Happy Third Birthday, E!

It sure has been a busy few days in the JAKES household. On Thursday it was Little E's birthday and Great Grammie and Grampie came over for lunch.

That evening we all went to see Disney's Frozen On Ice. It was a great show!

On Friday I spent all day getting things ready for her birthday party.
On Saturday we hosted her third birthday party.

On Sunday the JAKES and Nana and Papa went to the JcPenney Portrait Studio for E's three year old photos as well as family photos.

Little E, you are an amazing child, a sweetheart of a daughter, an incredibly funny person, and a wonderful little sister. Thank you for blessing our lives with your smiles, cuddles, and love everyday. This world is truly a better place because you are in it. We love you so much!

Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone. I hope you are all staying warm and having a happy, spooky Halloween.

This year, {K} & {E} are going as the most original costumes ever... wait for it... Elsa and Anna from Frozen. I know you're shocked. But they love that movie so much and it's what they wanted and with the plethora of available gowns, I didn't have to sew anything so a win for me as well.

Without further ado, I hereby present Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle!

I actually took the photos above a few days ago when we had beautiful weather instead of the snow flurries we're having today.

The pictures below are from this morning. {K} didn't want to wear a wig so we braided her hair and used a can of gold hair paint to try and make it look a bit more like Elsa's.

This is from the parade at her school:

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween and stay warm! I think we'll hit one or two houses of nearby friends and then go to the library for indoor trick or treating. Brrr!

A Fun 'Frozen' DVD Release Party

If your kids are anything like mine, or even if you don't have kids but appreciate great animated movies (I know I do - I'm super pumped the new Muppets movie opens on my birthday!) then you were probably counting down the days until Frozen came out on DVD. Occasionally, when a highly anticipated movie comes to the theater (Despicable Me 2) or like yesterday when Frozen came out on DVD, I try and do something fun for the girls to get them excited about the movie. When Despicable Me 2 came out we made Minion Cupcakes. For Frozen I decided to make it into a mini-party. Here are some of the things we did:


I purchased two foam crowns and sticker gems for the girls to use as decorations. I also bought them some sparkly necklaces and rings to use for dress-up.

Here are my beauties showing off their completed crowns. I also bought a roll of silver wrapping paper and blue glittered tissue paper to decorate the table.

Apparently everyone was in the market to purchase Frozen toys because the Elsa's Ice Palace below and the Polly-Pocket sized Anna doll we're the only two toys from the movie I could find at Walmart, and Target and Toys R Us weren't much better. I'm glad we got the movie (and the toys) first thing in the morning because by the afternoon, several of the stores were sold out of the blue-ray version. The larger, talking dolls were from Target back when the movie first came out to theaters and the marshmallow snowman is my attempt at making an edible Olaf.

(sorry for the poorly exposed cell phone picture here and below)

At our little party we also had "Frozen Punch" which was just blue Kool-Aid in a glass rimmed with white and blue sugar crystals. The girls loved it!

For dessert that night we had blue Jell-O "ice" cubes. They're really cool because it's a layer of blue Jell-O on top of a layer of clear. However, since I only used one packet of each color and used the Speed-Set method for my blue layer, mine didn't turn out nearly as cool as the inspiration ones seen below.

I found this cute Olaf printable on Spoonful's website for the girls to color while waiting for lunch.

The last thing I made for the girls are these capes. There is a scene in the movie when Elsa sings "Let It Go" while building her ice palace. This is by far .K's. favorite scene and we watch it on YouTube on average twice a day with her reenacting every moment of it. Anyway, there is a part where Elsa lets her cape fly off while singing, "The cold never bothered me anyway." Up until this party, .K. had been using a fleece blanket fastened with a hair tie as her cape but it was too long, too big, and I worried she would trip on it while twirling and dancing.

I found these two inexpensive, different shades of blue fleece baby blankets and even though I couldn't open them to see exactly how big they were, I kind of guessed that if they're for a baby, they're probably not too huge. As you can see in the picture below, it hits at a perfect spot on .K. and it's small enough to just cover her shoulders without being too big, too heavy or too bulky. Awesome!

The second part of the equation is keeping them closed. I wanted to do something a little fancier than just a hair tie but it also had to be easy enough that .K. could do it herself so she could let it fly during just the right part of the song. As you can see on .E. below, I found these super cute heart shaped toggles that I hand-stitched to two of the corners.

However, the girls don't even have to worry about doing the toggles themselves because they can just slip the capes on and off over their heads. Here you can see how long the same sized blanket is on .E. Thankfully it's just above the floor because she loves to copy Big Sis and run around the living room wearing her cape too.

Here they are dancing together while watching Frozen. My favorite part about these capes is that .E. prefers to wear hers in the front, like a giant tabard and then do somersaults and that cracks up .A.

And just like in the movie, our beautiful girls may be different, but I know they will love each other forever.

K's 5 Year Photos

Well it's that time of year again when I gussy up the girls and take them over to JC Penney for an annual photo. It's funny how many more photos I have of them now since we go twice a year instead of just once when K was younger.

