Weekending...

We are enjoying the summer!  A few things from our past few weekends....

We hit up a new splash pad in nearby Rosemount to cool off last weekend!

Of course we enjoyed some ice cream...and Ella insisted I take her picture sitting on this cow bench.  What a dork!

I finally painted Ella's bathroom!  From a boring tan to a soft grey.  We are still getting the decor finalized....plans include pink towels and a pink shower curtain!

 BEFORE

AFTER

I will say that I have never (ever) painted a room before.  I wanted to do this project by myself.  I'm happy with how it turned out and feel like painting isn't that much work, but it's a total pain in the butt!  HA! 

To celebrate my hard work, Ella and I got pedicures.  :)

 Isn't her chair the cutest?  She LOVED it!

Jay and I had a date night!  We hired Sophie to watch Ella and we headed to St. Paul.  We had dinner at The Nook.  Delish.  We'd heard lots of good things about it, and I'm sure you've seen them on a Food show once or twice.  I opted for a basic cheeseburger and it was amazing.  Jay got a fancy burger which he said was good also, but the highlight of his plate was the crinkle cut sweet potato fries - YES PLEASE!  The Nook is a small joint so I felt like a weirdo taking pictures, but I did snap this one....just to remind myself of it! 

Afterwards, we were stuffed, but headed to Izzy's Ice Cream shop for dessert.  Our choices were a bit underwhelming, but it was still fun and the weather was perfect to sit outside and enjoy.  Except, apparently I'm still trying to figure out how to take a selfie!

 HA!  I've looked at this one on my phone a good number of times and keep laughing!  I was trying to figure out where I was supposed to tap my finger to get the phone to take the picture.  I'm awesome.

See, I figured it out.  HA!

Summer Happenings!

We have been having a fun-filled summer so far!  It seems impossible that the 4th of July is already upon us, but it sure is!  Happy 4th!  God Bless America!

Here are some snapshots from our summer....

 Haircut!

 Dylan's Graduation Party (it was SO HOT!)

Puppet Wagon!

Shopping with Annabella (the baby) ....

Tea parties in the backyard...

Ginormous burritos from our favorite Mexican restaurant!

And Ella's favorite - cheese quesadillas!

The 4th of July weekend has been busy....beach day at Lake Marion...

A visit to DQ....where we all enjoyed the new Peanut Butter Monster Cookie blizzards~YUM!

Canterbury Park....

 (Ella's pick:  Princess Gina; Jay's pick: Empress Wildcat; Sara's pick: Grandma Connie)  HA!  

Grandma Connie came in last place...

We went to Canterbury for the evening to watch the horse races, hang out and then watch fireworks.  We left before the Park fireworks though (I am pretty sure just about the entire city of Shakopee was in attendance, both in the stands and the huge amount of cars lining the roads and lots near the Park).  We were able to watch the ValleyFair fireworks before the Park fireworks even started, so we convinced Ella that we saw some good ones and took off early!!  When we got home, we were treated to a show right in our neighborhood, so that was perfect!

Dance Recital!

Ella's dance recital this year had a Legends and Divas theme.  Overall, the music wasn't as upbeat as in year's past, but she still had a GREAT time and looking forward to it again next year.

Ella's tap dance was to "It's In His Kiss"

 (Ella is center, front)

Ballet dance was to "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"

 Ella is on the left of the middle group shown in this photo....

Her facial expressions during the dances are my very favorite.  She always smiles and knows to keep it plastered on her sweet little face the entire dance!  Back in the days of dance line, this was KEY and constantly drilled into our heads by the coach, so I am always reminding Ella to smile big and enjoy herself!

Pictures with those who were able to attend a show!

P.S. The air conditioning system at the high school was not working properly or something - it was so HOT both days for recital.  Made it tough for those in the audience, but even worse for the dancers who had multiple routines - the stage was roasting!

 

7th Bday Party - Frozen

We held off on having Ella's family birthday celebration until dance recital weekend, which was this past weekend.  It was 90+ degrees out both Friday and Saturday, so it was HOT! 

I had a great time finding items fit for the Frozen party.  We had a ton of Frozen stuff at home already, so I just picked up a few additional things to tie it all together.

I found lots of cute ideas on Pinterest and some printables from both online blogs and Etsy....

 Pin the nose on Olaf!  More pics later...

I had to cut out A LOT of stuff, including some photo props, but it was fine!  

Obviously Ella and I had to try them out before the big event!

There was a cool banner that I placed above the fireplace with the Arrendale castle motifs and other Frozen-esque decor, but I forgot to snap a picture!!  Shoot.  In case you want to print one of your own (ours is going to now decorate the toy room) here is a link.

 I put together "Do you want to build a snowman" kits for favors using a tag I modified...

And before the party started, Chase and Ella tried it out....ta da!

Grandma had to help with getting frosting to hold it all together, but they had a good time!

 Olaf with the noses...

 More party decorations...

And we did water balloons with a sign I found online with Olaf saying "Watch Out for my Butt!" (HA!)

Party food! We served sandwiches (build your own) with all the fixings, carrots and dip (a/k/a Olaf's noses), pretzels (a/k/a Sven's antlers), chips and macaroni salad for lunch (forgot to snap a picture!)

Dessert Table

 We ordered a DQ ice cream cake, which turned out cute, but I was hoping for a bit more decoration

I made snowflake sugar cookies which we decorated with colored sugars in the party color scheme

and I also made Queen Elsa popcorn (popped popcorn drizzled in Wilton Candy Melts with added white and blue sprinkles!)

Pictures with the birthday girl!

We had a smaller than usual crowd this year because of work schedules and other events, but we still had a great time!  Ella got some fun gifts and did a great job reading her own cards this year!

 Papa Gary made her a chest to store things in, which is engraved on the lid.  Pretty sweet!

p.s. you can sort of see that banner I made in these pictures!!

 And then we were able to get outside and splash some water balloons!

FUN!