photo booth fun: avery's 7th birthday

having a photo booth at avery's 7th birthday was hit. it was so much fun and was such a good way to document all who attended her party. it's been a month since my girl's party, but these photo's make it feel like it was yesterday. take a look at all of our fun party guests, photo booth style...

super cute and super fun, right? to see more on these two cuties above click here. and don't forget to add a photo booth at your next party!

homeschooling is cool: giving thanks

we have been studying thanksgiving as part of our history lesson since the beginning of november. we've read alot of books about thanksgiving, but our favorite by far is the thanksgiving story by alice dalgliesh. i was reminded of this book here and forgot that we owned a copy, so we searched our bookshelf and thankfully we found it. we shared part of this book at our thanksgiving feast we had with our home school group. some of our friends shared what they were thankful for, we sang the thanksgiving doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise God all creatures here below.

Praise God above ye heavenly hosts.

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

and had a great time playing with friends and climbing trees. take a look...

one of our friends made a this sign to put on the table

two little girls set the table all by themselves

my girl decided to dress in her indian costume for the festivities

climbing trees with friends

the "indian queen" giving order to some of her warriors

our little tribe playing out in the field.

also, i wanted to share with you some of avery's copywork from this month. this month we did a thankful journal. all of her entries are super precious and i am thinking that we will do this every year in the same journal to have a special thanksgiving keepsake. take a look...

happy thanksgiving. i hope you enjoy your thanksgiving feast!

my girl's 7th birthday: lalaloopsy style!

my girl turned 7 last month and to celebrate her 7th year we celebrated lalaloopsy style. as you may know my girl is lalaloopsy crazed right now. everything is or has to be lalaloopsy. when thinking of her 7th birthday party she of course came up with a lalaloopsy party. both of our brains started rolling with ideas and together we came up with one cute party, which i have to say was one of our best parties yet. there's really not much out there for throwing a lalaloopsy party, so we pretty much winged it and just put together things we liked. we knew we wanted the games to be based off of different lalaloopsy characters and that we would be using lots of stripes and polka-dots to create a whimsical atmosphere. here's how it went...

we went for a whimsical carnival theme, so we used yellow (of course), pink, aqua and orange as our colors. thankfully i like all of those colors and most of the items i had on hand.

we strung a fabric pendant banner that i made across the yard to set the mood for our theme.

we also made this striped yellow back drop. i love stripes, i love yellow, so we really couldn't go wrong with this. plus, this was the set for our photo booth. the mister took 2 canvas drop cloths and the cheapest yellow paint we could buy and made this idea come to life.

for all of the sweet treats we used this antique armoire as "crumb sugar cookie's sugar shack". inside we identified each sweet treat with a specific lalaloopsy character. to see more details on this you can go here.

we lined the walkways with polka-dot balloons that i found at target.

originally avery wanted a rainbow cake (which i made for her here), but changed her mind last minute and decided on cupcakes. the cupcake liners and toppers are from martha stewart.

we used lalaloopsys as decorations on the table and in the "sugar shack".

for party favors i wanted to give something special and homemade, so when i ran across these pendants (here and here) i knew they would be the perfect party favor.

each one was personalized with each girls initial.

we also found lalaloopsy pencil toppers. we gave each girl 2 pencils with toppers and a polka-dot envelope filled with note cards, wrapped in a clear bag and tied with rick-rack.

we displayed them in this treasure chest (for patch treasure chest) which was actually from my girls 4th peter pan birthday. the mister made this too.

lollipop flower pot representing blossom flower pot

dots candy to represent dot starlight

when each girl arrived they were given a bucket to decorate and later filled with all their sweet treats and goodies to take home.

they worked out perfectly.

we had pink bows and spray hair color to make each guest look like their favorite lalaloopsy.

we played old fashion games that we got from an old vintage book (i think i might blog about it later).

we did egg races and who can clip 5 clothes pins the fastest, for sunny side up

a paper fish and string game for marina anchors

we made wishes and ate cake

drank lemonade from yellow stripe cups

and took pictures at the photo booth (more pics coming soon)

me and my girl make a good party team

another year under our belt!

p.s. if you would like to see my inspiration for this party click here.

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just in case you wanted to know what the invitation looked like, this is it. i love the way stiching on paper looks and pretty pleased with how it came out.