Frozen Birthday Party

I had way too much fun planning a Frozen themed birthday party for Charlotte.  I found lots of ideas on pinterest. 

Snowflakes hanging from the ceiling?  I thought it would be cheesy, but the kids LOVED it!

Do you want to build a Snowman bar.  So fun and so easy. (and yummy!)

A very talented friend of mine made this Olaf poster for "Pin the nose on Olaf".  It was quite the hit!

We

We made human snowmen out of toilet paper.  So fun and the girls were very creative.

Ice cream cake!  Yum!

We also played a Telephone game, Hot potato (cold snowflake) and FrEeZE DaNCe of course!! 

It's great to be 8!

Charlotte was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints last weekend.  She was so excited and it was a day she had been looking forward to for several years.  We had wonderful talks by her grandpa and her primary teacher of 3 years.  Brooke led the music and did a great job!  Lots of friends and family were in attendance. 

Easter, 5th Grade Musical, Concert, and Birthdays

I'm way behind on blogging again.  Most of my pictures are on my phone which aren't great quality.  We've done a lot and had lots of fun so I still want to document it here! 

Easter was so much fun.  Several egg hunts, egg dying, dress shopping.  Brooke is in denial that she is getting too old to do Easter Egg Hunts.  We'll see how much longer she can get away with it. 

This one was at Forest Park.  Not our favorite but one year Charlotte did win a prize so we keep going back. 

This egg hunt was at Noblesville Golf and Batting.  We found a whole corner that had a ton of eggs and not very many kids.  They each got a TON of eggs, but still, no prize. :-(

 Easter Dresses. 

The girls had their yearly check ups during Spring Break.  Brooke had to get her 6th grade shots.  This is a day she has been dreading since her kindergarten shots.  I think I tricked her into those and she has not been looking forward to this day since.  I wasn't really sure if they would do her shots on this day, but they were planning on it.  Brooke was not happy about it.  The nurse was really nice though.  She is smiling here because the shots didn't hurt at all!  She started laughing because she wasn't sure what she was so afraid of.  Unfortunately, her arm hurt the next day though, and she wasn't happy about that.  It is good to face your fears!

Brooke was in the 5th grade musical.  She was a back up singer/dancer in School House Rock.  She had fun rehearsing for it.  We made the Interplanet Janet shown in the picture below.  Nathan is pretty proud of it. 

Some of the cast before the show.  I helped to do the make up this night.  

Brooke celebrated 11 years of living on Mother's Day.  We got to share the day.  Nathan and Charlotte made us both breakfast in bed.  I thought I would feel jipped, but I think Brooke did.  At church everyone was telling me "Happy Mother's Day" and not telling her "Happy Birthday".  Your birthday only comes once a year.  I can celebrate being a mother any day of the week.  We had cake and ice cream at Grandma and Grandpa Asay's house.  

We got her new bedding for her room.  It is zebra stripes. She also got some accessories to match.

We took the girls to their first concert.  Charlotte LOVES Jason Aldean (just like her dad) and he was playing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway the night before the Indy 500.  It was an early concert so that was nice.  The crowd was a little...rough.  We even saw someone get arrested right in front of us.  It was definitely an interesting experience for the girls.  Not the normal crowd we expose them to, but I think they learned first hand how NOT to act and dress.  Charlotte knew all the songs though and loved it.  The next day she said to me, "I can't believe I went to the Jason Aldean concert.  I just can't believe it."  She was in awe.  

Memorial Day was Charlotte's birthday.  She wanted the Lego Friends beach house.  She also got a new dress for her baptism and scriptures.   We took her to some of her favorite places. Chick-fil-a for lunch, Monkey Joes, and Menchies for dessert.  We are having a Frozen themed birthday party for friends on Saturday. 

Spring Break 2014: Gulf Shores, AL

After enduring a horrible winter of record breaking snowfall,

freezing cold temperatures, and nasty sickness....

I BEGGED my husband to take us to the beach for Spring Break!  And he caved :-)  

We got in Monday evening just in time to catch part of the sunset.  The girls loved the water and the sand and we couldn't wait to get back the next few days.

The first night we had dinner at a place that several people had recommended.  A place called Lambert's where they throw rolls at you and play some tricks on you as well.  Check it out here.

The next day we ventured out early to take a dolphin cruise.  It was a success, as we saw several dolphins!

After lunch, we headed to the beach! 

Dinner was at a yummy seafood restaurant.  The shrimp was soooo good!  We walked around at some of the shops and bought a few souvenirs.

The next day we heard the Blue Angels had a free, open practice in Pensacola, about an hour away.  Nathan isn't much of a beach guy, so this is the one thing he really wanted to do.  There was also a free aviation museum there which we thought would be cool to walk through.  We got there early, thinking we would walk through the museum first, but people were gathering over an hour early to watch this practice.  So the girls were a little restless by the time the practice started and weren't really interested anymore.  We did explore a little bit inside, probably not as much as Nathan would've liked.  I didn't realize we could spend most of the day there.  Luckily for Charlotte, they had a little kids play area which she could burn some of her energy off.

Next stop:  The Beach!  We had met a nice, Senior couple missionary from our church that said Pensacola Beach was really nice and had chairs to rent.  They made it seem like it was a hop, skip, and a jump, but we soon realized it was about an hour away in the other direction.  So we just headed back to Gulf Shores and found a cute, little pull off with a long pier that basically ended to our very own private beach.

For dinner, we picked a pizza up on the way back to the hotel and called it an early night.  Everyone slept good that night!








Thursday we were supposed to leave to come home, but I just wasn't ready and neither were the girls!  It was raining and cold at home and I just couldn't bring myself to go back to that yet.  We had a few errands to run and as we were out, Nathan mentioned something about checking into the Hampton Inn right on the beach that we had passed the day before.  (We had been staying at a Hampton 8 miles away from Gulf Shores, not on the beach) I really wanted to do it, the girls really wanted to do it.  So we walked into the hotel and asked if they had any rooms available for the night.  The lady was so sweet and gave us a great deal on a room with a beach view!  It wasn't going to be ready for a few more hours though, so we did a little more sight seeing and had lunch at another yummy seafood restaurant.




 We walked a pier where there were lots of people fishing.

We had to get a picture with Brooke in front of her favorite store.  This became a joke, because we would see one of these stores on just about every block, with one intersection having 3 on the four corners.  We bought a few more souvenirs and some boogie boards because the girls wanted to try "surfing". 

 We found a jelly fish in the sand that day!

This is a view from our hotel room on the beach! Just one casualty...I think my swimsuit cover up may have flown overboard!  I put it on the railing to dry and it never made it home...:-(

We had dinner at a pizza place and then went back to the hotel for a dip in the outdoor/indoor heated pool.  It was a little chilly if you weren't IN the pool though, I had to cover up with some warm towels.

We had plans to get up early the next day and walk the beach looking for more shells or sand dollars, but when I woke up it was foggy and rainy!  So we had breakfast and decided to head home so we could make it home that night.  The sun started to come out again just as were leaving though!!  I didn't want to leave!!!

It was a great trip though and one we will treasure forever.  The joy in my kids faces was priceless as they were playing in the ocean and sand.  I'm already making plans for our next beach trip!!