{ Pink Lemonade 2nd Birthday Party }

ELLA IS TWO!!!

Which meant time to plan an awesome birthday party :)

My sister and I go a tad overboard in the party planning department but we just can't help it! We love searching Pinterest for ideas and making decorations. We just enjoy doing something different and not the one stop party shop where everything matches. Our families think we are crazy but oh well. We love to see all our hard work all come together the day of the party. Yea Ella probably won't remember a thing but I will have great pictures to show her one day:)

We chose the lemonade theme because Ella LOVES lemons! I know I know it will rot her teeth away but she doesn't get it often. Whenever we eat out she will just about attack you to get the lemon from your drink. She has done this for a while now. We even started ordering our drinks without lemons just to end up with the waiter bring a bowl of lemons to our table just in case we changed our mind. Ella about jumped that waiter lol.

Anyways we started off with that idea and begin to search Pinterest and Etsy. We were surprised to find so many other pink lemonade parties! After last year's party and buying all the decor off Etsy we asked for a Silhouette machine for Christmas from our parents. It was a lifesaver this year! If you like to make stuff you NEED this machine! We made everything this time and saved some $$ in the process.

First we knew we had to have a little lemonade stand. My wonderful husband actually made it. It looked great in her 2 year pictures! My crafty mother in law made her outfit for her pictures and party. I loved them! My sister took her 2 year pictures and they turned out great!

For the invites I searched Etsy for something with chevron and lemons. I found the perfect one from AbbyReeseDesign. Then I uploaded it to Vistaprint and ordered it there. I always get the Vistaprint coupon when it is offered on Groupon. Here is the final product! I love the way they turned out! They also had a photo on the back.

Finally the day of the party came and it was a HOT one! There was nothing October about it! You would of thought it was July. We had the party at our church's picnic shed which has a playground next to it. Ella loves to slide!

The Shed transformed to a lemonade paradise!

For the table arrangements we alternated mason jars filled with fresh flowers and tin cans with pinwheels. The mason jars we painted either yellow or pink. The pinwheels I made with a variety of scrapbook paper in pink, yellow and green on the Silhouette! The lemon placemats I found on clearance at Joann's!

For the food we grilled hotdogs with a side of fruit and chips. For the drinks we had a pink sparkly lemonade which turned out more red and a pineapple lemonade drink. Perfect drinks for the hot fall day! I'm not quite sure how many cups Ella ended up drinking! We used mini chalkboards to label the food even though the guys made fun of us for labeling the obvious.

I got the yellow and pink chevron straws off Very Jane then hot glued the little pennants. I may of lost some fingerprints over this one. One side said Happy Birthday and the other Ella is 2!

For the cupcakes I did half lemonade flavored and the other vanilla with buttercream frosting. The lemonade cupcakes were to resemble a glass of lemonade with a candy lemon on the side and half a straw. It was too funny to see all the little ones try to drink out of the straw! The cupcakes came from Cupcake Creations! I probably gained 5 pounds in all that I consumed! The chevron spoons also came from Very Jane and I was so disappointed that I didn't even have any food to eat with a spoon :(

HMM..How do we eat these?

MESS! MESS!MESS!

For favors we did a candy bar with pink chocolate kettle corn, pink lemonade suckers, lemonade Nerds, and cherry pretzels. I got the chevron bags off Very Jane and made the lemon sticker to seal the bags.

Ella's present section. I was proud of the wreath I made! :)

She couldn't decide what to play with first when we got home! She got so many cool presents! Thank you everybody!

Ella's cute little friends! She hugged each friend after opening their gift :) Precious!

Play Time!

Bounce house fun! We had to drag her out of this!

After months of planning, I feel like the party went great! Ella had a blast! When we are at church, she points to the shed and says. "Party! Wheee!". Thank you to all our family and friends that came out and celebrated Ella's 2nd birthday! 

Now what to do for next year.......HAHA!

