Lily's Bowling Party

My sweet Lily had kind of wanted a slumber party for her birthday, but when I told her that she probably couldn't invite boys to sleep over she didn't want to exclude Matthew, Ben and two boys from her class (Tanner and Bryce).  So, she put her own wants aside to accommodate ALL her friends and decided to have a bowling/arcade party that everyone could enjoy.  I was so proud of her for putting others first, that I let her have both!! (I kinda wanted a slumber party too!).   But first up -- Bowling!!

Her parties had an animal print theme -- it was a take off of a "Katy Perry Roar" theme which was her original idea.

Popcorn party favors with bowling tags.

Madelyn, Ben, Emily, Carys, Lily, Cora, Abby, Juliah, Vika

Abby and Dani

Logan, Matthew, Elise, Sasha, Courtney, Sophie

Pizza time!

After pizza and cake all the kids got money to play in the arcade area.

Dani, of course, was drawn to the candy machine! 

Lily actually won herself that pink watch!

Dani enjoying a stale hard candy she won in the candy machine.

It was a super fun party!!  We came home for a brief break and opened presents before round 2 began.

Happy Birthday Lily!!

I can't believe my baby is 7 years old.  She is definitely growing up way too fast.  But she is growing up into such a sweet, smart, thoughtful, caring, beautiful, subborn and amazing young lady and I am so proud of her.  She is my little bestie!!   For the first time ever, we are having her birthday party on her actually birthday -- so the night before we had her family birthday with Grandma and Grandpa, went out to dinner and gave her her presents.  

The following pictures of her opening her gifts just demonstrates how sweet she is  . . .  it is HER birthday and she let Dani help open her presents.  We actually had to stop Dani from opening them all herself.  Lily is very thoughtful towards her sister.

 

 Since we were getting a cake the next day, Grandma just brought cupcakes tonight.

 

I can't remember if I blogged about this before or not, but since she has a birthday near Christmas, she wrote a letter to Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and asked if her elf, Kingy, could stay until her birthday.  Of course, Santa said ok and she was SO excited.  So Kingy has been hanging around the last 10 days.  He showed up one morning dressed as a cupcake with a birthday hat and had a Elf on The Shelf birthday book for Lily.   On her birthday, Kingy wrote her a goodbye note since it was time for him to go home and gave her a new Barbie doll.  He is such a sweet elf and Lily misses him already.

Her birthday was off to a good start.  Now, it is time to start the parties!!  Yes . . .  I said parties!

Just Dance

Dani has a new favorite video game . . .

New Year's Day

After staying up well past midnight and WAY too late the night before, both girls work up about 8am.  Lily wouldn't go back to sleep, but Dani passed on on the foot of our bed for an additional hour and a half.

 

 Then we all went downstairs to watch the Rose Parade and relax before cleaning up all the Christmas stuff. 

 Watching the Rose Parade again in the evening (and doing front rolls), in the clean house!!

NYE

We hosted New Year's Eve at our house this year since Chip still wasn't feeling 100% and didn't necessarily want to go out.  Lily was so excited -- she always has a blast staying up till midnight with her friends.

 

All ready to ring in 2014.

Getting ready to countdown!!

 

Happy New Year!!!

 

Someone really like sparking cider!!

Can't pose for pictures right now . . .  need to get my drink on.

New Year Hugs.

(Dani in the background -- still with her tongue in her champagne flute).

Happy New Year!!!

Encore Performance

The day after we say the Disney Jr show the girls were still on a high from seeing some of their favorite characters.  They spent the morning reenacting the show.  First Lily played the piano while Dani ran around yelling "Sofia dance, Sofia dance, Sofia dance!!" The next number was similar with Lily playing the piano and Dani running around yelling "Pirate Jake!  Pirate Jake!  Pirate Jake!" and finally the finale was Lily playing the piano and Dani running around yelling "Minty Bow!  Minty Bow!  Minty Bow!".   It was a good show!

 

 They switched places for a bit and Lily sang songs from Sophia which was awesome, but sadly didn't last as long.

 

Then, of course, Doc made a brief appearance!