Arabelle's Art Party!

Arabelle has wound up with more/bigger birthday parties than the other kids because she is so obsessed with them. She starts planning practically a year before and comes up with ideas, makes lists, and overall obsesses over every detail.  Arabelle currently wants to be an artist when she grows up, so this year it was her idea to have an art party.  I decided to postpone the date a bit so that I could have Memaw here to help me with it.  Here we are assembling the Rainbow Fruit Kebabs:

The venue was the Wildfire Arts Center in Berthoud which I rented for the afternoon.  I have taken the girls to the open studio on Saturdays a few times and I asked the lady in charge if I could do the party there.  They had never had one there, but were happy to draw up the paperwork and oblige....for a fee.

Berets and aprons purchased from Oriental Trading:

 Fabric markers, canvases and paintbrushes purchased in bulk from Amazon:

I led the kids step by step in creating this fine springtime Masterpiece:

I was impressed with the beautiful artwork created by all the little girls:

Birthdays!

 Charlotte is 4 years old!  (But don't tell her that, or she'll get mad and insist she's still 3.)

 I made this "chocolate delight" dish for Arabelle on her birthday in January and Charlotte immediately became obsessed with it.  She asked about it pretty much every day until her birthday on February 17th and has been telling everyone she meets about it.

 It seemed to live up to her expectations!

And little Rowan turned 1!!!  At first I thought he was going to tear into his angel food cake/whipped cream,

 but he was surprisingly neat with it...

He ate the whole thing, delicately licking the whipped cream off his pointer finger, and then munching on the cake.

I wasn't going to buy him anything for his birthday, but mom shamed me into getting him a couple baubles.

Memaw and Papa got him his first cell phone:

 which he loves.

100th day of School

Arabelle is super into dressing appropriately for any given day or activity, and she takes it very seriously.  For example, on Earth Day she dug out an old dress that has flags on it, pairing it with blue and green hair accessories.  When she brought her stuffed dog for show and tell, she had to wear colors to match her dog.  Anyway, a couple weeks back we had a bit of a challenge because it was the Valentine's party as well as the 100th day of school when you're supposed to dress like you're 100 years old.  Kind of a strange combination, but here's what we came up with.

I love how much use we have gotten out of this wig!

Snow Day

Pizza and Hot Chocolate--the Snow day lunch of Champions.  (Charlotte doesn't like food anymore).

Preschool lesson on art--
Making colorwheels with clips for color matching:

Mixing colors with frosting and decorating beautiful artistic cookies:

Painting with Q-tips:

My Very Own Elf

I had Rowan wear this Elf Costume at pretty much every opportunity--kids parties at school, Ward Christmas parties, family christmas party, the grocery store, etc.  He put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces, and really spread joy in an incredible way this Christmas.

Cute Girls

When I think about it, I try to take pictures of the kiddos when I feel they have on particularly cute outfits...

Charlotte did not want her picture taken, which is weird because she always wants her picture taken...

 Mom pointed out that Arabelle has gotten a lot of use out of these particular boots:

Arabelle's 6th Birthday

Arabelle really loves Jeffrey and it is very sweet.  Too bad they both have pizza-sauce faces here:

 I saw this fake American Girl "dog-walker" doll on Clearance at Wal-Mart, and knew it was just right for Arabelle.   In the tradition of her Mom, Arabelle requested Chocolate Delight for her birthday.