Brynn's Baby Doll Birthday

My baby girl turned 6 today! And a while ago, she and her dad decided that she needed to have a baby doll party - so I went with it.
The invitation:

The Guests:

Neighbor Katherine, kindergarten classmate Annabella, bus friend Haven, church friend Ashlynn, and friends Anya and Ali.

The Cake:

The Birthday Morning:

Brynn loves wearing "pretty" clothes. So I bought her a new birthday outfit and had it ready and waiting outside her door for her when she woke up. Oh and wake up she did... at 4:50am!!!! And no, she would not go back to sleep. So by the time we lounged around, ate breakfast, showered and got ready she crashed on my bed at 8:30...but only for about 20 minutes and then she was refreshed and ready to go!
The Decorations:

The Activities:

When they arrived they got to decorate their diaper bags...

Then we played games to fill them up with prizes.

The first game was like a 'cake walk' - they pushed their babies in a circle to lullabye music and when their spot was drawn they got to pick a homemade baby blanket...all the fabric was specialy picked out by Brynn...

Then we had a bottle race to see who could drink their bottle the fastest (it was hard)! They got to keep their bottles and won a candy one...

And there was a dirty diaper dunk - when they made a basket they won a package of diapers.

And there was of course playtime...

The Lunch:

Brynn got to decide the menu and she choose "baby pizzas" (aka bagel bites), baby carrots & cucumbers with ranch, cheeseballs and watermelon.

The Presents:

She was in heaven and loved everything! Big thank you's were deserved!
The rest of the day:

It consisted of playing, watching her new movie, playing with more new stuff, a picnic dinner and of course she HAD to go swimming! And now she is peacefully sleeping a very content and happy 6 year old girl....MY 6 year old girl...

New Coach and First Game

So after a rough, unorganized start, Preston decided he would go ahead and volunteer to be the coach of the TBall team - and they were more than happy to let him. In all reality all the dads seem to be pulling together and helping him out which has been wonderful (especially since he won't be able to be at all the games).

I have to say my husband makes a good coach and he knows how to work with the kids. And he's been pretty cute...
The other night we were laying in bed when I heard him say, very randomly, "I need some bubbles." He isn't one to talk in his sleep so I wasn't sure what was going on or where he was going with that. Apparently he had been brainstorming up some fun drills for the kids practices... one of which happen to include bubbles.

But after only 4 practices their games have begun and we had our first one last night. It was plenty entertaining :) full of kids fighting over the ball, running in all directions because they weren't sure which adults pointing finger to follow, silly distractions, sitting on the job, and leaving the field/game whenever they pleased. But all in all they did a lot better than I had expected...

Dylan was a booger and the snacks and toys I brought for him lasted all of about 5 minutes (no the game hadn't even started yet). Thankfully my friend Brandi had a bag full of candy that lasted another 10 minutes... then it was just chasing him away from the field the rest of the night...

A video series of Tyler working through some kinks, and frustrations during practice...

Brynn practicing her swing...

Mandatory Work Retreat

This weekend was Prestons mandatory work retreat. It was a rough one. Friday night we drove to a fun hotel where we had dinner with his fellow residents. Then we stayed up until 10:30pm just swimming, playing shuffle board and other games, eating snacks, and just hanging out. Our kids love hotels so they were in heaven!

Then we got up, had breakfast, and headed over to Six Flags St. Louis!

Tyler's favorite ride to ride, and Dylans favorite ride to watch, was the Log Fume. Tyler had to go on it several times before convicing Brynn she had to give it a try... she never quite loved it like he did.

We spent all day with our friends Josh, Brandi, Anya and Ali Hartman.

At some point late in the day we stopped to have lunch with the rest of the residency group again. And then it was back to the fun. We even took pictures with characters the kids didn't even know (but they didn't care about that).

Six Flags had a great water park area which was wonderfully nice seeing as the heat and humidity were lovely.

As always everyone was exhausted but it was worth it!

Primping Princess

I have to pluck, all the time. Its something I don't like about my face. One day, when I'm married to a rich doctor, ;) I'm going in for permanant hair removal. But for now I pluck. So of course Brynn sees me doing it quite regularly. On occassion we've had discussions about it. But the other morning she came up and asked me if she could try it. I told her that it stings a little so she wouldn't want to. But she took the tweezers from me and proceeded to grab a chunk of her eyebrow. I quickly stopped her before we had a bad situation and told her I could show her the right way. And she said OK. I didn't think I'd get more than one hair removed before this ended. But she didn't even flinch. So I asked her if she wanted me to do some more (secretly I've always wanted to fix her up a bit) and she said yes. And what do you know?!... She just laid there with out a movement or a sound while I plucked her eyebrows.

Before:

After:

I told her that if she was brave enough to pluck her eyebrows she could definitely get her ears pierced. Her response, "Yeah, you're probably right. How about when i'm 30." Oh my goodness she is stubborn.

Anyway...her eyebrows looked great for her last "day" of kindergarten (the one hour she had to go back on Tuesday after a 3 day Memorial weekend). Here she is with the present for her teacher that we copied from my sister who copied from someone else :)