Evie and Lydia's Combo Party 2019 Edition

Evie and her bestie wanted to have a joint birthday party again this year. I'm not joking when I say that they spend the whole year between birthdays planning the next party. A lot of planning, re-planning, arguing, creating, and fine tuning goes into these shindigs. Notice the matching unicorn bathing suits. 

I like that they like pool parties. Not much for me to have to do. 

The rainbow float was a huge hit all summer. I didn't expect it to last as long as it did with how many kids would pile on it. 

The girls wanted to have a pinata with a smaller pinata inside, and further smaller pinatas, until the last one revealed 2 pieces of candy. Just for them. We had to tell them no on that one, and did a regular pinata where everyone gets some candy.

I think I've gotten that fancy stick before, and I think it broke both times. Not a sturdy stick for these athletic kids. 

The girls assigned Kara to make a unicorn scavenger hunt. She created these cute My Little Pony drawings, but they were rejected. They wanted more "realistic" looking unicorns. Is that a thing? She had even laminated them. 

Lucky for them Kara is a good sport, and loves drawing, so she started over, and made new unicorns. We wrote the scavenger hunt clues on slips of paper, and taped them to the back, then hid the unicorns in their spots. 

The MLP unicorns got hung as decorations on the rainbow waterfall. 

Not terribly noticeable, but very cute. 

When we got to the house after the pool party, they got started on the scavenger hunt. 

After the scavenger hunt, they used the waterfall for a fishing pond. That was pretty lively. 

The girls had asked for these poop hats they saw at Six Flags. I said, no, but sneakily bought them later, and saved until their birthday party. Notice the matching unicorn nightgowns. 

They were very kooky for gift opening as expected with these 2. 

The cake was unicorn as well, to fit the theme. 

Teamwork makes the dream work. 

After cake, the party was less structured, and they just had fun and hung out. There were definitely plans I'd heard about and items I'd been shown that did not get used during the party, but I just don't ask questions. 

They used the rainbow waterfall as a photo booth, and that was fun. 

Can you even tell them apart? 

The unicorn mask was definitely in demand. 

This is a very fun group of girls. 

Mr. Scooty can not be left out, as he came back into our lives in June when Ben re-broke his foot. 

Lydia and her mom brought the unicorn farts! Yum :)

Weapons Camp

Kara signed up for weapons camp at her Tae Kwon Do school. She had a great time.On the last day, the parents are invited to come and watch a demonstration. 

There was a lot of stick clacking. I would be afraid of getting my fingers smacked. 

When she first asked to sign up for Tae Kwon Do in 2nd grade, I wouldn't have imagined she'd still be doing it through 8th grade, and still enjoying it so much. 

On may way home from driving carpool for the camp, I got a frantic call from Kiersten. She said there were firemen all around our house. She said they hadn't come to the door at all, so I told her just to stay inside, and she could go to the basement if it made her feel safer. One of the kids in the carpool got excited and said, "I hope your house blows up!" When we got home, I sent Kara and Evie inside so I could see what was going on. Charter was dong something a few houses down, and I guess they hit the gas line under our yard. So The firemen came in to check our house for gas, etc. several times. They assured me before they left that our house would not be blowing up, but we got a giant hole dug in our front yard. The next day, the gas company came out to fix the gas line, and they accidentally cut AT&T's line, so they left the hole until that could get fixed. After several weeks of no one coming out, and plenty of phone calls with all of them, Charter finally came out and fixed the hole. But AT&T never came out to fix their line, so maybe it wasn't a current line? Or maybe those customers are just out of luck? Who knows. None of them wanted to come out to close the hole and fix the yard, because they all said it wasn't their responsibility. So that was an annoying few weeks. Ben would call me from work every day and ask if anyone had come to fix it that day. 

Evie Had A Birthday, Shout Hooray!

Lil Evie Pie turned 9 years old if you can believe it.

I was a little lazy in decorating her door. A lot was going on that day. 

She had swim conference that morning, so we got up and going early. 

After swim, she didn't want to wait to open her gifts. So we had a quick lunch and let her get to it. 

She's a happy child. 

The bean bag was a huge hit, if not the biggest surprise after she'd spent all morning thinking about it sitting there on the counter. I couldn't figure out how to wrap it without wasting tons of wrapping paper. 

Her prayers were answered, and she is the proud owner of her very own hoverboard. We've only had to send it off for repairs once so far. 

She requested a pig birthday cake. I always figure something out to fulfill their cake requests. The ears are doritos dipped in pink chocolate and they were disgusting! It was Ben's idea to use the doritos. It was my idea to try one. The nose is a jumbo marshmallow. Ben made the bow out of red starbursts that he squished up. Kinda gross, but adorable. He used the pink starbursts to make a twirly tail. Since it wasn't for her party, I didn't want to do a very large cake. I think it's fairly recognizable as a pig. 

Ben is often the cake decorating hero. I do most of the work, but he's always there with the creative ideas that bring it all together. 

She chose Dalie's for dinner. She sure loves ribs.

I think she had a pretty awesome day.