Two Year Stats

Weight : 23 pounds (22nd percentile)
Height: 34.25 inches (57th percentile)
Head circumference: 19.5 inches (92th percentile - That's the McAbee in her right there :)  )
Diaper Size: just moved up to a 5
Shoe Size- 4 FINALLY and do you know how hard it is to find this size!?! Her feet are SO small!
Clothing size- Tops- She still fits in most her 18 month stuff but all her fall/winter stuff I bought is 24 months/2t
Pants- 18 months but starting to fit into her 2T :)

Naps- for 2-3 hours in the afternoon
Bedtime- She used to always be in bed by 730 but Andrew's work hours have recently changed to later. Now she tries her best to stay up and play with him as much as possible when he gets home. Now the latest she is in bed is by 845-9.
Wakes up- Normally between 7-8. Thankfully she will play around for a while in her crib till she starts screaming for Daddy! Then if I'm home it's Mama! MILK! I am somehow the milk getter :) Then she gets back in bed with Andrew for a little bit and watches George. She will then let you know when she is ready to EAT! EAT!

Fav Foods- Blueberries, Strawberries, Cheese, yogurt, squeezables, lemons, green beans and hotdogs. She could literally live with just eating that. She is a grazer and is done eating after only a few minutes. Must be how she keeps that girlish figure haha!

She loves to slide, swing, jump, play with her dolls, play store with daddy, clap, play in water, Curious George, church, gymnastics, draw, paint, sidewalk chalk, help cook, wash dishes, bath time and vacuum.

Fav place to eat- Chick Chick! aka Chick Fil A. Pretty sure its not for the food but instead the slide. Whenever we ride by she screams WHEEEE!

She doesn't like to hold your hand when walking. She is way too independent.
She hates hair bows which makes me sad because she has so many cute ones! Ahhh!
She doesn't like for you to turn down the radio. She will scream MUSIC UP! Then she resumes her head nodding and clapping.
She doesn't want to sit in the buggy anywhere long she wants to WALK! WALK!
When she is ready to leave somewhere or she isn't happy doing whatever it is she will start screaming BYE! BYE! PLEASE! ex- at the doctor, on the tractor at her birthday, when she is sleepy and we are out somewhere.
She doesn't like anything on her hands she says Mess! Mess! and won't stop till you get it off. She points out messes too in public or that a floor needs to be mopped. I only wish she cared about that at home LOL!
She doesn't like keeping socks and shoes on. Winter should be fun lol!

She is starting to put words together. She is saying new words all the time. I love hearing her say I love you! Ahh melts my heart!

I wish I had her memory! It's amazing how she remembers certain things/places even after a long time has passed since she has seen or done it. She remembers where stuff was placed which helps me out sometimes LOL. Recently when driving through downtown she pointed to where my husband works and said "Daddy works!".  We have only been there like twice and I couldn't believe she knew that. Then a few weeks ago Nana had a bad fall at Bojangles with Ella and scratched up her knee and elbow pretty badly. I had to put a bandaid on Ella's knee this week and she said Nana Boo Boo knee and bow. Whenever she sees Nana she still points to Nana's knee and elbow and says boo boo better. She was fixated for a while with PopPop splashing after seeing him jump off the diving board this summer and she still talks about it. Whenever she sees a helicopter she says PopPop. It took me a while to figure out why she associated that with him until Nana showed me in their photo album of Hawaii there is a picture of PopPop with a helicopter. So I guess she thinks he has one haha! Now her thing is YaYa (Uncle Jeffy) and his yatches aka watches. She also keeps her foot guarded when he comes around because he always says I'm going to get your foot! She is too funny!

She is growing up way too fast! We try to savor each and every moment as time passes by too quickly!

Day in the Life

I was asked by my friend and fellow blogger Crystal to link up with her blog and Royal's for a "Day in the Life" blog post.

This was my super BUSY past Friday!

• 645am- Wake up, shower and get ready for the day! I haven't really set an alarm in over a week so this was rough :)
• 730am Go get Ella up and feed her breakfast. Leftover fruit from Andrew's birthday party the night before and half a waffle. Then get Ella dressed. She is a little confused because normally Andrew gets her up and they watch George for a little bit in bed before they get going but we have places to be today!
• 750- Leave the house and take Ella over to my mom's house. She realizes half way to Nana's where we are going and she keeps saying YAY! Nana! She is normally at Nana's during the week but since Andrew and I had been off all week she hasn't seen Nana all week! Andrew was to do the yard work while we were gone.

Ella on her 'laptop' on the way to Nana's

• 830-1030- Got a new haircut and color. Love it! Perfect way to start the day!

