Laney turned 8

Have you missed me? I am still here and getting back into the groove of things after getting our move behind us. That's right! We moved over to our 100 house 3 weeks ago and have things in a semi-settled state. We still have all sorts of projects and things waiting to be crossed off of our "To Do" list, but life is much less taxing than it was just a few weeks ago.

I've been itching to set down and play catch up here on birthdays, wedding happenings, our remodel and life's changes. Every time I thought I would steal away a few minutes to begin the catching up process here something else would come up that took precedence. There is something about being able to write and record things here that I missed doing. And the longer I waited the more I was afraid I would either #1 forget the details before I got a chance to write it or #2 fall so far behind that I got overwhelmed and gave up on it altogether.

So first on the agenda here is Laney turning 8 years old! Yes, my baby girl - who is supposed to still be a little baby girl with soft, short, blonde hair curling at her neckline, crawling her adorable side-winder crawl and teaching me how to be a Momma is 8.

For her birthday this year she requested a Frozen party (of course). Throwing a party was rather a challenge since we were full blown in the middle of our remodel and less than 2 weeks from our moving date. Not to mention how behind we were in every area due to both kids having been plagued with one sickness after another since Christmas. But- the party must go on!

And so, I printed off some invitations from Walmart, and sent them out so that I would HAVE to get my act together and throw her a party. Well - - - the Tennessee weather this February did not cooperate. We spent the entire week out of school (the week leading up to the party) under a sheet of ice and snow. There was a lot of uncertainty if we would even be able to have her party and so I did not even buy things for it until the morning of (didn't even order a cake or anything).

The morning of her party dawned lovely (sarcasm - that was just a loaded sentence of sarcasm). Snow still covered much of our roads and to top that off we were "blessed" with an immense diluge of rain that started some flooding on side roads and low areas (like near the river - where we happen to live). We considered cancelling but knew we did not have another day to have the party anywhere in the near future so we said it was "now or never" and we went ahead. I made a flying run to Walmart throwing things into my buggy in a very harem scarem kinda manner. My budget concious side of me did not approve of that at all and I know I probably overspent because of this but desperate times called for desperate measures.

My mom was so wonderful to let me come pick her up and she helped me as we frantically threw together a party in record time. Thanks to Aunt Ashby, we had adorable party favors for all the lil girls at the party. Only problem was, Aunt Ashby and Uncle Jake were iced in and couldn't get out. Never fear, Kristina and the FJ made it out and rescued them and the party favors just in time to make it for the party.

We had a few guests who lived out on the backroads of the county who could not make it, but we had plenty of giggly, little girls and our one special boy guest for Caleb who all made it and Laney was ever so pleased. By the time Ricky brought the kids by Mimi and I had thrown together a little frozen scene. I personally was so sick of the frozen weather outside, but had to admit that it did add to the theme.

She was thrilled with her little set up and in no time party guests (a.k.a. - our silly, wild girls) were filing in.

She had requested to play musical chairs at her party and so we played it to the tunes from the Frozen soundtrack. This was the biggest hit of the day. I forgot how much fun musical chairs is!

Caleb was ever so proud to win  - especially since he beat out all the girls older than him.

The other activity we did was to create snowmen. we divided the girls into two teams and had them to create a snowman using only a boy (Elijah and Caleb) and some toilet paper. While the kids did this we naturally had to play the song "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

We terrified poor Elijah though and he got a little overwhelmed from all the attention and noise (but nothing that his Momma's lap and snuggles couldn't fix). In the end we had two cute snowmen and some really loud kids-

After cake and presents we cleaned up and I was ever so thankful Ricky had encouraged me to go ahead with the party that day. It was one less thing on our plates that we felt needed to get done.

With all the house work and remodeling we had been doing I wanted each of the kids to have a party this year. That broke the tradition but felt it was good for them to have a day to break away from all the moving chaos and just focus on them for a bit. That being said, next year we may have parties at home, or maybe even one joint party. Hmmm....for now I'm not going to think about that! LOL!!

Our girl is 8 years old and full of fun, giggles and is maturing more every day into a young, little lady. Her conversations are deeper and far more grown up than I remember being at 8. She loves more than anything to spend a day outside exploring and playing. She still is our little girl at heart and I hope that never changes.