Lunching with American Girls

Perhaps hell has frozen over.  We are notoriously frugal, yet we took the girls to the American Girl Café for Catherine's eighth birthday.  The girls, of course, had a blast.

The Café gives each child a "booster seat" which attaches to the table next to the child.  Each doll gets a small tiara, as well as the birthday girl.

The food was reasonably priced and pretty good.  The store is obscenely priced, but we did buy the girls pet dogs for their dolls.

They do love their dolls and had a fabulous time.  Sabrina wants to go for her birthday in December.

Catherine Turns 8!

It has been over a month and a half, but Catherine is now 8!!  Blogging has gotten tougher to squeeze into my day.  Ever since we have home schooled, my "to do" list has stagnated, our meals have gotten simpler, my corners are more filled with dust bunnies, etc.  So, I am quite behind in my blogging. 

Both girls are obsessed with My Little Pony right now, so that was the obvious theme we chose.  Well, they chose.  All the ponies have "cutie marks" which tell a little bit about their personalities.  So, we had a tattoo station and a nail painting station:

A dear friend of ours also set up a green screen with some special electronic equipment so the kids could see themselves on screen.  We played a My Little Pony video and his equipment superimposed the children into the video.

 So here is Catherine and her cousin Addison:

 We also had a table full of ponies and their accessories:

 My brother graciously ran the tattoo station:

 Britt helped paint their nails, I mean hooves:

 More pony play:

 The kids loved watching themselves on screen:

 Part way through the party, I told all the kids to gather in the foyer.  The doorbell rang ...

 ... and it was Pinkie Pie!!  No joke, it was a miniature horse which they had spray painted pink:

A fabulous organization named Horsey Housecalls trains miniature horses to visit children's hospitals and sick children.  They were so gracious to come to Catherine's birthday party!!

 Catherine was impressed that Pinkie Pie had a tiara on:

 We moved the party to the backyard:

 All the kids wanted to walk the horse:

They also brought a big horse, which they had dressed up to be Twilight Sparkle (with spray painted stars on the flank, a unicorn horn, and a pair of wings):

 Sabrina loved walking Pinkie Pie in circles:

This miniature horse was so tolerant ... she allowed the kids to completely cover her main, back & tail with flowered barettes:

Catherine wanted her favorite stuffed animal, Pupoomy, to ride Pinkie Pie:

 She thought this was hysterical:

 Sabrina trying to make the horse "walk on" even though the horse wanted to eat grass instead:

 

This was a fabulous birthday and I cannot believe that Catherine is 8 years old now!

Lego House

Sabrina received a Lego kit for her birthday of "Olivia's House."  She loves it, but Catherine actually loves it more.  Catherine has announced that she wants to be a "house builder" when she grows up.

Catherine does a pretty good job at following the directions and creating the house:

 Here's the front of the house; it is incredibly detailed.

 Sabrina can follow the directions somewhat, but needs assistance for the more complicated kits:

 Here's a close up of some of the incredible detail in the kits - like a mailbox:

 You can sort of see the rooms in the completed house in this shot:

They play with this kit all the time - lots of fun!

Dorothy!

A few weeks ago we celebrated Catherine's seventh birthday.  She has been obsessed with the Wizard of Oz for at least six months, so that was the theme she chose for the party.  I made cupcakes and decorated them with icing Yellow Brick Roads and little plastic picks of ruby red slippers.  Here is Catherine looking at her seven cupcakes:

As a complete surprise to Catherine, we invited Dorothy to come to the party:

 Can you tell how thrilled Catherine is?

We had planned a "Yellow Brick Road" game in the playground next to our neighborhood pool.  Catherine and Dorothy led the way:

We picked up a few "extra" kids along the way from the people at the pool.  Toto was a complete hit.  I had no idea Dorothy would bring her dog and I was thoroughly impressed that Toto stayed in the basket for about an hour and a half.  No dog I ever owned was that well behaved.

 Dorothy talking to all the children:

 Heading to the playground:

At the beginning of the game they were in "Kansas" and sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow together.  Not all the kids knew the story, but Catherine and Sabrina know every single detail of that movie.

 Then a "tornado" flew by and everyone spun around, across the bridge:

They landed in Munchkinland.  Catherine pretended she was Glinda the Good Witch and changed Dorothy's boring black slippers to ruby red slippers.  At each "stop" of the Yellow Brick Road Game we had a box of treats for all the kids (and the adults).  Here we had Munchkin donuts.

In the corn field Dorothy handed out potato sticks, which are similar to the Scarecrow's straw.  I couldn't think of anything else more appropriate.

 The kids running along the trail (we had spray painted a yellow line on the grass):

In the Apple Orchard all the kids put on Tin Man hats (basic party hats which we spray painted silver).  They acted like they were rusty and Dorothy squirted pretend oil on them from a purple plastic watering can.  For treats they got Hershey Kisses, which are sort of like miniature Tin Man hats.

 In the Spooky Forest the treat was Animal Crackers (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!):

In the Poppy Field everyone fell asleep.  I could not figure out how to get snow to land on the kids, so Catherine said we could blow bubbles instead to wake them up.

 Then the kids ran to the Emerald City:

But the Wizard told them they could not get the Emerald City prize until they brought him the Wicked Witch's broom.

So they ran to get the broom (I tried to figure out a way that they could melt a witch but could not think of an easy way to do that):

 The Emerald City prize was green bead necklaces:

 Then Dorothy clicked her heels three times and we all ran back to Kansas:

It wasn't until I looked at all the pictures that I realized how often Catherine was holding Dorothy's hand:

Catherine also loved Toto (she asked me why his fur was not black like in the movie - I told her that Toto spent so much time in the sun this summer that his hair was lightened, just like hers becomes blonder by the end of the summer):

After the game, while everyone was swimming, we went back through the game and took some clean pictures of Dorothy and the girls at each stop:

 Munchinkinland:

 The Corn Field:

 The Apple Orchard:

 The Spooky Forest (Catherine helped me raid my scrapbook collection to decorate the signs):

 Another nap in the Poppy Field:

 The Emerald City:

 Dorothy helped sing Happy Birthday to Catherine:

 I love this shot because she looks so happy and healthy:

We had very few actual Wizard of Oz decorations because they are hard to find and I really do not like shopping over the Internet.  But, we did have ruby slippers on the Yellow Brick Road napkins, which Catherine showed Dorothy.

When it was time for Dorothy to leave, Catherine gave her another hug (love that smile of genuine happiness!):

 And Catherine walked Dorothy out of the party:

The party was a few weeks ago and Catherine still talks about it all the time.  She tells everyone we meet that "Dorothy came to my party."  She told me a few days later that it was "a miracle" that Dorothy came to her party.  I explained that a miracle requires God's intervention and Dorothy came because we called her and asked her to come.  Immediately Catherine said "You have her cell phone number!!  Can we call her and invite her to a play date?"

When she sees friends who were actually at the party, she asks what their favorite part of the Yellow Brick Road Game was.  So far every one she has asked has said "the food at all the stops."  We knew we were taking a risk because a lot of the kids may not know the story.  But at least the sweet treats were appreciated! 

It was a great party and very special for Catherine.