"The Switch" Directed by Avery Barstad on her 11th Birthday

Jus like last year, Avery wanted to write and direct her friends in a movie this year for her birthday. 

 We all helped with the sign,

 but she did everything else.  She wrote, planned, set up, directed and edited the whole movie.

 
(some scenes more intensely than others...)

And I forced everyone into a group photo after the wild night was over the movie was complete.
It ended up being 11 minutes and 11 seconds on her 11th bday :)

And Adalyn and Kennedy got to come with us to church.

Then, like last year, we set up stadium seating for the Super Bowl

while some of us napped.

Some of our small group and church people came over to watch.

And someone mentioned something about ice cream.  I dont know exactly how it went down, but thanks to  jeffs obsession with Favor, 3 blue bell galloons were brought to our house and we all ate our feelings after the Patriots won.

My mom sent a balloon bouquet for her actual birthday and we decorated a little bit before school.

We ended the night at Shogun and all had to roll ourselves out of there.  It was so good.

Avery, I can never put into words how much I love you or how very proud I am to be your mom.  You changed my life.   You keep changing it.  You teach me how to love others by how you love your siblings and friends and you impress me so much with your quiet confidence and amazing creativity.  I am so proud of your heart for God and how you pray to Him about other people who are hurting or have less than we do.  I know He will use you in might mighty ways and I can not wait to see what all you do for Him.

Happy 11th birthday!

Coffee Girl

So, Avery and her cousin Halie have a coffee shop that they have imagined that they play over at their Nana's house whenever Halie is in town.  They call it Coffee Girl.  They have a menu, fake food, real food, set up- the whole thing.

This year Avery wanted to have a Coffee Girl party.  And she wanted it in Paris (where does she get this stuff?! Cracks me up.  We have never been to Paris and she is really such a homebody in real life.  But not in her imagination, I guess.)

So, I got some brick paper from Michael's, we built this awning using MADE's tutorial, and I had some left over plastic from the twins fishbowl costume to use for the window.
Coffee Girl came alive.
Avery wanted a drop off party.  She invited a few girls from school and she let Sass invite a couple too.  And then Kinley and all the Booth girls.





We used Hot Chocolate instead of coffee and let the girls draw on some aprons and take their coffee/punch cups home with them.


Pics in front of the iconic sign.


I gave all the girls lipstick to wear.  I felt like that was a Parisian thing, right?


Avery made some coupons for anyone who forgot their wallet.






Look at that baby Dylan! HE was just an angel the entire time and just smiled and cooed and kissed all of Shea's baby dolls that she would let him hold.





Look at these beautiful lipsticked cousins.  So stinkin cute.



We all had to have a little photoshoot in front of Coffee Girl.  I mean, when in Paris.

Even the dads got into it.

Happy birthday my little Coffee Girl.  I love you so much! And though you are strangely out of every pic or in the back- I hope you had the best birthday!

McKenna's Goody TWO Shoes Party!

I still can't believe she is 2.
We celebrated sweet little McKenna this last weekend and it was so much fun!

We all know there was matching shirts, so we'll start with those.
I used my heat press machine to make them and I put our own shoes on each shirt.

I cut footprints onto adhesive vinyl and stuck them to the floor walking in. Are you having flash backs to McKenna's Busy Bee party? I guess I love a trail...

Click here to see details on making dance floor and boogie shoes.

I also used the adhesive vinyl for the saying on the wall. It peeled right off no problem.

GoodWill shoes at their finest.

I had fun making some stickers to put inside each shoe. 

The kids loved trying on different boogie shoes and dancing.

Aly just got a new puppy and he got to come too! He was SO cute!

I set up a craft table were you could make your own Goody TWO Shoes. I bought all the flip-flops at Hobby Lobby.

The kids loved decorating the shoes. 

My mom got the most delicious strawberry cake from Legacy Cakes. They matched the shoes that I put on the invites. 

I filled a mason jar with barbie and polly pocket shoes. Everyone took a guess at how many shoes there  were. The top two winners won a shoe tie game and Pete the Cat book. (It's a great book if your haven't read it)

 

There were 130 shoes in the jar. Anna and Matthew were the 2 big winners!

We had (almost) Footlong Hotdogs and Shoestring chips for food.

We had a bounce slide in the backyard and it was a hit! I love looking at the huge smiles on all the kids faces.

For the favors, I made a memory match game with different pairs of shoes. It was an idea that sounded so easy to make in my head but actually ended up being a very time consuming project. I spent hours trying to line the front and back images to print the same and I finally gave up and printed the goody 2 shoes image on sticker paper and just stuck it to each card. I got them laminated at a teacher supply store. That is defiantly the cheapest route when it comes to lots of laminating. I do love how they turned out and the kids loved them! I got the little tins at Michaels in the wedding favor aisle. 

Julie had the idea of displaying shoes from McKenna growing and I thought it was such a great idea! So above the favor table, I hung six pair of shoes that I will always save and remember.

We ended the day with some more cake. (and maybe started the next morning with some too)

Thank you to everyone that came to help celebrate our sweet McKenna!

(To see more party prep, go here.)