Sarah's 10th Birthday

I have been way behind on blog posting, like over a year behind.  I've decided to start back up again because I think it is a wonderful way to journal what goes on in our lives and I think (hope) that one day my girls will love to look back and read about all the things we did.  So in the spirit of #TBT, I am going to post for a bit on what we have been up to so far this year.  Starting with Sarah's 10th birthday back in January!

How is it possible that my first born is 10 already?!  To celebrate we did a Glow in the Dark/Neon party at the house with some of her friends!  Of course we did it later in the day/evening so they could have fun with the glow part of the party.  We ask everyone to wear neon or white so the black lights in the house would make their clothes glow!  They had such a fun time being silly, playing a few games and decorating T-shirts with glow in the dark paint!  Enjoy some of the photos from the party and my little Top Ten list about Sarah that I made to commemorate the occasion!

 
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Top 10 Reasons I Love Sarah

10.  She shares my same love of Starbucks and any thing salted caramel!

9.  She is a talented Irish dancer and watching her dance makes my heart sing.  She is proud of her Irish roots and it shows!

8.  Sarah told me recently that, “Italy must be heaven”.  I can’t agree more.  She thinks it’s because you can eat pizza and gelato to your hearts content!  Just wait till she grows up to really enjoy the finer things Italy has to offer!

7.  She has a love of travel and learning about different places and cultures.  This is one of the most important things Charlie and I wanted to teach the girls.  So far in her 10 years she has visited Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.  Her favorite states are of course Hawaii, California, and Texas!

6.  She loves animals and has a soft spot in her heart for them.  She would be a vegetarian if she didn’t love bacon and filet mignon so darn much! 

5.  She is a quiet girl and always tries to do the right thing.  However, put her in a room full of her friends and she comes out of her shell and can be the life of the party!

4. She loves her California roots.  Although she has lived ½ her life in TX, she was born in Riverside, CA, and I love that she loves this state.  I am so blessed to be able to raise her near the ocean and the beauty that California has to offer.

3. She loves her family, even her little sister who annoys her most times.  She is very close to her grandparents, her cousins, and her aunts and uncles.  She loves getting together with family and celebrating the holidays.

2.  She thrives in school and LOVES it.  She is the only child that I know that cries on the last day of school.  She loves learning and it shows through her many talents.  She loves to read and is a great reader.  I find that the most intelligent people are the ones who read.  Case in point, her father.  So glad she followed in his footsteps and not in mine.  Flipping through magazines and scrolling pinterest  does not intelligence make!

1.  The #1 reason I love Sarah is that she is mine and I see so much of myself in her, so much of her dad in her, so much of my mom and Nana in her.  She is a perfect mix of so many wonderful qualities and that I am sure will lead her to do great things, be loved by others, and have a happy and fulfilled life!  My sweet Sarah, my first born, will always have my heart.

Lauren's 'Over the Rainbow' 5th Birthday

She's 5!  There is no doubt that my girls are my greatest joy in life.  Getting to plan these little theme birthday parties for them, is another.  After many options that she started discussing about 2 days after her party last year, a rainbow theme was the one she picked.  I must say that it was very fun and pretty easy to put together.  Since her #1 request was that we have a bounce house, the park was the obvious choice for location.  Here in southern California, outdoor parties are so nice since the weather is pretty much always great.  So here it is: Lots of friends, a bounce house, a surprise visit by Bubblemania and a "sweet" cake and we were set!

Lauren is quite a child.  She is so incredibly sweet, yet very sassy, all rolled into one.  I can go from loving her so much I can't even stand it, to wanting to pull my hair out because she drives me insane.  All in the matter of about 5 minutes.  At the end of the day, she is a beautiful child (those curls and dimples), she is very smart, she is very sweet and loves her friends.  She began Kindergarten this year and is doing very well.  She also is a very busy girl taking art, ballet/tap, hip hop Jr. and Irish dancing.  She loves mermaids, princesses, unicorns, and (as to be expected) RAINBOWS!

Party Details:

Entertainment: Bubblemania

Bounce House: Planet Bouncy

Rainbow Cake: Cupcakes Couture -Manhattan Beach

Invitations: Polka Dot Design

Rainbow Dress: My Sweetie Bean

Irish Dance Birthday Party

It is no surprise that when I asked my daughter what theme she might like for her 8th birthday that she said Irish Dance! Most of her friends are girls that she dances with (and those that are not she has taught all the dances to at school!), so I thought perfect!



It was a pretty easy theme to come up with ideas for, but a little hard to shop for. Since her birthday is at the beginning of January, it is hard to find Irish stuff since the stores don't start putting it out until the mid-end of January. For some reason Halloween starts getting put out at the end of the summer, but St. Patrick's Day stuff won't see daylight until mid-January!

