Krista's 10th Birthday Party!!

On Saturday we celebrated Krista Marie's TENTH birthday!!! She won't actually be turning 10 until the 19th, but with her First Communion coming up, we decided to celebrate it early. It was a HUGE HIT! Krista had so much fun with her friends! Krista invited 7 friends and only one couldn't make it. We had initally planned on celebrating at the local mini-golf course, but at the last minute we decided to hold it at home and wait for a warmer day to play golf (right now we're planning on the 27th of June for part II of the party). Part I was GREAT! The kids played games (hide and seek, musical chairs etc), we had a drawing contest and made a cupcake factory for the kids. They had so much fun decorating their cupcakes with the colored frosting and toppings. This year I went all out and tried to be creative for Krista's birthday cakes. She always LOVES and looks forward to my cake creations so each year the bar is raised higher and higher. Mommy's score this year? A perfect 10!! I'll attach photos of the cakes below. I made a castle cake and also a monkey this year. Both were devoured and praised by the kiddies :) After the party was over Krista had 2 guests stay on for a sleep-over party. There was a local village "tarte-flambee" evening (like creamy pizza) so Toomas took the girls and Erik there for an outing. They returned at about 10 pm after having had so much fun out on the town...I thought they would have been tired out from that but THEY WERE UP UNTIL 3 a.m.! Pretty tiring for me, but a girl only turns 10 once, right!

The plan for the upcoming fun this month: June 10th, Toomas' birthday, June 19th- Krista's REAL 10th Birthday, June 20th Krista's end of the year Gymnastics party and show, June 21st Krista's First Communion, June 27th Krista's Mini-Golf party!!! WOW, fun times ahead...Tomorrow Evan goes in for his 3rd round of vaccines (NO FUN!) I'll update his stats tomorrow. So much has been going on but I HAVE been taking pictures and making mental blogs! I'm sure you'll be in for a swarm of upcoming posts soon (including Mother's Day yesterday. We only celebrate the French one now so it was my big day!)

Here are the shots of the birthday party fun! Enjoy :)

Krista's 9th Birthday Party!

A SLUMBER PARTY!!!

Well, I am pleased to announce that I am STILL alive after Krista's FIRST (and as Toomas jokingly said.. LAST) SLUMBER PARTY!! What a sucess it was! The girls had SO much fun! They did EVERYTHING you could ever hope to do at a slumber party!

Krista invited 6 girls to the group party, 3 of whom would sleep over. Six girls sleeping over seemed like way too many, so we settled on 1/2 who would sleep over. The group party was from 3:00-6:00, and the sleepover lasted until 11:00 Sunday morning.

I baked a pretty neat cake for Krista this year---an ice cream cone cake! I decorated it with chocolate scoops, a strawberry scoop and complete with a "cherry" gumball on top! It was sad cutting the cake. I took some photos though and the girls just absolute RAVED about it! It was well worth the extra effort.

The "main" party was a scrapbooking theme party. We took a bunch of photos and I let the girls loose with all of my scrapbooking accessories. We used the kitchen table, and the island so they could spread out and work. It was quite a cleanup, but the the pages looked wonderful and the girls had so much fun letting their creatives minds loose.

The scrapbooking took a lot of time, so afterwards it was immediately presents and cake. Krista is really into faries this year so her friends. Her friends were wonderful and got her the cutest gifts ever---a fairy watch, a drawing fairies gift set, a fairy game, a petshop stuffed animal, an art kit and a TICKET to go see Lorie in concert (a pop singer). She was SO spoiled!

I was already tired at the end of this party, but had to keep going.. the night was still young! I cooked the girls Krista's favorite dinner ('veggie bouillion' white rice, breaded fish and carrots). A totally simple meal, but one that the girls ADORE! After dinner they played games (indoors and out), decorated a slumber party pillowcase, and watched movies. It was BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend so we really lucked out, but boy was it was HOT! They had a squirt-gun fight with the neighbor boys next door while I set up the air-mattresses downstairs in the family room. I had 3 mattresses set up side by side. Krista wanted to be able to stay up late and watch videos, so it was much more logical to put the noisy girls downstairs than next to Kaitlyn's room!!! The girls stayed up WAY too late, giggling and telling scary stories to each other--and I became a bit frustrated on several occaions. I think it was probabally at least 2:30 a.m. before they finally crashed!!! And guess what?? They were up BRIGHT AND EARLY this morning at 7 a.m. sharp!

For breakfast Toomas went to the bakery and got fresh croissants, petits-pains au chocolate and other goodies for the girls. After breakfast they played some games on the computer and played hide-and-seek in the house. They had a wonderful time and Krista was sad to see everyone leave. Fortunately one of the girls invited her to go to a pool today in Germany so she will be TIRED when she gets home tonight! I think everyone will sleep well tonight!!!

Here is the photo evidence!!!

Krista is EIGHT Today!

Today is Krista's 8th birthday. WHERE do the years go? Eight is starting to sound old now too...I put together a little slideshow of Krista's 8 years and as I was watching it, I could REALLY start to see the differences in her right before my very eyes!!! I think it is especially noticable between this and last year--adult teeth really do make a difference! She is really growing up.

Krista is a bright, responsible, spirited, talented, friendly and special little girl. She has matured and developed so much in the last few years and I am very proud of her. She has shown dedication and responsiblity in her schoolwork and activities...and continues to amaze me with her thoughts and discoveries! She loves dancing, being with her friends, crafts, READING, rollerblading, riding her bike, swimming, writing and RECEIVING e-mails and recently basketball...the list goes on! She is so much fun to be with---always filled with smiles and laughter.

WE LOVE YOU KRISTA!!! I hope you LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE your new Nintendo DS! (Krista has been wanting one for some time now and guess what? Today is her lucky day!) HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY!

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Krista's 8th Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Krista's 8th Birthday with her friends. We had SO much fun! Krista said it was her best birthday party ever (something she says every year, but it is still good to hear!).

Every year I let the kids choose a "theme" for their birthday. We always shop at Celebrate Express for the lastest and greatest party themes. This year Krista picked the Pink Poodle theme, which was really precious. It came complete with an Eiffel tower centerpiece which Krista just loved. The little party favor boxes were just adorable as well.

I baked 3 cakes for the big event. One chocolate "8" cake, and a buttercream frosted vanilla spongecake. Krista loved the vanilla cake because of the pink frosting and the pink poodle. She didn't even want to eat it because she said it looked too perfect. I was so hapy she loved it. I wanted everything just right for her party!!

Following the pink poodle theme, we had the guests (10 girls and 1 boy) bring their stuffed animal dogs...We made sticker-jeweled doggie collars with personalized nametags. I think it was a fun activity for the kids. We also had a poodle drawing contest and played ring toss in the backyard. Luckily the weather cooperated and we had some nice warm sunshine so we could play and draw outside.

All in all it was a great day for Krista! Her real birthday is on Tuesday and she will be spending the day in a castle! Her school is taking their week-long field trip this week. I'm sure she'll have a blast!