The American Girl Store

So as I said, on her actual birthday we headed down to the American Girl Store in Boston. My sister and niece and some friends came with us. It was crazy crowded but we still had a great time. She had gotten Kit the night before from us:

She was thrilled! She had asked for Kit and McKenna, the new Girl of the Year, but we went with Kit because she has wanted her for a long time and has only known about McKenna for a couple weeks. McKenna is still on her wish list especially after seeing her cool stuff at the store. Here is her and her friend checking out her bed:

And she has a thing for the glasses:

She had gotten some gift cards for her birthday so she was in shopping heaven:

We surorised her when we got to the mall by letting her get her ears pierced...something else she has wanted for a long time. She was so happy! And we decided one of her dolls could get her ears pierced too. She decided on Julie...here they are after we picked Julie up from the salon with their freshly pierced ears:

Some downtime while we waited for our table in the bistro:

Then came the bistro...her favorite part! She was beaming!

(Yes, she had to bring all 3 dolls!)

And this priceless face when she saw the waitress walking towards us with her special dessert and realized she was singing Happy Birthday TO HER...made it all worth it!

Such a fantastic day!

Someone had a Birthday

And somehow it turned into a 3 day celebration, lol! It certainly wasn't the original plan. About a month before her birthday I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday and she told me she wanted to go to the American Girl Store and have a friend party at a bounce house place. I told her she would have to choose one because they would both coast a lot of money so she choose the American Girl Place. But then during that month she had gotten invited to several friends parties in their homes and I started to feel bad that I wasn't having a party for her friends so I decided we could do a small party at home with a few friends.

So she ended up having a friends party on Friday, a family party on Saturday, and on Sunday we went to American Girl...lol...3 days of celebrating. It was a little much but boy did she have a great weekend!

We went with a Rainbow theme for the friend and family parties...so many great ideas on pinterest!

I made rainbow cupcakes for the friends:

Then I made this Rainbow cake the next day for the family party...it was huge!

And Luckily the good people at American Girl took care of her special treat there:

Happy 6th Birthday baby girl!

Scrapping Finally!

I was finally able to get back in my scrap room today after over a month off from scrapping. I have been itching to get back at it and then when I finally was able to my mind went blank. That happens a lot to me when I don't do it for a while. I finally just forced myself to make a layout and came up with this:

Its not my favorite layout, for sure...seems very predictable for me...everything centered, journaling around the edge, etc. Same ol', same ol'. But I think I just needed to get that first one out of the way so I could get my creative juices flowing. Next I made this one:

This one I like much better...a little more out of my comfort zone. These were both made with the December SC Kit, Brooklyn Flea and addons. I hope I can continue my mojo and keep getting time in my scrap room!

Project Life Cover Page

I have decided to take on Project Life again this year. I did pretty will with it last year, although I got behind over the summer. I still have to finish up November and December, just waiting on my Shutterfly order.

My goal this year is to stay current. I am going to keep the journaling cards by my bed and fill them out when I go to bed while the day is still fresh in my mind! I hope this works...the journaling is always the hardest part for me. Then I hope to sit down once a week and to the week altogether, hoping to be able to add more scrap supplies this way.

I did not by the kit this year. I got the Clementime Album for Christmas and Design A page protectors. I also bought Design D page protectors and plan on alternating one with the other so that each week I can have both landscape and portrait photos. I only used design A last year and realized that I actually take more portrait photos so this was something I had to get used to. But because of Project Life i am now in the habit of doing both!

I also bought just the plain white journaling cards in hopes that I will spruce them up with my stash:)

I finished my cover page today and am excited to get started! Here it is:

Top Ten Layouts of 2011

I have always wanted to do one of these and I don't think I ever have so here goes:)

I think most of these I haven't even shared yet! Here they are in no particular order:

(this is a horrible photo of this layout but I can't find the high resolution one right now)

Two things I did this year that really helped my scrapbooking...took KP's Sketch class and became a subscriber to Studio Calico. Looking forward to getting back in my scraproom...I have not scrapped since November!

Our Christmas

First of all...Happy new Year!! I love the fresh start of a new year...love making goals and resolutions. Of course my biggest resolution is to get back this here old blog...hope I can stick with this finally!

To start things off I will recap our Christmas. It was wonderful. Ally woke up first at 5am. I tried to get her to wait until 6 but I couldn't get back to sleep so we decided to go downstairs. Max met us in the hallway and the 3 of went to see if Santa came...he did!

After taking it all in the two of them got started on their stockings:

Poor Brandon woke up not feeling well...found out a couple days later that he had strep throat:(

They started digging in to the gifts around 6am when Daddy and Brandon joined us downstairs:

Ally was very happy about Max's new aquarium too:)

The new xbox...he was very surprised!

A box filled with his favorite snacks...13 year old boys are hard to shop for!

Her biggest surprise...a new wii! Ours broke about 2 months ago and she had just started playing it a lot. She actually went to be crying the night before because she said she really needed a new wii and forgot to put it on her list! Luckily mommy and daddy had been missing their netflix too:)

Doing a happy dance!

Playing with her new American Girl stuff.

A fun Christmas breakfast thanks to pinterest...Reindeer pancakes!

Favorite gifts picture

Zonked out by mid morning:)

Getting her doll ready for school...both of her dolls got new backpacks...she loves playing scholl with them.

All decked out in their new clothes!

That night we had family over our house for Christmas dinner...a great way to end a great day. I am a litlle sad it is over but definitely looking forward to the new year!