The Princess Party!

This Tuesday, May 19th, Boopy will officially turn 3 years old. I seriously can't believe that our little girl is three! We celebrated this past Saturday with a Princess themed party at our house, per Boopy's request. Before I go into party details, I want to brag about my wonderful husband. He designed and made Boopy's requested princess castle cake. He was up until 2 pm the night before working on it, but at least Sam (who watches the kids for us) and I helped bake a bunch of the cakes the couple days beforehand since Papa Vaughn was out of town from Tuesday until Friday. (Thanks Sam!) Didn't the cake turned out awesome! He's really set a standard now after this and Big Boy's pirate cake.

Our princess posing after coming down all ready for her party. Aunt "Guya" helped get her dolled up. I found her dress at Sams Club for a mere $12!! I loved how pretty it was AND if you look closely in the black and white pattern right above each flower is an actual sketch of Cinderella, Belle & Sleeping Beauty.

Shortly after the guests arrived, we encouraged everyone to have a bite to eat. We served hamburgers, hot dogs, my dad's recipe potato salad, southwestern chicken salad, watermelon, princess punch, iced tea, basically the usual BBQ food. While the kids were eating, the gal playing Cinderella showed up. I smuggled her inside to the bathroom where I had the Cinderella costume waiting for her. Once she was ready, I smuggled her back outside via the garage where she then waited and rang the doorbell. At that point we told Boopy to answer the door as she had been greeting all her guests. It was so funny when she peered out the front door window. She was so stunned and surprised, she just froze with her hand on the doorknob. Papa had to go over and "help" Boopy to open the door. It was so cute!

I think it took Boopy a minute to realize that, yes, Cinderella REALLY was at HER party! The real fun and reason we set this up was that Cinderella is one of Boopy's favorite princesses. Of all the characters we saw at Disneyland in April, we never managed to see Cinderella. Boopy had commented on this fact more than once, so the idea of having "Cinderella" at her birthday party was just too good to not have happen. One of my friends managed to find "Cinderella" for us through her cousin's drama class - gotta love Facebook and great friends!

"Cinderella" was wonderful! She sat with all the girls, helped Boopy hand out goodie bags and helped her to open her presents.

Boopy and friend, Gaby, had to point out the Cinderella figure to Cinderella. Every Cinderella thing Boopy got as a gift, she pointed out as well saying, "look it's you!" to Cinderella.

Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out her candles.

After Cinderella and all Boopy's guests left, the kids sat back and enjoyed all the new presents Boopy got. Big Boy managed to sit in one place long enough that I finally got a picture of him. He spent most of the party outside on the playset and trampoline even though it was 100 degrees outside. I swear he would live outside if we let him!

Boopy got some fun "Princess" make-up from cousin Kennedy. She promptly put some on in the evening and insisted she do it all herself. Didn't she do a lovely job! (wink, wink!)

We finished out the birthday celebration on Saturday watching the boys take a nap, playing with toys, me messing around with pictures and overall relaxing. Sunday was wonderful as well as we simply went to Target to spend Boopy's gift card money from Grandma & Grandpa in Washington and then did some more relaxing at home. All in all a very nice birthday weekend. One I hope Boopy has very fond memories of in the years to come!

Disney - Sneak Peek....

To tied you all over as I continue to muddle through our massive amounts of pictures from the past couple of weeks, here a cell phone pic of the kids at Disneyland. They got to pick out custom mouse ears. You pick the base, then the color/style of ears and can add patches. Great idea and lots of fun!

Belated Easter Pics

So again I find myself a bit behind. I've had client photos to work on, which I also need to catch up on, and then there was this fabulous trip to Disneyland this past weekend, not to mention enjoying Vintage Days with friends the weekend prior. So you see, we've been a bit busy. I've finally found a spare moment to actually sit at the computer and can't believe it's already Wednesday night. Not that I'm complaining, I can't wait for the work week to be over, but I'd really love a few days with nothing planned so I can play with pictures, blog and I suppose catching up on the ever expanding pile of housework would be good too. So on to my real reason for this post - catch up on Easter pictures. Thought I'd finally share pictures from our morning at home before driving up to Merced to spend the day with GG, Grandma & Grandpa Vaughn and cousins.

Easter baskets all set! The kids woke up to find these at their doorway.

Then it was off to the hunt! The Easter bunny did like he did when I grew up which is to leave coins and candy all along the floor leading to where the Easter eggs are hidden (in this case downstairs).

They were both so excited that the Easter bunny also hid eggs outside on the front lawn! (Thanks for good weather!)

A bit of fun with their new bubbles from the Easter bunny.

*Stayed tuned for more belated Easter pics, Vintage Days and our fun at Disneyland!

Bunnypalooza!

We kicked off our Easter celebrating on Saturday. The local museum, the Fresno Metropolitan Museum held a fundraiser, family outing called "Bunnypalooza". Sad to say, having lived here nearly all my life, I had never been to the Met before, so what better way to enjoy some culture and support the museum (they're having major money issues - but then who isn't) than to spend a day as a family with bunny time fun. We ended up staying the entire time the "Bunnypalooza" ran, which was 11:00-3:00! The kids made bunny crafts: bunny baskets (from milk containers - very creative idea that my teacher friends should steal!) and bunny ears. The also got a plant to plant in the yard at home, their faces painted like a bunny and they participated in the egg hunt at 2:00pm. We even spent quite a bit of time in the actual museum. Boopy being cute in her Easter hat and Cinderella glasses - it was a beautiful BRIGHT sunny day, although it was rather windy making it a bit chilly.

Papa helped Big Boy with his crafts, while I helped Boopy.

Finished milk jug bunny basket

Working on their bunny ears.

Looking cute in their bunny ears - Boopy put hers on a bit crooked, she really did have 2 ears. Big Boy stole Papa's glasses since he didn't have his with him. I think he thought he was pretty cool.

Getting their faces painted

After the crafts we ventured inside the museum. Big Boy would have stayed all day in the hand-on displays if we let him. We're hoping to go back this summer when they have a Bob the Builder exhibit.

Big Boys favorites were the next three - a computer game, microscope and Spirograph.

This was a fun wall where you selected the items and put them in the correct section: recyclable or non-recyclable.

The kids were split up by age for the egg hunt, so Papa went with Big Boy and I went with Boopy.

We even ate a fun lunch of hot dogs, nachos, popcorn and Jamba Juice.

All in all a very fun afternoon. Even now, 3 days after, the kids keep asking if we can go to "Bunnypalooza". I would definitely recommend a trip down to the Met, if for nothing else but to support them. The kids loved the first floor hands on displays. The actual art displays upstairs are great too, but our 2 aren't at an age that they really cared much so we only took a quick glance around.