Kid Kraft Day: Summer Bucket List

This is going to be short and sweet seeing as how Brian and I are currently sitting here watching the third and final episode of The Hatfields and McCoys (we recorded it a couple weeks ago when it was on) and I'm bawling like a baby.  Brian keeps asking if I'm gonna be ok.  What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good western.

Y'all, I'm talking the ugly cry here.  And Brian is not even misty eyed.  Why are women and men so different?!?  Thank goodness I went to Costco last week and picked up a crate of tissues.  I'm tearing through these things like no body's business.

Onto the post at hand here.  Last Friday we had our very first Kid Kraft Day at our church.  I am so excited about this.  I have a great group of girls who helped us get stuff ready before Easter for our children's ministry at church.  We had so much fun hanging out we decided to keep the group together throughout the year and hopefully grow.  

Thus the idea for Kid Kraft Day was born.  I offered to host the first one and it was so fun to plan!  The kids got out of school just a week or so ago so I decided Summer Bucket Lists would be the perfect project.  

If you haven't heard of Summer Bucket lists before you have got to get on pintrest and search it.  Last Summer we made a Bucket list {click here to see it} and my kids LOVED it.  I was really excited when I saw the idea to use real buckets!  Why didn't I think of that?

And they were super cheap.  I found all the supplies at Target in the dollar bin and at the Dollar tree.

We had a great turn out!

I brought my computer and opened it up to my pintrest where Lord knows I have oodles of ideas pinned.

As everyone was finishing up I snuck away to get a surprise ready.  A few weeks ago I posed something about our families tradition of having "Yoda Sodas" and I had quite a few people ask me what they were and how to make them.  Since it was one of the things on our bucket list last year I thought I'd go ahead and share it with all the people at Kid Kraft Day.  

If you want to know more about Yoda Soda {click here}.

The kids having a blast with the glow sticks.

Thank you everyone who came out and participated.  I had a ton of fun and I hope you did too.  Don't forget take pictures along the way!  Can't wait to see all the memories in the making.

p.s. If you live in my area let me know if you're interested in participating in Kid Kraft Day.  You don't have to go to our church to attend.

Precious Hearts

Today the girls went to the first day of the Vacation Bible School they are attending this week.  As soon as I picked them up they went on and on about how much fun they had. Then right away Brooke informed me that they needed to bring money for an offering towards a fundraiser tomorrow.  Ava pipped in and said that we need to go through our books and bring some to give to the kids that don't have any books too.  

After dinner they got to work.  They went through the playroom and found some books.  It took awhile for them to agree on which books they wanted to get rid of. There was some crying and yelling but with some redirection, they finally worked together and finally found some they could agree on.

After that Brian helped them empty out their piggy banks and they set out to find out how much 10% would be.

Ava had fun sorting out all the money.

By the time it was all said and done they had some crazy algebra or something going on here.  Brian helped Brooke with a lot of it but I was surprised at how well she was able to keep up.  I just gotta brag on my hubby for a minute.  He's so patient.  Way more so than me.  He sat there with the girls working out those problems one by one for what seems like forever.  

Me on the other hand, I would have started out with good intentions but dollars to doughnuts by the end of it I would have busted out my iphone and plugged those numbers into the calculator so we could just get the job the heck done.

Anyways, the girls have their 10% and their books all bagged up and ready to go tomorrow and they are so excited. 

After they were done I told them to pose with their offerings and I would take their picture.  Parker wanted to get in on the action too.  

And then they decided to have a goofy little photo session.

Really goofy.  Look at Parker's face.  That boy is a clown!

Then we had to see who could jump the highest off the stairs.

Love those smiles.  And I love those girls hearts.  I pray that they always keep that innocence and have a servant's heart.  

One more precious thing I want to write down so that I never forget.  This afternoon the girls were listening to songs and dancing around the living room like they do most days and I noticed during a couple of the worship songs Brooke stopped and really worshiped.  

She closed her eyes and put one hand over her heart and the other one up in the air.  It was the sweetest thing ever.  It was so real and so authentic.  No body prompted her to do it,  she wasn't copying anyone or trying to show off; I'm not even sure she knew I was watching.  