• 1040- Run by the Dollar Store and get yellow and pink gift wrap for Ella's presents. Andrew thinks I'm a tad obsessive that her wrapping paper matches the theme of her party.

• 1045- Take a baby gift to a friend and meet her precious baby boy Dixon for the first time! He was so tiny and cute! It was hard to believe my wild 2 year old used to be that small :)

• 1100- Run back to my mom's house. Ella is playing outside and saying EAT! EAT! I ask her if she wants to go to Delightful Dishes and just like her mama it's a big YES! It's so funny every time we ride by there she points out the window and says EAT! EAT! By this point she is crying and screaming EAT! EAT! We get everything in the car and we are off!

• 1120- She is totally a different child once we pull in. She is so happy now to be there to eat! I have my usual Henny Penny with broccoli salad and my mom gets the quiche. I get Ella a banana and oatmeal fruit cup and then we give her some of both of our plates. However all she wants is the crackers in the basket. Once we finish our yummy desserts, she accidentally knocks over her plate and food goes all over floor. She exclaims, "Mess!Mess!". We get it all cleaned up and then pick up a to go order for Kimberly and a meal for a friend that recently had a baby.

• 1240- We get to Kimberly's house and drop off her to go plate from Delightful Dishes. She is sewing Ella's pennant banner for the party and I drop off the hot glue gun so she can finish making some other decorations. Ella loves going to MiMi's house because she has 3 kid rocking chairs and Ella just goes back and forth between the three. Ella then goes to MiMi's bedroom to see if her 'bed' (pack in play) is still there from where she spent the night with them the weekend before. She throws her hands up and she looks all over the room for it LOL. I think she had a good time with them!

  

  Here's how the pennants looked at the party!

• 1300- We drop Ella off back at my house with Andrew. Andrew is still outside working and looks confused on why she is back. Obviously he wasn't listening when I said I was bringing her back after lunch haha! He takes her in and they play around awhile before she is down for a nap.

• 1315- Drop my car off for an oil change and mama and I head to Spartanburg for things for Ella's party.

• 1330- Go to the Fresh Market to look for pink pretzels. They have cherry so I get 6 little cases of them for Ella's candy bar.

• 1400- Head to Party City to get the silverware and cups. 

• 1430- Go to Toys R US to pick up the presents from Kimberly and Jeffrey. I learned something new. TRU does price matching. I found a doll that they were getting her online for half the price TRU was selling it for. They matched it to that price! So since we saved that money got her a toy Dyson vacuum too. I  know she will love both gifts!

If you show them the Walmart.com price for this TRU will price match it!

• 1500- Go to Costco to get all the food.

• 1600- Pick up my car from the oil change place.

• 1615- Get home. Put the baked spaghetti in the oven that we are going to take over to our friends' house that had a baby boy. Andrew and Ella are playing store. Ella walks up with her buggy decked out with her sunglasses and cross body purse. Andrew says, "Welcome to Daddy's Store!   What would you like today?". He has various items set up on the coffee table. She picks out what she wants and hands him her fake dollar. This games goes on forever and forever :)

• 1630- I start melting the pink chocolate discs to pour over the kettle corn I bought from Costco to make pink popcorn for the candy bar for Ella's birthday party. I spread the popcorn all down my countertops to dry.
• 1700 Andrew and Ella eat supper. I'm still too full from lunch.

• 1730- The meal is ready to take to our friends. We pack up and head out.

• 1800- We get to our friend's and their cute little girl happily meets us at the door. She is so excited about her baby brother. I know she is going to be a great big sister! She shows Ella all her toys and lets her play with them. We visit for a while and I get to hold Mr. Colson. They have a fairly large dog that we knew Ella would want to see. He came running in and was so hyper. Ella just thought it was hilarious and wasn't scared at all!

Sweet Girls!

Hello World!

• 1930- We get home. Andrew gives Ella a bath and starts getting her ready for bed. She plays with one of her early birthday gifts from Grandma, a baby high chair and swing. One minute she wants it as a high chair, the next she makes Andrew turn it back into a swing. Andrew told her she was a typical girl always changing her mind!

