Mille gets a Trophy!

Mille had the best time this year at Lady Bear Basketball Camp!!!  Not only was she completely in her element b/c she adores basketball but b/c she got to see her idols!  She LOVES Odyessy and Brittney, not only did they sign her stuff but she got cute pics with them as well!  Mille also got a trophy!!!  I tell you the Cherry girls have been on a roll with the trophies!  I love how they actually earned them and weren't just given to them b/c they participated (I hate that!! Oh you showed up and picked your nose, yippee here is a trophy!- Blah Blah!!!) stepping off my soap box, sorry!  Anyway Mille received a trophy for doing the most lay ups in her age group.  They only handed out 4 trophies per grade i.e., lay ups, free throws, etc... so her getting it for her grade is awesome!!! I'm super proud of her and I'm so glad she loves playing ball!

Nae-Nae Hayden

Destiny (not sure of the last name)

Coach Mulkey

Ms. Rekha

Brittney Griner 

Odyssey Sims

Camille Cherry future Lady Bear! :o)

Prayer Board

I had this sign that I got half off at hobby Lobby.  I loved it and loved the cute saying but really didn't have a place for it anymore.  It's literally been in between my desk and the wall in my office.  So I had the great idea of using it for a Prayer Board.  A prayer board is a new concept for me but I think it;s going to be an awesome addition to our house and daily life.  Sadly I'm very much an"out of sight out of mind" girl.  I rely on visual reminders constantly!!!  Lately there have been several stories on Facebook that have touched my heart and literally brought me to tears.  The amazing thing is I don't know these children or their families but I feel like they are my own children and pray for them daily.  I want my children to know about these children too and I want our family to pray for them together and whenever we have a free second.  So I decided to paint my cute sign with chalkboard paint.  Chalkboard paint has become an obsession to me lately.  I think if I could I'd paint an entire wall with it.  How freakin' fun would it be to draw all over the wall!!??? Guess who isn't allowing that? Hmmmmm

 After I painted it with a couple of coats I then painted the words "Prayer Board" I used a method I found of the awesome website... Pinterest!  You print out the font and size you want then you lay it on the board and outline it with a pen.  The pen creates kind of a stencil for you.  Then all you have to do is fill in the lines with paint.

We will add names to our prayer board whenever needed.  It's right by our dinner table so before we eat we'll pray for these friends and then since it's in the center of our home we'll see it in everyday life!

Mille Bug's 8th birthday - Art Party!

What a great 8th birthday party we had this past weekend!!!!  The weather could not have been anymore beautiful, seriously just awesome!  Mille wanted an art party so we invited her friends over and got creative!!  I made the girls aprons and they each painted an art canvas however they wanted.  I have to say that we heard several of the girls say,"This is so fun!  Best party ever!"  Those sweet words made my heart so happy, all the work was totally worth it. :o)  Here Mille and her sweet friends Piper and Caroline are busy at work.  These girls are super creative.

I set the party up outside, seriously God couldn't have made a more perfect day for this party!!!  There was a cool breeze and the beautiful sun was shining.  All the girls just stood up and painted, it was great.

I'm not sure what happened to Cara's face, hmmmm?? Cara (Mille's teacher) is so awesome, she came to Mille's party and made it super special for her.  To say Mille loves Cara is an understatement!!!  She's teetering on obsessed. :o)

Mille's cake 7 layers!  It was actually easy to make, you'll see the surprise in a minute.

Busy painting!

Mille is super serious about her painting.  

I love watching kids have fun and be creative!!!

Hi Mille!!!

Masterpiece

I had little scratch off sheets for the girls to do if they wanted.  The group of girls were such sweet girls!  Mille is lucky to have such good friends.  

"Happy Birthday Camille"

Mac painted Mille

Hanging out drinking their lemonade.

Art easel greeting friends.  Craig called the painting I made of mille "Stubs" b/c I didn't give her fingers! I told him to be quite and see if he could free hand a painting better than that in 10 minutes!   Literally I did it in 10 minutes, I wanted to surprise Mille and painted it right b/4 she got home from school. On another note, like the genius that I am (haha) I decided to redo our playroom the Friday b/4 the party! I painted an entertainment center, made curtains, 5 pillows, redecorated and had walls painted! I also painted the easel too.  It was a super busy week!! I'll take pics of room later.

