IRELAND - DAY 1

I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a special one-on-one trip with my boy, Hayden!

Destination: Ireland!

I surprised him with the news on his 16th birthday, in March. So, we had 3 months of excited anticipation leading up to it.

Hayden was giddy with excitement when we boarded the plane.

We drove up to NYC to catch our flight from JFK to Toronto, Canada.

Then on to Dublin!!

We landed in Dublin, got our bags and rental car, and headed to the Southwest corner of Ireland!

Miraculously, after 19 hours of travel time, only 3 hours of sleep, switching to the left hand side of the road, and another 3 hour drive down to Killarney National Park, I DIDN'T pass out or crash the car! (Brian was worried for me)

Hayden sat in the passenger seat, and was snapping away with the camera at the countryside we were passing. Which was beautiful!

He was loving it!

We settled into our B&B, and went into town to find dinner.

We both got the lamb at a local pub.....yum!

We had some weird car issues with the rental...and after getting it sorted out went for a drive on the Ring of Kerry.

This was an amazingly beautiful drive....BUT probably NOT the smartest thing to start at 8:00pm on the day we flew in, after having such little sleep the night before!

Hayden fell asleep at first...I woke him up and told him if he wasn't up for this now, we should head back. He quickly woke up and was eagerly snapping photos again!

It was a most beautiful drive.

But after an hour and 20 min. I realized that we weren't even half-way around, and I was exhausted!!

So, we turned around and made it back to the B&B by 10:30pm.

Luckily I remembered to bring my eye mask, as it was still completely light out when we fell into bed that night! Completely exhausted, but so excited to be on our adventure!

A FROZEN Party!!

Our little princess turned 5!

She was SO exited to have her FROZEN Party!

She could hardly wait!

 She had requested an ice castle cake, but I told her that was beyond my abilities.

She was satisfied with the snowflake cake instead.

 Here's some of what we did for the food...

 

Carrots for 'Olaf's Noses' and pretzel sticks as 'Sven's Antlers'

 

Rock candy as the 'Frozen Fractals', and sugar cookies in the shape of snowflakes.

 

The water bottles were 'Melted Snow', and strawberries dipped in white chocolate worked great as 'Anna's Frozen Hearts'.

 

Blue jello squares as Christof's 'Ice Blocks', and string cheese dressed up as snowmen (which I unfortunately forgot to put out for the party! Found them in the fridge after everyone had left!)

And snowman pizza's!

(The kids weren't too thrilled about these actually)

 The birthday girl is 5!

Here's some of what we did for fun at the party.

Morgan made everyone a band bracelet, and I made some 'snowflake' barrettes for the girls.

Morgan made this cute center piece.

We had antlers to decorate for the boys, and crowns for the girls, along with some coloring pages.

And a snowman building station!

Then pin the nose on Olaf!

(Created by Morgan)

And of course lots of singing and dancing to Let it Go!

A happy day for my baby girl!!

So glad she is part of our family!

Priorities

I found this list that Ashlyn wrote in school when they were talking about wants vs. needs.

It made me smile that conditioner was on the list of needs!

Spoken like a girl with long hair!

And she lost her 1st tooth!!!

Elsa dress

Madelyn was insistent that all she wanted for her birthday was an Elsa dress from Frozen.

I got online to see what I could find.

Apparently I had been out of the merchandise loop, because there were NO more Elsa dresses to buy!

In fact, those that were lucky enough to get one when Disney had them in stock, were now selling them on Ebay for $200! 

$200 for a child's dress up dress???

That is insanity!

Actually I thought the $50 that Disney was originally charging was insane.

I don't spend $50 on a dress that she will actually wear out in public, why would I spend that on a dress-up dress??

But, since I was still left with a 5 year old desperately wanting an Elsa dress, I decided to pull out my machine (something I don't really do these days), and see what I could come up with.

Since I am not really a seamstress, I decided to start with a white leotard, and just add the skirt and bodice to it. 

 It ended up turning out not so bad!

And Madelyn loved it, and thought I was the best!

So, I call that a win-win!

 

Of course I couldn't just make one....Ashlyn wanted one too.

 I couldn't find a long sleeved white leotard in her size, so I ended up just using a long sleeve shirt instead. While it was easier to sew the skirt to that, I like the look of the leotard better.

Although for throwing them together in a few hours, I'm happy with them both!

In other news....

A fairy door appeared in our living room.

Now we have a proper entrance for all our fairy friends to come visit us!

Magic!