• 2000- Andrew and Ella lay in bed and read some George books. Brush her teeth and she's off to bed. My legs feel like they are literally going to fall off because I had been going nonstop since I woke up. I start to wrap Ella's presents as Andrew is watching the Braves game.

These were Andrew's George books when he was little!

• 2100- Start packing up the car with all the decorations for Ella's birthday party. There is literally hardly any room for anything else in my car and somehow I still have to pick up the balloons, cupcakes and fruit tray in the morning :) I get all the food together so it will be easy to leave in the morning. I lay out our clothes for the party.

• 2230- The Braves game is finally over and we can finally watch Scandal. So excited!

• 2400-  I complain so much about my legs and feet hurting my sweet hubby gives me a massage. Then it is off to bed to rest before another busy day. I go to bed excited that it is about to be Ella's 2nd birthday!

WHEW what a BUSY Friday!!

Weekend Getaway!

This is my absolute favorite time of the year! Our family has a lot to celebrate in the week of Sept 30-Oct 5th! First it was our 7th anniversary on Sept 30th, then Andrew's 30th birthday Oct 3rd, and then Ella's 2nd birthday October 5th! It helps out with work because we can take off for it all at the same time! This year we decided to go away and celebrate our anniversary and Andrew's birthday without our goose. At first it took some convincing to get my husband to agree to go away without Ella! He never takes off work so I understood how he wanted to spend his off time with Ella when he doesn't get to really see her much during the week. But after some terrible 2 tantrums he agreed we needed to get away LOL! So we agreed we would do 4 days away and then we would still have a week to do stuff with Ella when we got back. This was our first trip away together since I was pregnant! Long overdue!

Andrew had a few requirements for the trip: 

    1. Mountains

    2. Non-touristy

    3. A private camp fire

    4. Hiking
    5. Secluded

So I LOVE planning trips! I started searching online of where to stay. I wanted to go somewhere we had never been that had lots of outdoors stuff we could do. Andrew really wanted to go tent camping but he knew he would have to do that solo. So we compromised and I agreed to find a cabin that would have a fire pit so we could pretend we were camping :) I found us a really nice cabin outside Bryson City that met all the requirements!

On Friday we dropped Ella off at my mom's and off we went! We decided we would take all backroads to Bryson City. It was a beautiful drive! We stopped in downtown Hendersonville for lunch. It is such a cute downtown! There are many cute restuarants and shops to walk in. It felt so weird being just the two of us! We are so used to lugging all the stuff that comes with a child, that it felt like we were forgetting something!
 Of course I can't just eat at the first place we walk up to. I always check online for ratings of places usually on TripAdvisor. We ate outside at Mountain Deli where we had the yummiest sandwiches ever! It was so good and fresh! Then we walked around some of the shops. They had a Mast General Store where we went a little crazy :) We found so much stuff that we knew Ella would love! I mean they actually had a Curious George section! Ella would of been in heaven! Then I also started looking for candy for the candy bar we were going to have at Ella's pink lemonade themed birthday. (That post to come later! It was an awesome party!) They had the little lemon slices I had been looking for to decorate her cupcakes with as well as pink lemonade suckers and lemonade nerds! It was perfect! Andrew thought I was crazy :) After some shopping we went to Sweet Frog for some yummy frozen yogurt! Andrew always makes me look bad at these places because he will have the healthiest bowl you have ever seen with all the fruit and then there is mine.....which is ummm not so healthy. I can take frozen yogurt and make it extremely bad for you :)

Then we got started back on our back roads driving adventure. It was so pretty driving through the mountains and so relaxing! We finally made it to Bryson City and started to try to find our cabin. We turned down the graveled one lane road to the cabin. Then there it was a steep, bumpy uphill gravel drive to the cabin. We used my 4 wheel drive for the very first time! Thank goodness for it! We made it to the top and the cabin was beautiful! It was probably the cleanest rental we have ever stayed in. It was very private being the only cabin on the road. That night we were excited to use the fire pit. I had bought all the necessities for some s'more making which I knew I would be eating by myself. Unfortunately the firewood was too wet to get a real fire going :( I was fine with that though because there was a big rock gas fireplace indoors!

