The Princess Quest

First of all, folks- BIG WARNING - John bought himself a new camera this weekend. A camera, that compared to the one I use is like comparing a Hyundai to a Lexus. Personally, I don't have a problem with a Hyundai, but the Lexus is PRETTY NICE..... So, there will be a lot of picture taking in this family for a while as John is embracing photography with a passion. That means, there will be a lot more fancy blog pictures. Eventually, that will mean better pictures when these annual blogs turn into annual books, so I'm happy, but in the meantime, it took me forever to weed through all of his efforts to find some for the blog-

Second - Hallelujiah, the week is over. It's not quite 9pm, and as soon as I'm done here, the whole family will be in bed. You know it's a busy day when you realize at 8pm that the only thing you've had resembling a meal for the day would be the two pieces of cinnamon toast on wheat bread I had at 7:30 am. Now, don't think I didn't have non-meal foods.... I stayed satiated with birthday cake and castle decorating ingredients, but for me to be so distracted I wasn't aware of eating, wow, that's a crazy day.

Finally, Mikayla's party was, as far as I'm concerned, a big success. Mikayla was very happy about it, the girls were all wonderful and seemed to have a great time, it actually turned out better than I'd hoped. I had a lot in mind to cram into the designated hour and a half, so we kept the girls moving non-stop in their "quest" to find the missing jewels that the mean ol' troll took. The party was primarily based on a box-set called "How to Host a Kids Party" that has a cassette tape, activities, and trinkets to put on a Princess Party. It's a pretty cool little set-up and age 6 seems to be the perfect age (we did the same sort of set, but only in Pirate format for Brayden's 6th birthday). The girls played along with the theme perfectly, and all of the adult help was so wonderful to keep them going. In addition to the quest, we "made them up" with make-up, had John take and print out pictures of them, put them in the crafty frames they decorated, and then at the end, decorated the castles. Throw in birthday cake and present opening, and you can see how the time flew. It was all very sweet, very worth it, but I stand by my earlier commitment to doing some sort of destination celebration next year......

Thanks again to everyone who helped, you all are awesome - and thanks to everyone who had to put up with me this week, especially my honey. From random backrubs, to "you're amazing" compliments, he was just what I needed.

Tomorrow, I'll post about the choir concert that concluded our crazy week.... let's just say there was a lot of "Playful Brayden" in our sweet little Mikayla at the concert tonight.......