Ryan's Picasso Party

COLOR ME HAPPY !!
Ryan's turning four!

On Sunday, Ryan had a painting party for her toddler friends at a local ceramics studio. The 2 hour party was the perfect time frame and we had lots of helpers to make things go smoothly and 20 toddlers constantly busy. Here is the play by play of the event...

#1 The Food... as the kids entered the shop, they were escorted to the ceramic figurines to choose one that they wanted to paint and then they came to the food table to create a colorful masterpiece of food in their paint palette plate!

#2 The Painting Begins: The staff cleared the food from the table and then the painting began. I had smocks made for each of the kids so that they wouldn't ruin their clothes. We chose to use a crayon print with a gingham pocket and then Ryan's was the opposite so she would stand out as the birthday girl. Each child got to take home their oilcloth smock as one of their favors. They were a huge hit. #3 The Craft Table: Since four year olds don't have a very long attention span, the painting portion of the party did NOT take very long at all so when the kids were done painting, they moved to the craft table. They could make a colorful beaded necklace or make playdoh creations. There was more colorful food choices at this table too. The good stuff... Skittles, M&Ms, Rainbow Twizzlers, and colored Goldfish.
#4 The Singing: Finally, the party ended with some time to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday girl and enjoy some cupcakes. Putting frosting on the face was a big hit!
#5 The Family Photo Opp: One of the moms was gracious to offer to take our picture. It's a good thing too because I would have totally forgotten to do this.
#6 The Big Goodbyes: As each of the guests left, Ryan stood at the door, said thank you and handed out watercolor paints as favors. Here is Ryan and her friend Azia.

(Phewww... I think it's a good thing Charlie's birthday doesn't come for 7 more months. I need a little break!)

Fancy Ryan Party

Fancy Ryan had herself a fancy birthday party last weekend with the family! Here's a little background info on how this theme came about...For Christmas, Ryan got the book Fancy Nancy from her Aunt Marzie and LOVED it from the moment she saw it. We have read it almost every night at bedtime ever since. We decided it would make the perfect 4 year old birthday party for own fancy one - Little Miss Ryan. Here are some pics from our fancy evening...

The ensembles (that a fancy word for outfits) and baubles (that's a fancy word for accessories) were all staged so that the little girls could pick and choose (and tell the adults what to wear too)!

Daddy holding Baby Cameron Kudron. He's not quite old enough to figure out what's going on yet but he will be the only boy cousin at these family gatherings with 5 girls buggin' him all the time!

Patrick and girlfriend, Melina, joined us for the festivities. It was a wonderful surprise.

Michelle and Liz getting fancy with boas.

Parfait time! (That's a fancy word for ice cream sundaes)

Mike, Nancy, and Cameron. Great pic!

Fancy Marzie and Fancy Casey. Plus a pint size Fancy Charlie and a miniature size Fancy Sydney.

Just hanging out and having fancy chats. Uncle Bubba in his tuxedo. He got really, really fancy! What a trooper!

Patrick holding the birthday girl with her new fancy jammies on!

Blowing out 4 candles! Happy Birthday Ryan!

Fancy Carson, Fancy Ryan, and Fancy Katie posing for a picture.

Papa even got fancy for the festivities. Good work Papa!
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Thank you everyone for playing along with yet another crazy theme in the Grace household. xoxo!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

Today, our darling Ryan turns 4! Here is a little trip down memory lane... these are some pics from when she was just a wee little thing at one!

Coming Soon...

I haven't had a chance to download all the wonderful pictures from Ryan's birthday parties (yes, plural... parties). No fear, there are 3 new posts below for you to browse in the meantine. These pictures have been long overdue and just sitting on my computer until I had a chance to post them. Please stay tuned for Birthday Extravaganza Posts coming on Thursday!!

Best Bath Ever

Ryan Smith was over with his little girls, Carson and Sydney, earlier this month when Michelle was out of town. The toddler girls all took a bath together. I couldn't resist the wonderful photo opportunities. I'm sure they'll hate us for these pictures when they are teenagers...

Lots of Huggies (real ones...not diapers!)

For President's Day, the girls and I went down to San Diego to visit my best friend from college to hang out, play, and see their new house. We had some LONG overdue talk time while the kids played. It was actually very relaxing because the kids are finally old enough to play on their own without a whole lot of "neediness" from mommy.

Charlie (2 yr, 5 months) , Ryan (turns 4 on Thursday) , and Holden (turned 2 last week)


Charlie giving lots of love to Jenn.

Holden holdin' on tight to Chuckles.

Holden spreading out all the love to the girls in the house.

Thanks for having us Jenn and Holden!! Loved every minute of it.

When Daddy's Away, the Girls Will Play!

A couple of weeks ago, daddy went to Las Vegas on a business trip. As I wrote in a previous post, the girls and I did all the things daddy doesn't normally let us do! One of the favorite happenings of the weekend was when we went to the mall and I let the girls wear WHATEVER they wanted! As you can see, they both chose their fanciest outfits!

In Crate and Barrel posing on the comfy couches

In Crate and Barrel trying not to touch ANYTHING

On the Merry-Go-Round with mommy's friend Tina. She was a trooper... Mommy gets dizzy going in circles like that!

Little Chuckles being polite as a princess at lunch.

Need a fix??

I know, I know... it's been a long time since the last post. I have a few to put on the computer but have been swamped planning little miss Ryan's birthday parties, working a lot, and everything else that creeps up. I am hoping that tomorrow I can get to more blog updates. So... in the meantime you can get a Grace Girls fix by going to my friend Jenn's blog. We went down to San Diego last Monday for a playdate. Copy and paste the link below (or click on the right column of the blog that says "Holden's Blog":

http://www.thefletcherfam.blogspot.com

Duck, Duck, Goose!

The reason for this post is that Steve is out of town visiting Uncle Jeff and he is missing his girls. He is wanting to get online and see some pics of them. Jeff too of course! Hopefully, getting a little sneak peak of our VERY exciting evening of miniature princess figurine Duck, Duck, Goose will help him to remember why he should be rushing to the casinos ASAP! Haha! We miss daddy too. It's a girl power weekend! We went to Super Mex for dinner (daddy hates Mexican), went out for hot fudge sundaes after (daddy hates a mess), and tomorrow we are headed to the mall (daddy doesn't like the mall so much either)! See you tomorrow daddy!

Goalie anyone??

These pictures were taken at Ryan's soccer practice two weeks ago! We have been so sick around here that I totally forgot to post them. At this particular practice, each child got a chance to try goalie. The coaches taught the kids that this is the only position where you can use your hands and that it is your job to protect the goal so... you need to stay in the goal if you are playing goalie. Guess who got to be the goalie during the scrimmage?? Yep, little ol' Ryan. And guess who ran out of the goal to go chase the ball around the field with the rest of the kids?? Yep, that was Ryan too. It took the coach about 5 minutes to realize he didn't have a goalie anymore. And the only reason he noticed was that the other team was on a break away for the goal and there was no goalie in sight! Here are some pictures of the drills for the day...