The next morning we went on a train ride on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. This was the one reason we picked to stay near Bryson City. We had tickets on the open air gondola and it was a beautiful fall day to be on the train. The train departed at 1030 am for the Nantahala Gorge. The train ride was very nice as it went thru the countryside and over Lake Fontana ending at the Nantahala Gorge Outdoor Center (NOC) . That particular weekend the NOC was having a big guest appreciation festival so there were kayak racing, mountain biking exhibits, music, and vendors selling outdoors equipment. We had an hour layover there. We enjoyed just sitting on the rocks by the river watching all the kayakers coming down.

All aboard!

The train ride was about 4.5 hours. It was so relaxing I think I even dozed off a little bit on the ride back LOL! When we got back to Bryson City we saw a cute little bakery called La Dolce Vita Bakery. I went in with all intentions of getting a smoothie but then there was this amazing spread of yummy gelatos! I got the banana caramel praline gelato! OH MY WORD! It was heavenly! It had huge chunks of candied pralines and oozy thick caramel. And as you guessed it Andrew got the healthiest thing there, the Super Fruit smoothie. Yea I know.... but it was really good!

On Sunday morning I had arranged for a kayak guide to take us out to Lake Fontana. We used Endless River Adventures. We met our guide at their shop at 830 that morning and rode with him to the lake. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. It was so quiet on the lake. We didn't realize how big Lake Fontana actually is. It is 33 miles but is composed of lots of little coves that finger off the lake. Our kayaking tour was 2.5 hours long. Our guide was full of interesting stories. He travels all of the world doing all kinds of outdoor adventures stuff. I told Andrew I had never heard him talk so much in my life to a stranger. Andrew just found the guide's life fascinating LOL. By the time we were making our way back to our starting point, I thought my arms were going to fall off! Andrew of course didn't feel the least bit exhausted. I was sore ALL over! Whew kayaking is a real good workout!

Lake Fontana

Sunday afternoon we went hiking on the Deep Creek trails. I'm so glad the lady that owned the cabin we stayed in told us about these trails. She told us about a short cut from our house that led us right to the trails without having to go thru Bryson City. Thank goodness we didn't meet any other cars on the short cut because it was a narrow dirt road :) There were 3 trails that started at the parking lot and each one was a relatively short hike less than half a mile each to beautiful waterfalls. We started to hike the first one when half way we started to see a lot of what Andrew said was bear scant (poop). I just froze! I wanted to go back to the car but hesitantly decided to continue on and I'm glad I did! The trail ended at a wooden bridge with a bench where you could sit and face the waterfall.

Juneywhank Falls

Lesson Learned: To get the boy to give you a real smile for a picture get him out in the woods :)

Another trail led to this beautiful waterfall.

Tom Branch Falls

Deep Creek Trail

Sunday night we were FINALLY able to get a good fire going! We roasted hot dogs and I finally had  a lot of s'mores!  Lighter fluid and dry wood did the trick!

Monday we decided we would go hike this trail our kayaking guide had recommended. He had told us he thought it was an easy hike and that it led to this beautiful lake by this mountain. So we started on our way. Well it started to seem like this hike was going to be a lot longer than we expected. We were just about to turn around and head back to the car when all of a sudden this huge truck started coming down the trail towards us. The guy hollered out if we were from there and we responded we were hoping he was. Turns out he was trying to find some trail that led to a dam owned by Duke Energy so he could change the sign out with the new logo. He asked us what we were trying to find and we told him Queen's Lake. He laughed and said it was at least another 3 miles down the trail and that there was an old man hunting near there that about shot him. You better believe we high tailed it back to the car :)

We then drove up to Fontana Dam about an hour away. We grabbed some Bojangles on the way to have a picnic and headed up the mountain. You know there were no other food choices for Andrew to eat there LOL. I had to get a picture to document that :)  Tyler we thought you would be proud!

Sent this picture to Ella :)

After visiting the dam , we made our back back home. We couldn't wait to see our little goose! I wish I would of videoed her reaction when we pulled in to my parents' house. She had the biggest smile on her face as she ran towards us!

It was so nice to get away and relax just the two of us! We promised we would have to do it again as Ella had a great time with my parents, sister and her husband. Everyone said Ella was great so we will feel even more at ease whenever we go away next time! Next big trip my 30th in January...hmm where shall we go? I'm thinking somewhere warm :)) We shall see!