American Girl

Reagan and I went to American Girl Boston today.  This was the final component of Reagan's Birthday Celebration!!!  She loves to celebrate her birthday!

Reagan brought Kanani with her, and the first thing we did was head up to the salon to have Kanani's ears pierced.

I offered to get Kanani's hair done too, but Reagan didn't want it done this time.

We spent A LOT of time just looking at everything in the store.  I cannot help but think of Disney World when I visit American Girl - it is just one of those places that entices you and makes you want to buy everything!

We did not buy everything though.  Reagan used her birthday money to buy the doll Caroline.

I bought Reagan a souvenir American Girl Boston shirt for her and a matching shirt for her doll.

Reagan also got a package of earrings for Kanani.  She said that all she wants for Christmas is American Girl stuff! That's what the store does to you!!!!

Lunch in the bistro is always fun.

Just like last year, I was very impressed with the quality of the food!  It is nice to eat at a place like that and have good food.  Reagan had pretzel bites, pizza, and a cookies and cream milkshake.

I had pita bread with spinach dip and pasta with vegetables.

After lunch, we looked around AGAIN, and then left to go home.  Reagan fell asleep within minutes of driving, and slept almost the whole way home.

I loved this special day with my big girl!  Happy Happy Birthday my sweet Reagan!

Playing with Flowers

Reagan received beautiful flowers for her birthday, and every day since Kate has asked to play with them.  Today, I realized the flowers were not really looking pretty in the vase anymore and I was about to toss them in the trash when I realized that Kate might enjoy playing with them first.  WOW, did she ever!

 She spent some time touching, smelling, and just looking at the flowers.

 I thought a magnifying glass might help her see all the little details on the flowers.

Then she asked for water.

 She was cleaning her flowers.  She got her sleeves wet and asked to take her shirt off.

After playing for over an hour, she was really wet and continued playing all wrapped up in her bath towel!

I am so happy that I didn't throw those flowers in the trash!

N is for Nest

Kate has croup and has not been feeling well all week, but we still managed to spend some time on the letter N.

 All three of these books have been read multiple times this week.  My favorite is Nest by Jorey Hurley.  It is a very simple book with only one word on each page, but the pictures do a wonderful job of explaining so much beyond the text.  Kate and I were able to spend a lot of time looking at the pictures and talking about what was happening.  Great book.

 Kate's favorite of the three books is In My Nest by Sara Gillingham.  This book has a little finger puppet bird attached to the book, and she adored being able to manipulate the bird as we read the book.

Kate made a simple nest craft inspired by a craft I saw on a friend's Instagram.

 I cut a nest shape and two little bird shapes out of cereal box cardboard.  Kate colored the nest and painted the birds.

 I helped her glue it all together.

 Kate was SO proud of her craft.

 I found this cute bird in a nest snack on Pinterest.  Kate LOVED it.  I made more of them for Collin and Reagan when they came home from school.  Pineapple is a favorite fruit around here.

Reagan's Eighth Birthday Party - Part Five, The After Party!

Reagan had three friends (Miranda, Madison, and Adeline) sleep over after the party.  This was Reagan's first time having friends sleep over, and it went really well.  Everyone had fun!

Reagan opened her presents, they "watched" Frozen (it was on, but they were really talking and dancing and singing and being silly the whole time), ate popcorn, pretzels, and candy, and finally fell asleep around midnight.

When the girls woke up in the morning, I made them pancakes and then they went out for a walk to North with Tom and the dogs.  Lucky girls all got to head over to Miranda and Maddie's house after for Miranda's birthday party!!!  What a weekend!!!!!!!!

Reagan's Eighth Birthday Party - Part Four

 The party ended with cake and ice cream.

Here is the video of everyone singing to Reagan:

I thought the party was fantastic.  The girls all seemed to have a lot of fun!

Reagan's Eighth Birthday Party - Part Three

In addition to trying out the gymnastics equipment, the girls also played a few games.  

Each girl had a balloon tied to one leg, and they ran around trying to pop the balloons on the other girls' legs.  The girl with the last balloon won the game.

 Kate was happy just holding her balloon.

The gym also supplied a pinata.

After everyone had a chance to hit it, Reagan got to finish off the job.  Here is a quick video of the smashing followed by the mad rush for candy:

Reagan's Eighth Birthday Party - Part Two

The girls enjoyed vaulting!  The lighting in the gym combined with my not so great photography skills made for a lot of blurry pictures, but I got a few decent action shots.

They also tried beam and bars.  I didn't take many pictures of them then.  All of the girls seemed to enjoy trying out the equipment.