Anyway, I wasn't really throwing a St. Patrick's Day party, however, there are so many cute ideas that can go for both an Irish/Irish dance theme and St. Patrick's Day. Sarah and I decided that we would clean out the garage and let that be the spot they could dance. I had the Irish jig music playing in there and they had an open space to move around.


We then decided to do a couple of crafts and a game. We choose to do "decorate your own Irish dance solo dress" as one craft. Sarah and her friends do this activity at Irish Dance camp in the summer, but they only get to color the dresses. I thought it would be fun for them to get to actually decorate them with crystals, too, since that is what the dresses are really like! I thought the girls might be a little bored with this activity, but they really took to it and we had some amazing designs! For the other craft, we did "make your own lucky charm bracelet"! I basically cut green ribbon and knotted one end. Then they could slip on the concho beads and the charms how they like, and I just knotted the other end when they were done.

The dress outlines I got from her drawings from Irish dance camp. The colored pencils and sticky back crystals came from Target and Michael's.

The ribbons and beads you can get at Michael's and I ordered the charms from Oriental Trading.

For the game we did "hot potato"! Get it, potatoes, because they are Irish! Again, thought this game might be too young or too boring, but they so got into it! They LOVED it! We played it so many times that I ran out of prizes to give to the winners!

For food and drinks we kept it simple. The party was midday so I didn't have a full meal planned. We just had snacky foods and cupcakes! Her are the details:

*I did popcorn in a pot to resemble a pot of gold*
* Rainbow of fruits*
*Veggie plate with cheese in Irish Flag colors*
*Spinach & Parmesan dip with Tortilla Chips* (from Costco)

For drinks I had mini water bottles, Capri sun lemonades, and my Leprechaun punch!
(It is just lime sherbet and 7-up!)

I made the cupcakes at home. Sarah wanted green icing. Flags I got from Oriental Trading and Shamrock toppers from Michael's. Sarah and I had a hard time deciding on what to put in her cupcake, so we chose a green candle, and orange candle, a shamrock and rainbow candle, and a #8, of course. All of which I got at Party City.

Other party details are as follows:
These were the favors. I simple got green gift bags and affixed the "Keep Calm & Jig On" logo I found online.
Inside the bags were ghillie socks I bought at a local Feis, rainbow pops from Oriental Trading, green glow sticks, and green swirly straws.
For party hats I found the cutest leprechaun hats from Party City. I ordered them, but you can get them in the store. They are more St. Patrick's Day than Irish dance, but Sarah LOVED them!


I also had other ideas that I did not do. Only because it was getting over the top they were just a little more complicated than I wanted to take on. Here are some of those ideas:

*For the charm bracelets I could of used real lucky charms, like the cereal ones, but they were sort of hard to find at a good price. Most of what I found was already affixed in a bracelet anyway.
* I could have given small boxes of Lucky Charm cereal away in the favor bags.
*I thought about having the party start mid morning and do an Irish Breakfast for food. Not a typical Irish breakfast, but breakfast foods that kids would like and just call it an "Irish Breakfast". I would have done pancakes, fruits, yogurts, donuts with green sprinkles, and hot chocolate.
*We wanted to give away these cookies as favors, but I could not find the cookie cutters. They seem to be discontinued, but would have been perfect for the theme!
www.reelyclever.com
*I also thought about giving out chocolate gold coins as prizes for games.
* You can also do a cute little "photo booth" or decorate a cute St. Patty's day back drop and have the kids hold these for cute pictures!
Go to www.paperandcake.com to purchase!

So all in all it is a super fun theme and there are SO many great ideas! I have to say the party was a success, but the best thing of all was the fact that Sarah got her first custom made solo dress from Ireland delivered on her birthday! It was so perfect and so exciting!

Lauren's Tinkerbell/Peter Pan 4th Birthday Party

What a lovely little magical party Lauren had this weekend! I owe it all to the special guests that came to celebrate Lauren's birthday with her.


I usually go all out on these parties, but decided that since our beach house isn't quite spacious enough to host lots of little kids running around, to go easy this year. I booked the local park, got a bounce house, made some cupcakes from a box mix, and hired some spectacular entertainers to do all the hard work of entertaining the kiddos. Lauren really wanted a Tinkerbell theme, but because we know a few more boys out here than we did back home in TX, I turned it into a Peter Pan theme to accommodate. Here are the photos and few details.

The Details:
Location: Valley Park, Hermosa Beach
Entertainers: True Enchantment Entertainment
Bounce House: Planet Bouncy
Invitations, stickers, cupcake toppers: Katie Belle Paperie
Tutus/Fairy Wings: Designed 2B Sweet
Party Favors: Party City