.  I punched this scrapbook paper out and glued it onto clothespins to use on our treat bags for the party.

These are some of the cupcakes that I made for Sophie's party.  I added some sprinkles later.  Thanks to my friend, Kathryn, for letting me borrow her special decorating tip and cake decorating book so that I could try to make them fancy!

Since Sophie had an American Girl party, I made these little party hats for each of the girls' dolls using a pattern that I found online.  Not too hard but some of these projects can be time consuming.

A Birthday Tradition

Sophie with Uncle Phil

Sophie's ready to do a virtual bowling game. 

Paw-paw, Sophie and Nana (the two birthday girls)

  

Paw-paw, Abbie, Sophie, and Nana

 

 

 

 

Ever since Sophie was about 3 years old, we have gone to Chuck E. Cheese each year for her birthday (or around her birthday).  This year I thought that she might be tired of it and want to do something else since she was turning "7".  When I asked her where she wanted to go eat for her birthday though she said, "Chuck E. Cheese".  I was like, "really?"  Nana, Paw-paw, and Uncle Phil were able to go with us.  Nana's birthday is the day before Sophie's.  We were able to go to Logan's with her right before her birthday.  The girls had a great time there as long as we kept Abbie away from the big rat-she's scared to death of Chuck E.! 

I was able to take cupcakes to Sophie's school on her birthday too and have lunch with her.   At the end of Sophie's birthday, she said something like, "Wow, I had such a great birthday! I felt like I was in a dream at school all day."  It makes you feel really good when you know that your child has had a memorable day that made them feel so special.  She received some nice gifts and phone calls on her birthday.  Her principal, Dr. LaChance even came and sang to her, had a card for her and let her and a friend help do the announcements!  I can't believe that Sophie is 7.  She's growing up too fast!

Birthday Parties

Princess Rapunzel is ready to go to Anna's birthday party

Here's a picture of Abbie at Carolina's birthday party where each child could  paint their own playhouse.

Abbie loved this project!  All of the kids had a blast painting their houses!

We have been so busy lately so I've gotten behind on blogging (again).  Sorry.  Abbie's been to a couple of really fun birthday parties lately so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures from those.  One of her friends (Anna) had a party at the Music Playhouse (I think it's called) and she absolutely loved it.  Each child was supposed to dress up like a prince or princess.  Parents and children all participated in a music class where we did all kinds of fun things (rolled balls, played instruments, swung our children like monkeys, marched to the beat, etc).  Abbie had a blast dancing with some of her friends and they even sent each child home with a C.D. full of fun songs on it.

This past week, Abbie was invited to a party for Carolina who we go to church with and they have been taking gymnastics together lately.  It was a outdoor party and thankfully the rain held off other than a few sprinkles.  Carolina's mom gave each child a box -their "playhouse" that he or she could paint however he or she wanted to.  Each child wore older clothes and they had a wonderful time painting.  Every kid's dream for sure.  Then, they did a pinata, had cupcakes, and played with these water rockets (they were shooting each other with them).  Abbie came home soaking wet but she had a fun time!

Sea World in Orlando

 

the girls at Sea World



us riding up in the tower



Woo hoo! The Shamu roller coaster.  We all loved this one!



One of the beluga whales  Some people had paid extra so that they could dress up like a trainer and have the behind the scenes experience.



The girls riding in a car (actually at Busch Gardens)



Here's proof that I fed the dolphins at Sea World!



This time Sophie was brave enough to pet the dolphins and help feed them.  Dolphins are her favorite animal!

Abbie and I with the dolphin as I feed it.

We had a wonderful time at Sea World!  They had certain times that you could pay to feed the dolphins but there were very long lines.  We told Sophie that we could do it but only if she would pet the dolphin this time.   (When we were in San Antonio in the fall of 2011, there were no crowds and Sophie wanted to feed the dolphins.  We bought 2 different trays of fish and then Sophie chickened out on petting the dolphins).  Sea World seemed to be pretty busy for Spring Break.  We rode a lot of rides and saw many animals but it didn't work out for us to see the shows this time. 

Busch Gardens



Abbie's jumping and having so much fun!



Here's Sophie having a blast jumping!

Sophie with Abby Cadabby and Cookie Monster

Sophie with Zoe and Grover

the girls riding something in Sesame Street Land

Abbie's riding an airplane

  

Abbie and Sophie in front of the train!

While we were in Florida, we visited Busch Gardens a couple of different times.  I think I mentioned that we went the first day we were there even though it kept raining off and on.  After it stopped that night, it was very pleasant outside.  We went back a few days later and it was very hot outside.    Sophie enjoyed meeting all of the Sesame Street characters (or many of them) after an outdoor show but Abbie is still really frightened when people have costumes on and their faces are covered!  Both of the girls enjoyed the kids bounce area.  There was also a big playground structure with nets, etc that you could climb on.  Sophie rode one of the roller coasters at Busch Gardens with her Mama.