Gift bags for girls, I put a wooden frame & little cross magnet that they can paint.  There was also a few containers of playdough, a rainbow sucker & a rainbow frisbee.

Ready to sing Happy Birthday!

Make a wish

Rainbow cake!!!!  It turned out so great!!!!!  Everybody said it was delicious too so that makes it even better.  The trick was to use gel food dye, you don't have to use as much so you don't taste dye!  I also made each cake then after they cooled I wrapped them with parchment paper and put them in a freezer bag.  I let them sit in the freezer over night so they were easy to level the next day.

Woohoo!!!!

Eating the yummy cake

I used mason jars to serve pink lemonade.  I painted each lid bright colors then stuck a cute striped paper straw in the drink.  I labeled them with a name flag.

Our bounce house showed up at the very end.  A-1 rental saved us b/c Inflatables of Texas was rude AND canceled on us 20 minutes b/4 the party!!!!!!

Mac relaxing on the sea of cushions

Mille and her awesome teacher, Cara

Landon, Mille, and Mac enjoying one of their rainbow suckers

  

The party was so much fun!  That night I made chicken spaghetti, salad and bread and Craig's family and my dad celebrated Craig's, Mille's, and Grandaddy's birthday!  We celebrated with Craig's favorite dessert, Banana Pudding.  We ate outside and used the fun mason jars again, this time with margaritas! Yummy!

Message Center

I was really tired of the old message center that I had up so I decided to make it prettier and work better for our family.  I plan on using one letter bin for Mac and one for Mille.  It seems like there are always a million papers coming home form school and I always misplace at least one!  I added a calendar to the cork board but didn't take a photo of that (found a really cute monthly calendar online and printed it out)

These are the girls chore charts.  They want to start getting an allowance so I told them that was great but they needed to complete a list of things each day/week to earn it.  I'm keeping a tally and then whenever they accumulate enough to buy something then I will give them money.  We did an allowance a while back but I hardly ever have cash and I would forget to pay them so I think this will help me and them.  I even told them that once they earn enough $ and we are out shopping and they want to buy something I could just do it that way. 

I just covered a white/magnetic board with cute paper then I hot glued cute buttons to little magnets.  They take a button and cover up what chore they did.  I put daily and weekly chores on there and I even included "extras" for them to either earn extra $ or make up for days when they didn't complete their daily chores.  So far so good, I just take the chart with me and look in their rooms and then tally up what they earned for the day.

Mac surprise birthday party back in December

I was going to do a baking party for Mac but then I thought a slumber party would be fun and Mac has ALWAYS wanted a surprise party...so why not do it all at once!  I made the girls aprons and then I put their names on chef hats.  The girls used cupcake liners to make flower decorations for their hats, they turned out really cute. I used small metal pails as the base of the little cake stands.  I took a cake circle and covered it with scrapbook paper then hot glued it to the bottom of the pail = cake stand!  I baked small cakes and the girls decorated them.  That was their dessert so if they loaded it with icing then that's what they ate.  Some were kind of scary but most turned out awesome!!!

It was great because I used a lot of stuff that I used at Mac's party last year and even some stuff from Mille's party too.

I made Mac's apron a little more fancy then the others, she's the birthday girl after all!!! The aprons turned out really cute.

A close up of the cake stands and all the cupcake liners too.  They just used the liners to make whatever flower they wanted, super cute!!!

Mac and mama with her apron!

There is a pic of her apron and her cute hat!  She did such a great job on her flower!

Mac and Mille, Mille had another b-day party to go to so she didn't get all dressed up. Mac is decorating her cake.

adding chocolate, yummy!

Finished!  Her cake looked great, she put a little M in the center.  She's pretty creative!  :o)

My sweet baby, can't believe she's 10!

Sweet girls!

For the next morning we had yummy chocolate milk!

Yummy cereal too, I also had cinnamon rolls and pigs in the blanket.

The girls had so much fun and they were all asleep by about midnight.  I had to enforce it b/c a lot of us had a busy weekend.  I  will say it was great having it on a Friday night because the girls were kind of sleeping from school.  They surprised Mac (she had NO idea!) then they decorated their hats and cakes.  We ate pizza and our yummy cakes then they played some games.  After the games were over they made mini scrapbooks.  Once they were all finished they settled in (I moved out some furniture and they put their sleeping bags on the living room floor) and watched ELF.  Fun night I know Mac will never forget it.