Rebecca is 8: a Tangled Party

What a great day.  Rebecca turned 8! We celebrated in the morning with our family. Rebecca received her own scriptures and some "Tangled" toys to go with our party theme.  

 

In the afternoon 6 of her special friends came to celebrate a "Tangled" Rapunzel Party with us.  We played pictionary, sherades, and made candy necklaces. We also played "Pin the frying pan on Flynn," and Rebecca got him smack in the nose.

 We had fantastic decorations, if I may say so myself.  The theme was purple and yellow like the party theme in the town in the Rapunzel movie.  We had a purple tablecloth and yellow plates and my pride and joy, the sun banner.  We cut the banner out of felt, made a sun stencil and sponge painted the suns.  The kids all got in on the action, but it was a little harder than I thought it would be and I needed to do most of it myself. 

We made "Lanterns" in honor of the floating lanterns from the movie.  We modgepodged pieces of tissue paper onto glass vases and put tea lights inside to glow.

 
We did a conga line to cross the street to find a tree to use for our pinata. (We don't have any big enough trees in our yard, but our neighbor had a perfect one.)
We haven't done a pinata since Rebecca was 1, so it seemed like it was time to do it again.

Mad scramble for the candy

Rebecca actually broke the pinata on round 2 (after everyone had had a turn). It couldn't have been better.

Rebecca requested an unfrosted Angel Food cake, so that is what we did.  We served it sliced with fresh whipped cream and cut strawberries (coated in a little sugar).  We had trick candles that kept coming back on and got lots of squeals out of the girls.

Rebecca made the signs herself.  "Welcome to the Snuggly Duckling" (the tavern in the movie), a "Wanted dead or alive" sign and a Happy Birthday sign.  I believe it is important to let them be involved in the preparations as much as possible. 

What a fabulous party for a fabulous girl.  Thanks for coming to our family and making me a mommy! I love you, Rebecca! 8 is GREAT!!!

Growing Pains

I know I haven't posted all summer. Did you miss me? Probably not. You were probably enjoying summer as much as I was.  But summer has ended, school has started and brought with it (ironically) the hottest weather of the summer. 

Rebecca started third grade and got off the bus proclaiming: "I LOVE my teacher!"
Joseph started Pre-K at Rebecca's school. It was a miracle that he got the very last spot they had to offer. He was very nervous but let me go without a problem, so it was successful!  

I love my kiddos.  It made me emotional to let each one of them go.  I'm so glad they're a part of my life.

Heritage Park Cerritos

Ever since I went there last year I've had the desire to go back to Heritage Park and take pictures of my kids. I tried today, but it was incredibly challenging without another adult to help me with the baby. The ones I took of all three kids didn't turn out because Theo would NOT sit still on Rebecca's lap.

I've had a secret desire to learn to become a good portrait photographer. I know it's going to take time, and all I can do right now is learn from books, but hopefully someday I can start understanding the physics behind it all and learn to take good pictures. I just hope I learn before my kids are too big! Right now I'm doing everything on automatic, and I want to learn how to use my camera properly. We'll get there eventually, right?!

Teacher Thank you present

And all of the sudden second grade is over. Where does time go?

To say thank you to Rebecca's teacher this year we made her a personalized clip board. I had Rebecca draw a picture of her teacher and write some nice things about her. We glued on some colorful paper (it was just a plain brown clip board to begin with) and mod-podged Rebecca's drawings on top. We added a few colorful ribbons and voila, it was complete! Her teacher loved it. Btw, that extra bit of white paper is there to cover up her teacher's name to protect her identity! :) It's hard to tell from the picture, but the mod podge adds a shimer and shine and a nice overall finish. It makes it look really nice. I'm kind of new to mod podge, so don't laugh just because you've been doing it for years!

Mother Daughter Pajama Party

Our church did an AWESOME mother-daughter pajama party. We had so much fun. After a pizza party we had six different stations to go to: dancing, cookie decorating, stories and games, photo booth and then laminating it into a bookmark, nail painting and pillow case decorating. It was good to spend some one on one time with Rebecca, which we never ever get. She was so happy. It made my day.

BOO!

[Me experimenting with a color of eyeshadow I don't normally wear.]

Rebecca comes in.

R: "Mom, do you like how that looks?"

M: "No."

R: "Me neither. You look like a witch."

[I start laughing at this statement.]
Rebecca, sensing that she might have said something wrong: "That's what happened to me when I used that color. I looked like a witch, too!"

I'm glad we have such a honest relationship.... ;)

Conversations around the house

(painting with Opa, Christmas 2010)

These conversations are probably only funny to me (their mom), but I wanted to document them so I wouldn't forget them.

Rebecca one day: "Mom, I smell like lemon. I smelled my skin and I smelled lemon."

*********
Rebecca to Joseph whose piggy bank money was all over the floor:
"Can I have your money?"

J: "Sure. (pause)
But only for one day."


**********
Joseph to Mommy:

"I'm don't want a baby anymore."