We had a different photographer this time which I was a little concerned about but I think she took some nice poses and coaxed pretty smiles out of the girls. I put on some music for K to try and make it more fun and that kind of backfired on me because she got too wound up and silly for the remaining pictures. Plus E really just wanted me to hold her the whole time so I had to keep ducking out of sight which was a bummer since I wanted to watch.

The other thing we did differently this time was that there were two sets of two pictures where they were very similar and I couldn't decide which one I liked better so A had the great idea to let K pick. I think she liked having a say in the decision and I'm quite happy with the ones she picked. So, enough talking. Here are her 5 year photos:

Instead of using their wooden number 5 we went with a 5 balloon.
(This is one of the photos that K picked.)

This is the other photo she picked. The other photo had her looking straight
into the camera but this smile is so genuine and her eyes are really twinkling.

This is where the craziness started but I love this picture collage because
K is ALWAYS dancing and twirling with Lily.

We got Sis in on the dancing action too. I love how her little
foot is pointed. She's been walking on her tip toes a lot lately.

I had purchased a Groupon for a photo package and part of it was a 3-image
CD. I chose this as one of my images because although I probably won't
print it to hang on the wall their goofy faces were too cute not to include in
their annual photo book.

I totally got suckered into getting this one on a canvas as part of their monthly
promotion. I couldn't help it - the price was right and it's a great family shot. We
got another family one that's a little different but you'll have to wait until Dec. to
see that one in your Christmas cards ;)

So there you have it. I'm happy with what we chose although it's unusual for me not to pick the more "posed" photos but I've been trying to realize that sometimes a more natural photo will be the one that I'll treasure the most. I love our family!

E's One Year Photos

This past Thursday I took the girls over to our local JCPenney Portrait Studio to take E's first year portraits. (If you recall from previous posts, I have taken K to get her pictures done each year as well.) I was trying to wait on getting her pictures taken until the injury on the bridge of her nose was completely healed, but it still isn't totally gone and I didn't want to be a half year late like I was on K's 3rd year pictures.

E is not exactly the best napper and this particular day she napped early so she was getting quite cranky by the end of her photo shoot. I have to say though that she did great and I think we got some really cute ones. I also had our photographer take a few of the girls together in their Easter dresses and I got a collage of three of my favorites.

So, without further ado, our baby girls first year photos:

Hi, I'm one!

You know that expression, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?"
I'd marry this picture if I could.

When K was 9 months old, I had her picture taken with her "Grammie Blanket".
I wanted to get a photo of E with her Grammie Blanket so my Grandma can have
one of each girl with their blankets.

Here is the collage of the pictures of the girls together:

This is the dress E was supposed to wear for Easter but then Grandpa bought her such a
beautiful one that we decided to wear than on Easter and save this one for her pictures.

And here are each of the pictures individually so it's easier to see them:

Our Boo Bears.

I'm so happy with how this one turned out!

Oh how I love that smile.

So there you have it! It's fun to go back and look at E in the mermaid pictures we took only 6 months ago. Her hair has grown so much and her looks have already changed quite a bit.

Thanks for stopping by!

She's Ready For Her Close-Up

Every year we take K to the JCPenney Portrait Studio to document another birthday. For her three-year photos I was over a half year late in getting them taken so technically she's had two sets of yearly pictures taken this year. I'm actually really surprised that there's as much of a visible change with these pictures given how close together they were taken (7 months apart). I love seeing the progression of time in how her looks change.

And speaking of these types of photos, from any other moms who do this type of thing, have you given it any thought on how long you'll do them? Originally I was thinking until K starts kindergarten and then has school pictures taken. But these are always so much more fun so then I was thinking until she turns ten. Why ten, I have no idea. What do you all think?

For comparison, here is one from year two and year three. Click on the links if you want to see all of the pictures from those years:

Year Two

Year Three

Year Four

We have also had a picture of her taken with the number of her age each year but the photographer told me they only go up to five so I guess if we keep this up I'll have to start bringing my own numbers.

Also, it just so happened that we were at the store on the last day that they were doing an event which happened to be mermaids and pirates. Obviously they were gearing the mermaids to girls and pirates to boys and while I was secretly hoping K would pick pirate, when given the choice, she chose mermaid. We even go Little Sis in on the action. This is our homage to Daddy and his love of the beach:

Since the side pictures above are so small, here is each one blown up. The bottom one cracks me up. It's supposed to represent K being caught and the look on her face just kills me!

Now I just have to make sure I get E to her one-year pictures on time ;)

Easter Beauties

This Easter we spent a nice relaxing day at home with Grandpa. With all of the craziness of packing and getting ready to move, the Easter Bunny almost forgot about hiding eggs and getting K's basket together. Thankfully the Bunny remembered in the wee hours of the morning before anyone else woke up and was able to get everything all set. After K found her eggs and ripped through her gifts, Grandpa came over for a relaxed dinner of Bistro Chicken, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, salad, bread and raspberry brownies. It was really nice to spend so much time with him and to have a day where we didn't have to worry about packing. Here are a few pictures of the girls in their Easter outfits:

Hunting for Easter Eggs

Smiling for the camera

Sweet sisters in their matching yellow outfits

Our smiley little girl

Grandpa and E checking each other out.

Grandpa and K modeling the latest in Easter eyewear.