Raya's 3rd Birthday Party

Hi Blog Friends :) I have no good excuse for my hiatus. Blame it on my DVR and my nail obsession. All my free time has been jacked by them. But hopefully I'm back! Lets jump right into this...

Raya's 3rd Birthday Party was this weekend. It was great! A month or two ago I asked if she wanted a Mini Mouse Party or a Hello Kitty Party and she told me she wanted a Princess Party. OK!!! Princess party it is! I think this was her first party that actually had kids at it. Lol. Its fun that she has friends now and lets me know who she wants there. Luckily they were all able to make it this year. We rented a Princess bounce house, and honestly, that's all the party needed! Seriously, if you're having a party with kids rent a bounce house.
Of course I had fun getting all kinds of princess decorations. And I made the cutest Princess cupcakes (yes, I was very proud of them ;). The weather was pretty perfect and Raya really had a blast. Can't believe my Baby is almost 3! (Her actual birthday is April 22nd.)

Thanks so much to everyone that was able to come out Saturday!!! Raya scored big time in the present department: Princess dolls, princess books, a whole princess goodie bag, bathing suit, the Pretty Pretty Princess game, a huge thing of play dough, this swirly drawing thing (that's the high-tech version of the one I had when i was little and loved!), a mermaid dress, a bike!, walkie-talkies, a kit to make her own princess wand. She's been busy that last few days!

Here's some of the fun pictures from the party. I didn't get a single "Family" one. Dang it! Or really any of Raya with anyone else but me. Lol. I PROMISE I didn't plan that. But I did purposely coordinate my outfit with her so at least we look cute together ;) Here's the link to her Party album on my Facebook page if you want to see all 150 pictures. hehe.

Her seeing the bounce house. I have it on video. Its too cute! I'll share it soon.

The bounce house matched the party perfectly!

Ok, so I frosted the cupcakes with bright pink and purple frosting and within about 10 minutes of sitting in the sun the frosting faded to light pink and light blue. So weird! 

Are these not the coolest?!?! A friend of mine made rainbow cupcakes earlier in the week, that's where I got the idea. They're super easy to make and so fun!

The Gang!

Cutest picture with Aunt Lois. This is Raya's Great-Great-Great Aunt.

 Happy to report we had NO injuries! Not a single bloody nose even when everyone was jumping together!

Kallen got to the party before Raya. This was him telling me about the bounce house :)

She's quite the dramatic present opener. So fun!

My Girl 

 Of course we had matching nails :)

The Birthday Outfit

My girlies!

 A real Princess wears 2 crowns

She passed out before we even pulled out of Nana's driveway. 

 The day after: Learning to ride her bike in her mermaid dress

Happy to report I really missed blogging. Good to be back :) Hopefully I can bust out a 15month post for Kallen this week. And I'm about to post about one of Raya's greatest accomplishments to date! Stay tuned!

And I'll end it with this:

Valentine's Week

We had a fun week of Valentine's stuff. Bryce and Tara babysat Friday night so Gentry and I could go to dinner and a movie. And they brought crafts AND stuff to make cupcakes :) I'm sure Raya was in heaven.

It was so nice having a leisurely dinner. We're at that phase with Kallen where eating out is nearly impossible, so it was awesome to go out to dinner and eat as slowly as I wanted :)

The actual day of Valentine's I was trying to go to Gentry's work and surprise him for lunch, but his car was in the shop and he had mine so we couldn't do that. Instead my Mom came over and we had lunch and went for ice cream. I'm sure that was Raya's idea of a perfect Valentines Day! 

 Target's $1 section has the best stuff for kid's presents. I'll take any excuse I can to dress up in Holiday inspired outfits and put together little gifts :) I love decorating and being festive! So of course they had stuff to play with Valentine's Night. 

Oh and did I mention in between Valentine's Lunch and Valentine's presents at night my CAR WAS STOLEN?!?! Uhhhhh. Soooooo sad. It was stolen from the parking lot at Gentry's work sometime between 7:30am and 4:30pm. Did you know when you get your car stolen its actually really sad? I can kid now, but I seriously was borderline devastated. I love, love, loved my car. We've had it for 11 years and it runs great and is in such good condition, AND we did so much in that car! So it was sad to think that our family car full of road trip memories was gone. I'm constantly joking with Gentry about how if he for some reason surprised me with a new car I'd take it back because I so loved my Tahoe and it was perfect for me! And literally last week we finished installing all new lights. AND the windshield wiper fluid holder thing has literally been broken for like 8 of the 11 years we've had it, but we never fixed it because it was always so much money for this little tiny fix. Welllll, my Mom got it fixed for us when we were in Texas so we got to use it for all of 6 weeks. Grrrrrrrr. Well yesterday we got a call from Inglewood police that they found my car and it was at a tow lot in Inglewood. The tow yard closed before we could get out there and see it, so I have no idea what it looks like. I'm guessing its totally stripped. Both of the carseats were in there too, so I'm guessing those are gone. Basically anything that could be removed is probably gone :( Sad times. My insurance agent will go see it Tuesday and we'll go from there. So that's whats been going on this week!

I took this picture last Saturday, 2 days before it was stolen. Ahhh, my baby ;)