M: "You mean you think we should give him back?"

J: "Yes. I want to be a normal family again. Just a mom and dad and kids. No baby."

R7: the Events

We celebrated Rebecca's birthday with our little family by eating Rebecca's dinner of choice, crepes, and opening some presents. The next day we had our friends over for a party. I try to keep things simple, but my ideas get the better of me and I keep thinking of things to make and do. We had been planning this party for a long time now. I involved Rebecca in all of the planning because I thought it would be fun for her. The party was a "doll and me Tea Party." By the time everything was said and done I ended up being pretty exhausted.

The activities: freeze dance, sherades with your doll, making a beaded bracelet for your doll, making a little story book with stickers and sparkly pens for your doll, and making and wearing crowns. We had a little tea party with mini sandwiches and fruit and popcorn and at the end had cake and ice cream and opened presents. I think the little girls loved the activities. It was fun to watch them make the books. I kept getting requests for how to spell things from one or another girl.



Present time with the family.



New clothes for little Rebecca (the doll), a pet, rubberbands, matching headbands, and accessories for little Rebecca.

THE PARTY:



I had been wanting to make Rebecca a banner for weeks, and had different ideas. I wanted it to be "perfect" so of course I didn't get around to making it. So while Rebecca was waiting for the party to start she asked if she could make a birthday banner. I thought it was adorable, spelling and all.



Aspiring authors.



THE CAKE! (It gets a post of its own.)



Friends from all over. A fun time was had by all. The best part for me was when I lifted out the first piece of cake and the girls saw that it was a rainbow cake. I heard ooos the likes of which you don't even hear at Fourth of July fireworks!



The End.


Rebecca thanked me at the end of the day and said, "I loved my party." That is what it's all about!

R7

Dear Rebecca,

I couldn't be happier when I think back to the day you were born 7 years ago. It was one of the most special days of my life. I had always hoped to start with a girl, and I got my sweet little girl!

You have grown up so much in the last year. Reading, writing, piano, helping with the boys, doing homework on your own and on and on. I am in awe of you. You are an amazing girl. You are so much fun. You have the most amazing imagination. You are kind to your brothers and other little children. You are a great story teller and fantastic story reader. You use such great inflection in your voice when you read-you are dramatic and that makes it very interesting.



You miss your Great-grandpa Ralph and talk about him a lot, even though it has almost been 2 years since he left this life.



You are incredibly caring and forgiving. I love how easily you forgive. Much better than your own momma.



You loved your thumb, but this last year you gave it up completely and are thumb free now! I was impressed by your determination.



You feel things deeply.



Rebecca on her 1st birthday.



Rebecca 2 years old in Germany.



You've always made the silliest faces without any prompting from me. You are so funny!





You are my sweet, adorable princess. Even if we are slowly leaving the "Disney princesses behind" (not completely, but we are slowly moving on...) you will always be MY princess.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBECCA!

Thank you for coming to ME. I will forever be grateful for you.

I love you and can't imagine life without you.

Love,

Mommy

A child's love

I bought Rebecca some new hair rubber bands for her birthday but forgot to hide them before she came home. She saw them and asked if they were for her. I said yes, and that they had been meant for her birthday. Later she wrote me this note:



In case you can't read the gold pen:

Dear Mom, you can still give me the ruforbans. But do you whant to know whant is moer inpoorntined YOU ARE! I love you mom.

Sweethearted Rebecca! I love you, too.

Gift bags DIY

I've been extremely busy getting ready for R's birthday party. The goal has been to keep it as inexpensive as possible while still having a very nice party with pretty invitations, good activities, nice goodie bags and food of course. I think with my two kids it will be a total of 9 kids. Any guesses on how much this is going to cost? I'm including every cost, including stamps etc, but not of things I already had at home. So it's not a fair guessing game, I know.

So I decided to make the goodie bags myself, since I have all this beautiful scrapbook paper going to waste (I've gone digital in that department.) I looked on the internet for easy instructions on making your own paper gift bags, but had a hard time finding anything really helpful. There was one that came close, but I still adapted it, and so I decided to post it here for any of my friends that might want to know! :)



Take a 12x12 paper and fold it in half with a small edge showing. Then fold that edge over and tape it down (or glue it if you want it to be prettier!)



Fold the bottom of the bag up a couple of inches.



Open the bottom and push the edges down (see photo).



It will then look like this.



Fold the bottom up, slightly further than the middle line.



Then fold the top down, also slightly further than the middle line. Be careful here to fold it the same amount as the bottom, so the new points you have created match up.



Then fold the sides of the bag in, making sure you only fold it so far that the diagonal line you are creating matches up with the line you already have there. This is a step you need to be precise, too.



Unfold your bags, push the sides in, cut the top off to reach the desired bag size and voila, your own handmade giftbags. Punch some holes, add some ribbon, etc. I even thought you could fold the tops over, punch holes and thread the ribbon through and tie it in a bow.

I'm quite happy with how they turned out.