Ella's Garden Party.

Perhaps this post should be titled Another Birthday Party!

Our little girly-girl was bent on having a girly friend birthday party.  The weekend after her birthday she invited a few friends over for a "garden-Springtime" party.  Since it had a garden theme, I decided a morning party would be best (I may have also not wanted the party to consume our entire day...maybe).  My main goal was to keep it simple.  Ella's main goal was to hang out with her friends.  So considering, I think it was a smashing success!

We started our morning decorating terra cotta pots.  I had a couple of different options in mind, but decided that morning that everyone was just going to paint their pot (per the "keep it simple" plan).

 

Of the five friends she invited, three were able to attend, and one friend was able to bring her little sister, much to Addie's delight!   

Nathan originally wanted nothing to do with this gathering, but ended up joining in and enjoying himself (he's used to girls).

Nathan hijacked the camera for a few moments.  He managed to take a couple of nice photos, including this one of our neighbor Kenna.

While the paint was drying, we had a snack of berries, orange juice, and cupcakes.

I'd like to think it was sort of like a "high tea" only with orange juice and in the morning...

(bonus: the flowers from the previous weekend still looked good,  thank you $5 Hy-Vee bouquet!)

I let the girls (and Nathan) finish their fruit first, then it was on to cupcake time.  I've discovered that little girls really like to decorate cupcakes, and it saves me a bunch of time.  So, I just baked the cupcakes, made different colors of frosting, and put the frosting into decorator bags with an assortment of tips.

The girls usually put on way more frosting than I would have, but that's part of the fun.

Evelyn didn' really participate in the party much until the fruit and cupcakes were brought out!

Here's everyone with their finished cupcakes!

Following cupcakes, Ella opened her gifts.  She got some great things: a fashion design notebook, modeling clay, and Beados.  She was very busy that afternoon!

With the remaining minutes of the party, we took the finished pots onto the back deck and planted some zinnia seeds.  Five days later Ella, Nathan, and Addie all had some sprouts!  The stories I've heard from others have sounded as successful! :)

It was a fun morning; Ella loved it, and overall it didn't require much time or effort.  I'm so glad we were able to do this for her, and look forward to more girly parties in the future!

7.

We've had almost two weeks to get used to it, but Ella Grace is seven years old!

 It seems like just yesterday she looked like the first photo...sigh.

It's amazing how Ella has transformed from our dark-haired, blue-eyed, chubby baby girl, to our dusty blonde, hazel-eyed slender young lady.

I love Ella's heart and her sensitivity.  

She is definitely our peace-maker.  Sandwiched in between Nathan and Adeline, she may not have had much choice. She can't stand it when others are hurting or upset...often to a fault.  Many a time has she given up a toy or something she wanted in order to prevent someone else from crying.  Ironically, though she dislikes crying, she is usually the first to shed tears when  things don't go as planned.

Ella loves all things girly.  She loves to dress up and accessorize, and if it were up to her there would be fresh cut flowers in the house all the time (okay, who wouldn't love this?!)

Ella excels at math and is great with numbers.  Reading requires more effort, but she has improved greatly and is becoming much more confident.  Ella would love to do art all day long, and has completed many "self-guided" projects.

I wanted to interview Ella on her 7th birthday (ish) to record all her faves and ambitions.  Here is a bit of Ella, as told by Ella.

My favorite food is:  mac and cheese 
My favorite sport to play is:  basketball
The best show on t.v. is:  Big Hero 6 
The coolest person on Earth is:  the President
My favorite thing to learn about in school is:  the Pilgrims
The thing I do the most awesomely is:  play with my Legos
If I could anywhere in the world, I'd go to:  England 
My favorite color is:  Blue
When I grow up I'm going to be :  a crossing guard
My favorite song is:  Let's Do the Countdown (apparently from some library movie I missed out on)
The book I am loving right now is:  Fancy Nancy 
Three words that describe me are:  "I like to read", "I like to color", "I like to sing" 
When I was little I used to:  chew on stuff
My favorite season of the year is:  Winter because it's Christmas and my birthday
The snack I like best is:  Munchies (chip mix)
The food I really dislike is:  squash and zucchini
My best friend is:  Lyla
If I had one wish, it would be: to have a dog
My best memory is:  when I had my baby sister

We pray that God will continue to grow her sweet caring spirit.  We pray she may grow in selfless love and have a deep love for God's people and the injustices in this world.  We also pray that God would give her wisdom and teach her to guard her heart.

We love you sweet Ella Grace.  We are so thankful to God to have you as part of our family, and we consider it a great privilege and honor to be your parents.  May God bless you and call you to Himself as you continue to grow in wisdom and stature.

A Cowgirl Party:: Sweet Ella is 7!

The weather here is amazing, sunny and 80 degrees.  Perhaps it's because I'm a realist or maybe it's because I'm married to a Vikings fan, but I'm still waiting for the weather guy to forecast a big snow storm.  For now, we'll relish in the fact that Ella is 7 and we got to celebrate our "winter baby's" birthday in the beautiful sunshine!

Of course every birthday leaves me with the same sense of awe...How did that year pass so quickly?!  Ella is growing up way too fast, but we are so thankful for the kind-hearted sweet lady she is becoming.

I let the children choose the theme for their birthday party.  Ella is my girl; we have similar tastes and she often chooses themes that I'm excited about also.  This year was no exception...

Cowgirl!

It was a very simple, fun party celebrating with family.  Ella and I found a few decorating ideas online that she liked, including a cow print cake and the following cute little cowboy hats.

(Matt made all of those hats.  They were more for show, but we ate the whole plate...)

Besides cake and Pringles hats we had pizza, "wild wild west" fruit, "happy trails"mix, veggies & dip, and a "watering hole" filled with iced tea, juice pouches, root beer, and of course water.

 Ella loves flowers, so we wanted to use them to decorate the tables.  

Baby's breath is so sweet and simple (and also cheap).

Here's our sweet little cowgirl!

You can tell by these photos how amazingly sunny it was outside!  

We didn't have many games planned, and the ones we were going to do we actually forgot about since the kids were playing outside.  However, Ella was very insistent on apple bobbing.  Thankfully we could set that up on the back deck on not have it in the house.

It proved challenging for little mouths, so I quartered the apples.  It was still tricky for most of them to grab an apple.  You had to go all in!

Ella got one!

Our niece Katlyn struggled at first, and then figured out you just have to go for it!  

I tried to get some adults to participate, but there were no takers!

 

After playing outside for much of the afternoon, it was time for presents!  Ella got many lovely gifts including: Shopkins (don't ask me what these are), headbands to decorate, a bracelet lacing set, clothes, the movie Big Hero 6, and flower seeds.

Finally, it was cake time!

   Happy Birthday sweet Ella Grace!  

We love you so very much!