A Girl's First Sleepover

What is it about the idea of staying up far too late with friends that is so appealing to little girls? The out-of-control giggles? The back-and-forth of parents telling them to be quiet? Lots of snacks and Truth or Dare?

Whatever it is that makes the idea of sleepover so exciting has definitely taken hold of our seven-year-old daughter, Audrey.

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An Almost Sleepover Party

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I absolutely love celebrating with my girls. Beside Christmas, birthdays are my favorite time to have fun dreaming up great celebrations.

For the past two years, Audrey has had "Splash Parties" in the back yard. But this year she was itching for something different and so we decided to have an Almost Sleepover.

We started out with having everyone decorate white pillowcases with fabric markers.



Then all the girls got to make their own pizzas for dinner.

While the pizzas baked, the girls made their own candy necklaces with a kit I got from Wal-Mart. After dinner, we made these fabulous marbled paper journals and I didn't get any pictures because my hands were covered in shaving cream. I think I will do a post about this craft, though, because it is absolutely the best and most beautiful craft I have ever done with my girls. HIGHLY recommended.

Then came cake and ice cream. I made each little girl to look like one of the guests.


And then all the girls watched An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong, ate popcorn, and had their nails painted.

The guests all got picked up at 9:15, except for two sisters who were allowed to stay all night for Audrey's (and Georgia's, by default) first sleepover. They giggled and screeched to their little hearts' content. But when I got tired and wanted to fall asleep, I made them be quiet. Mean mommy, it was 10:45!

The little girls went home in the morning, and Audrey and Georgia were asleep by 7:15 on Saturday night. Even with sleeping over 12 hours, this is how they looked this afternoon:



It was a fun party!

Field Trip Mondays

This summer, the girls and I have been trying to go on a fun field trip each Monday. I will be discussing some of our trips in later posts, but today we had our biggest road trip. We drove three hours to the beach to visit Mel and her two kids, Dylan and Zoe.

The four big kids had a great time playing in the waves. Audrey and Georgia probably could have stayed in the water until bedtime, even though they both got knocked over a couple times. Those waves were rough!

And Sydney spent 45 minutes using a lotion cap to fill a baggie up with sand. Hey, whatever works, kid.


We had such a fun day! Thanks for having us!

An exciting 7th birthday

My baby is seven years old! How did that happen? To celebrate, we went to the Phillies fireworks game on Thursday night. The girls were so excited about staying up reeeeeally late, seeing fireworks, and oh, yeah, the baseball game. (We left Sydney at home. Baseball games are not for two-year-olds. Although there were many people there who apparently don't agree with that.)

Rich arranged to have Audrey's name posted on the big screen during the birthday announcements. As part of the package, Audrey got a nifty hat:

And a Phillies employee came to our seats to wish her a happy birthday. He sprinkled her with confetti, got everyone seated in our section to sing "Happy Birthday!" and even brought her a birthday card from the Philly Phanatic.

To top it all off, we saw some spectacular fireworks and the girls got to stay up LAAAATE. Guess who had to get up with Sydney the next morning at 6:15? Yeah, it wasn't the birthday girl.

Happy birthday, Audrey! We love you very much!

Occupation: Potty Trainer?

So it's been about two weeks since I started potty training Sydney. And I am happy to report that she has been doing a great job! After the first day, which included 6.5 accidents and 3.5 successes, she has had only a few accidents. I will leave the half accident/half success to your imagination.

I will also leave to your imagination what happened when I gave Sydney four apple juice boxes in the span of about 90 minutes. This is a child who drinks juice about once a week. I'll give you a hint. She had lots of practice with #2.

But anyway, now she is doing well. She has made it through the church nursery two weeks in a row in underwear and has used bathrooms all over the place. The only down side is that I see no end in sight of diapers during naps and bedtime. But I will take two diapers a day any time!

Great job, baby! You're a big girl now!

Peek Device Giveaway!

Head on over to Occupation: Mommy Review for my latest review and giveaway of the Peek device!

The toothless wonder

Audrey lost a bunch of teeth this year.

And a lot of them at the same time!

Read about our family's Tooth Fairy over at Philly Moms Blog...