Party Like A Rock Star! {Chloe's 6th Birthday}

We celebrated Chloe's 6th Birthday last Saturday with a rock star themed party at Chuck E. Cheese's!

Can you believe that we remembered to take a family picture before the chaos of the party ensued?!

 

Chloe invited her little girlfriends to CEC for a rockin' time!

This series of photos makes me laugh.

I'll be honest, it was a little chaotic with the kids running around playing games, but it was honestly the least stressed I've been with planning a party. Besides, the girls loved the chaos! The most stressful part of the party was transporting Chloe's birthday cake from our house to the party. I was just glad that it made its way to CEC in one piece. It was an awesome cake and fit the party theme perfectly. (Just so you know, the theme and venue were planned by Chloe. I was making grand plans for a pumpkin patch birthday party...There's always next year! (laughs maniacally))

The girls and Evan grabbed a bite to eat while we waited for the man mouse of the hour to arrive!

 
Chuck E. Cheese!!! "Modern" Chuck E. is a far cry from the Chuck E. that I remember. Who knew that one day Chuck E. would drop the weight and don a pair of skinny jeans?!

Then it was time for the birthday boys and girls to play a little air guitar. I love this moment captured between Chloe and our awesome hostess!

Chloe was presented with her rock star medallion.

A picture with Chuck E. and our little rock star!

Chloe also got a chance to go into the ticket blaster.

The girls broke into their "swag bags" and Chloe opened her gifts. I'm sure that the cleaning crew that evening was cursing us...feathers everywhere!!!

Here were a few more pictures that we took as the party was ending.

After the party ended, a few of us decided to the keep rock star theme going as we followed Chloe to Claire's in the mall to get her ears pierced. Personally, I'm not one of those parents that is apprehensive about piercing a child's ears too young. My aunt had my ears pierced as a baby, and as an adult, I'm extremely glad that she did. I don't remember "the pain" and that's the way I like it. However, my husband had his own opinions on when a girl should get her ears pierced (go figure), so I respected his feelings. Chloe has been begging since she was about two years old to get her ears pierced and we all agreed that her 6th birthday was the right time to do it.

Her nerves were starting to kick in at this moment. Maybe there was a little too much hype leading to this moment...

She started to cry even before her first ear was pierced anticipating what was to come.

Our little rock star...all pierced! She got her birth stone studs, which just so happen to be pink:)

I know that it's hard to tell from this picture, but she absolutely adores her new earrings. She has insisted that I style her hair in certain ways that showcase her new earrings.


If you made it through this insanely long post, bless you:)

Also, we want to give a BIG THANK YOU to all the little ladies, friends, and family that made Chloe's birthday special (even if it was just in spirit). We love y'all and are so thankful for your presence in our lives. We hope that you had a rockin' time at Chloe's party!


Photo credits go to my sweet brother, Rob,/party photographer extraordinaire and my sweet friends (I knew that you wouldn't mind if I pulled them from your Facebook pages).

Evan's First Field Trip

Evan's first class field trip this year was to a veterinarian's office. You may remember him tagging along on Chloe's field trip to the same vet's office last year.

First, the veterinarian, Dr. Mitchell, introduced himself and his assistant, Samantha. (Forgive me. I can't remember the dog's name. I would ask Evan, since he is so good at remembering names, but he's already in bed.) He gave the class instructions on how to act around the animals and in the office...no sticking fingers in cages, etc.

The vet showed the class a preserved heart infected with heart worms.Yuck!

The class got to see a model(?) of a dog's mouth and the vet demonstrated how they use high-tech equipment during examinations.

 

After the tour, the kids got to have a little fun by watching the dogs in swim class and playing outside. This vet's office had a doggie daycare!

This "class" had two Great Danes. On all fours, they were bigger than the kids, but their sizes didn't seem faze the children.

And last, but not least, the class field trip photo!

It was so nice of this veterinary practice to invite the children into their facility and to give them a tour. It was fun little field trip for the class!

Summer Lovin'

Here is my attempt at a summer recap...

We tried our best to have a lazy summer once tee ball season ended. I vowed, "no activities this summer!" The whole family was burnt out...or so I thought...

One day while I was running errands and the littles were spending a few hours with Lola (my mom), I received a phone call from Lola asking if Chloe could take ice skating lessons. Somehow she convinced me that the lessons were free, but I later realized that what she meant was that she had already paid for them. The lessons only lasted a month and they were only once a week, so it wasn't that big of a commitment. It was fun for Chloe while it lasted, but I chose not to extend the lessons past the first month. Lola has taken Chloe to the ice rink a few times since then to get in some practice.

One evening after an ice skating lesson, the family headed to Chick-fil-A for a "Frozen" family night.

Chloe met Anna and Elsa. Evan was completely enamored with these ladies and had the silliest grin on his face as he watched Chloe interact with them, but he refused to come up and meet them.

 They had face painting.

The Chick-fil-A Cow was there in his jammies to watch "Frozen" on the big screen. (You may remember that Evan doesn't do costumed characters.)

We let the littles enjoy a cone while we watched the first 30 minutes of "Frozen".

Just as we were about to head home, Evan decided that he had mustered up enough courage to meet the ladies! They were so sweet. I think that they were off the clock at this moment, but that didn't stop them from chatting with Evan for a minute and taking this picture with him.

I'm a little ashamed of myself, I didn't get a single picture with of littles with Daddy or Granddaddy on Father's Day. We spent the day at Nana and Granddaddy's in the country.

Granddaddy was helping to harvest the potatoes with the littles when we first arrived, but he had already moved on to his next project by the time I thought to snap a few quick pictures. That's Granddaddy, constantly moving from one project to another. If you know anything about him, he doesn't have a lazy bone in his body. As for me, I have way too many to count.

Here were a few pictures from our day. I love the hats that they wore while gardening. 

The littles also picked wild blackberries and bluberries with Nana.

 We attended Misty and Matt's beautiful wedding.

The adorable little flower girl pictured above, Carly, spent the night with us one evening when her mom had to go out of town. She was Chloe and Evan's first overnight guest, so of course we made the most of it.

The kids ate popcorn and watched movies.

The following day, I gave the girls mani-pedis. The Barbie nails were in a kit that Chloe received for her birthday. I put it up thinking that it would be scattered around the house within days, but this seemed like a good occasion to break it out. Carly took hers off within a few minutes, but Chloe kept hers on for a few hours...such a priss!

The girls ran through the sprinklers for a bit.

And, we went out for froyo before dropping Carly off at home!

In July, our church held its Weird Animals Vacation Bible School! It was a blast and such a great and entertaining way to teach kids about Jesus' love for us!

We attended a few fun birthday birthday parties this summer as well. A few that we attended were...

A mermaid swim party....

A circus party (also a swim party:))!

A pirate party!

 

 We had a blast at them! Thanks for the invites!

As you can see, we enjoyed our mostly-lazy summer! We decided to renew our Y membership for the summer, so the littles and Chris spent quite a few days at the pool. I hope that y'all had a fun and lazy summer:)