A Luxurious Tenth

What?! What?! Maggie is turning double digits! That makes two in the double digit category for me.  Time is flying.

So what did this precious 10 year old girl of mine want to do to celebrate her birthday? Well, she simply requested to "spend the night in a luxury hotel with silk pajamas".  Done girl! Some might say that I'm creating a monster,  but I consider it creating a protege.  

Okay, kind of kidding.  This is not the norm for us and certainly not the norm for my eldest daughter.  But as you may have deciphered, birthdays are uber important to me.  For me, it's the day these little ones entered the world and changed mine forever.  I can't imagine a better reason to go all out and make them feel loved.  And as long as they will let me, I will be right there by their sides celebrating for years to come.

Maggie chose two friends {which was not an easy task} and we made our way downtown to check into a "luxury hotel" for the evening.  It was time to celebrate my Magpie!

Once we got all checked in to our room the girls wasted no time in changing into their silks and checking out their favor baskets.  Maggie helped with all the preparations for the party and wanted a black and rose gold color scheme.  We found Five Below, H&M, and Amazon to be extremely helpful.

The girls baskets were filled with all sorts of beauty & hair supplies in Maggie's color scheme.

Since the girls were under age for any hotel spa services, I found a mobile service that came directly to our room and performed a mini spa session on the girls.

It's time to get our spa on!

The girls had manis and pedis...

Facial services...

And by far their favorite, a mini massage...

Do they look relaxed and beautified, or what?

Maggie's other "simple" request was room service.  Nothing like having spaghetti and chicken fingers in the comfort of your bed.

And just when I thought these beauties were relaxed and ready for bed, they had more in mind.  The indoor pool was calling their names.  I can't lie, I knew it would be.

Post swimming, we came back to the room for a special birthday dessert for Maggie.  More room service, more eating in bed, and this time a little Happy Birthday tune to go with it.

Okay, now it's time for some beauty sleep.  The girls had no problem snuggling in and falling fast asleep in minutes.  I think the trick was those silk pjs.

The next morning we enjoyed a lovely breakfast in the hotel restaurant while still in pjs. I can't begin to tell you the sweet comments and compliments from all of the hotel guests.  Something about cute little girls in pjs seems to melt everyone.  Slumber party!

We took one more swim, packed up, and then took all these luxurious beauties home.  Back to reality.  But, at least we have the silk pjs to dream in.

Happy Birthday to my darling double digit baby girl!  I adore you and all your "simple" requests!  Always be you girl!

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't

Happy Halloween from my little Monsters {even the furry one}....

 

We had a great evening, especially since the rain passed just in time for trick or treating!  Maggie was an M&M {after a much expected dramatic costume change}, Lucy was Evie from Disney's Descendants and Jack is pretty self explanatory.  Gotta love tween humor.

Thanks to everyone who made it possible {ha!}...like Grandma who took little Lu around and Jack's buddies who stuck together and had a night of tween trick or treating and my neighbor who toted Maggie around on her golf cart so she could hang with her friends.

All the while I had the luxury of hanging on my front porch with other mamas.  Not bad, huh?  I'll take another one of these next year.

For a Halloween that was almost wasn't {due to an extremely stormy forecast}, it turned out pretty awesome!

Pumpkin Painting

Oh geez, this weather.  Rain, rain, and more rain! 

It's become tradition to carve our pumpkins on Halloween Eve.  {lesson learned many years ago from rotting-bug filled pumpkins}  But, wouldn't you know the weather had other plans.  I offered the covered back porch to the kids, but instead they gleefully suggested we paint them.

Sure, why not?  Much less mess than carving, right?  Well, not really.  Did you know that washable paint won't work on a pumpkin?  So, I dug into my stash of acrylic paints and the rest is history.  Like my rug is history, my shirt is history, several of my dish towels are history...and so on.

But we managed to get some pretty cute pumpkins out of the messy deal. 

Lucy designed a strawberry and a unicorn, Maggie made a splatter paint design, and Jack painted a vampire.

And to add to the pumpkin parade, Maggie carved her large guy.  {yes inside and yes it was a mess}

So here's to a rainy Halloween Eve and from what I've gathered a rainy Halloween tomorrow.

Back To The Patch

I didn't know if we would make it back to Southern Belle Farms this year for our annual patch visit.  There were a few factors that played into my uncertainty.  One, holy moly, October weekends were filled to the rim this year.  And second, had my kiddos grown out of it?  Is that possible?  After last year I was questioning that.

So when I mentioned the patch this October, I got mixed responses.  A resounding yes, from my littlest, a maybe from the middle, and a no thank you from my oldest.  Hmmm...what to do?  So what could I do but offer to take Lucy on a mother daughter outing.  And what I thought would be pure joy, was a crest fallen face.  Lu did not want to go without her big sister and brother.  

After a sorrowful plea, Jack and Maggie caved and here you have it...maybe our last year to the patch as a family.  And I might note, the two bigs had a great time!

Every year that we visit, there seems to be some new improvement. This year it was the potato sack slide.   I was itching to take a trip down myself.  You know that looks fun.

And of courses, some old favorites... the cow train

the duck races...

the corn house...

 the corn maze...

the pig races....

the petting zoo...

and of course, I made the kids take a few pictures for nostalgia sake.

Our last stop was the patch.  This year it was lacking in the pumpkin department, but the kids managed to find a few.  White seemed to a big hit this year between the girls.  And Jack opted for a little guy...curious to see what he has in mind.  We also grabbed a few biggies, just in case.

Since the pumpkins were scarce, there really wasn't anywhere to take those infamous pumpkin patch pictures.  They are getting older so it seemed like an appropriate year to change things up.  How about this fence?

And one last stop at the country store to grab something for our favorite furry brother.

Thanks for another great visit Southen Belle...hoping it's not our last.