I tell ya, I was choking back the tears on that one.

Punzel Party

This weekend the time had finally come for Ava's "Punzel Party." Never mind that her birthday was early LAST month... We've been busy and I needed time to prep for this one.  Ava didn't care though.  She just wanted to have some fun.

On a side note: I got a lot of these ideas from pintrest.  So anywhere you see {via} you can click there to find the site I got the idea from. 

These are what we made up to invite Ava's friends to the party.  I go the idea {via} but we tweaked it a little to make it our own.

On the day of the party, as the guests arrived they were greeted by the beautiful ribbon wands (to resemble Rapunzel's hair) and the purple hats with Punzel Braids.  

My amazing husband stayed up until an ungodly hour the night before making those ribbon wands {via} and assembling the goody bags.  Talk about a real man.  I told him the wands were a "man project" because of the wooden dowels.  I don't think he bought it but he didn't complain.  

I will blog about making these hats later. But the templates for the hats can be found {via} and the idea for adding the Punzel Braid {via}.

"Rapunzel, let down your hair!"

{via}

Ava didn't want regular cake.  She asked for an Ooey Gooey Butter cake.  So that's what I made.  I was a little worried about the cake sticking to the cast iron frying pan but with two sticks of butter in it (a Paula Dean Recipe of course {via}) I should have known the only thing it was going to stick to was my thighs!

The first thing we did was paint in the back yard.  Rapunzel loves to paint,

and so does Ava.

After that it was tattoo time.  Even some of the Mommies got a tattoo too.

Next we played pin the pan on Flynn.

I found the poster {via} and the pans {via}.

 It was super hot outside so we headed inside after the game to sing happy birthday and have some cake.  I had made some Pascal blowers {via} for the girls to "help" Ava blow out the candles.  Ava said "Mommy, look Pascal likes all his Pascal friends!"

Parker got a tattoo and a Pascal too!

Ooey Gooey Butter cake!

Those cute little things are supposed to be cupcake toppers {via} that I bought from etsy long before Ava decided she wanted the Butter Cake.  Oh well, they are still cute and the kids loved them.  A few of the girls asked to take some home.  I also purchased the tags on the goody bags from the same shop. They were great quality and shipped very fast.

Happy Birthday to you Ava!

That smile says it all.  That smile makes everything worth it.  I think it's safe to say she had a blast and I hope all her friends did too.

I had mixed emotions leading up to this day.  This is the first birthday party we've had to do without any family here visiting.  I was having a hard time with that.  Family is a big deal to us and it was hard knowing that they couldn't be here to be a part of this special day.  That is a huge reason why this blog exists.  I want to be able to share the day with everyone who wishes they could be here.  A big thank you to all our friends who came out to help make Ava's day special.

After the party was over and the last guest had gone home, Brian and I plopped down on the couch out of sheer exhaustion.  But the girls were still going strong.  They busted into the presents and danced around the living room with the ribbon wands.

Happy second birthday Ava-Ba-Dava!  You will always be a princess in Daddy and Mommy's eyes.

Two great things that I want to remember that you said from this day are:

"I am so excited to be 5 now.  I am 5 right?  I just had my 4th birthday last morning. So now I'm 5 right?!"

and

"Is a pony going to show up soon?"

You are so silly.  No baby girl, you're still 4 until next year.  And no, there will be no pony at this party.  For those of you who missed the post about the My Little Pony party the girls had last year here it is {via}.  I guess I could have looked into finding a Maximus look alike.  

There's always next year...

Yesterday And The Day After Yesterday

 It seems like this was just yesterday. 

                                                     

But this is my reality.

It seems like yesterday we were walking her down the hall to drop her off at Kindergarten for the very first time.  Then I blinked and the day after yesterday, she's on her way to First Grade.

How does that happen?

                                                                                            

Congrats baby girl.  You had an amazing year.  Daddy and I are so very proud of you.

When we got home Ava and Parker held up a sign that I had made the night before.  

It was so cute when they said "Welcome to Summer!"