Liesel turned 8 on December 10th. For her birthday, she got to pick a few friends to come to her party. I had to limit the amount to just a few this time because............she wanted to have a sleepover. OH MY! Liesel has been asking to have a birthday sleepover for a few years and I just did not feel that
Mommy she was not ready for that. LOL! She has had a good amount of sleepovers before with Kayleigh and Aubrie. That is only 3 total girls and I can handle that. This was going to be 7 total girls. She was allowed to pick six girls. The funny thing is that only 3 girls ended up spending the night. Since Liesel's birthday is in December, people are always busy. 3 of the girls could not spend the night due to having commitments the next morning. I really don't understand why a parent would not want to pick their daughter up to go somewhere after an 8 year old sleepover. HaHa!! Sense the sarcasm?!?!? It definitely turned out well for me and Liesel both. She was sad that more girls could not stay but she had a great time. All of the girls came, but just did not spend the night.
For her party we decided that we would take the girls out to eat and then to go shopping. After we priced places like Crazy Glaze and Build a Bear, Liesel agreed that shopping would be just as fun. Jeni, being the good friend that she is, agreed to go with me to help manage the girls. We went to CiCi's Pizza first. After the girls were full, we went to Five and Below. I told the girls that they could each pick out their own party favors and could not spend more than $10 each. Some of the girls had never been to this store. One little girl told me she loved the store :) There is a lot to look at in there. The popular item that night was nail polish. I am sure the people in that store were not too excited when they saw 7 hyper girls coming in! Overall, the girls were very well behaved. I was a little stressed trying to keep an eye on all of them. Keeping track of who spent how much money so far was also a fun challenge :) Jeni was very helpful, but at one point, I could not find her and she was off looking at her own stuff. I told her that she was here to help, not be another girl to keep up with. LOL!!!! We still laugh about that today. :)
After the joyful shopping experience, we headed home. Here is the entourage arriving at the Berry house(greeted by Dunkin of course).
Presents time!!! I always love to watch how fascinated little girls (and Caedmon too....hehe) are at the presents . There was a lot of oooohing and aaaahing!
Yeah, more Barbies.......Liesel already has a gazillion, yes really a gazillion!
Liesel always pays great attention to detail when she is opening presents. She reads every card which is very sweet.
Bella gave Liesel a kit to make headbands. This is a great gift for Liesel since she loves crafts and loves headbands. We have already made 4.
The whole cake situation could be a whole other blog in itself. The past few years, I have really been trying to make more stuff from scratch. I have made some good homemade cakes for a while now but for some reason, this one did not turn out so well. Then, at some point in the past year, I lost the recipe to my favorite buttercream frosting recipe. I cannot seem to find it again online. I tried a new recipe and it was awful. I iced the cake anyways and was not pleased with it. I can be a slight perfectionist at times and was so worried the night before her party that Liesel wold not like it. She was very sweet and did seem to like it. Problem solved right? Not really. The next day I could not ignore the inner voice that said I needed to do something better. Ha! So my mom helped me make cake pops. I should have done them all along. Liesel was ecstatic and could not wait to show her friends. My dad joked that it took us 6 hours to make, which was an exaggeration. It did take a while though. The girls loved what they looked like. They took a few bites, put them down and ran off to play. Wow! That was a lot of work for only a bite. Lesson learned........the cake is not important to them!
We survived the sleepover with only a few moments in which I got stressed and/or upset. Getting out nail polish and painting nails on Liesel's carpeted bedroom floor is not going to work!!!! Thank goodness, no polish was spilled but I think I scared them enough to not do it again. HeHe!!! Craig arrived back to the house with Krispy Kreme donuts soon after mommy lost her cool and everything was better :)
Hope you enjoyed your birthday sleepover Liesel.
As part of her birthday present, I bought tickets to Disney On Ice Tangled. Liesel and I had a fun mother/daughter night that next night.
It was cool to watch Rapunzel and Flynn fly through the air.
Here is a picture of the finale.
It is hard and sad at times to think Liesel is 8 years old. Time truly does fly when you are having fun and learning how to be a mother. We have had our challenges over the years. Liesel is a lot like me and I think that is why we have issues. I have made many mistakes as a mom to her but I hope that she knows how much I love her and that some day we will be best friends. Right now, my job is to be her mother and continue to learn what works best for her personality. It takes time and patience. I have learned a lot about myself and hope to get better each and every day.
Lately, she wants to grow up so fast. She is always talking about what teenagers do and tries to emulate them. The big thing this year for her is she is allowed to carry Jensen around the house on her hip. I told her all along that she had to be older and Jensen had to be older to walk around with him. It still makes me nervous sometimes watching it but I know he is tough enough now to survive it. It makes her so happy! She asked me the other day: "Mom, how old do I have to be to carry Jensen down the steps in the garage?" Oh My! "18 Liesel!" LOL! She also asks a tremendous amount of questions these days. I know she is trying to learn and explore on a different level now, but the sheer amount gets to me after a while. I asked her the other day why she asks so many questions. Her answer was: "I guess I was born with a question brain." Too funny!
This past Saturday she woke me up and asked me if I would come upstairs to her bathroom. She had set up a spa. I dragged up there slowly partly because I was still asleep. This is what I saw.
She had set up a cute place to sit and the basket is to prop feet up on. Very creative I think. We took turns doing each other's fingernails and toenails. She also did my makeup and hair. Craig loved what I looked like. Ha! It was a sweet memory that we needed. I am really glad I woke up to such a treat.
I wish I could slow down how fast she is growing up. Since I cannot, I am trying hard to enjoy the ride!
I love you Liesel!
