A Royal Occasion

Before we parents actually become parents, we usually have some idyllic picture in our head of what 'a day in the life' might be like in the realm of parenthood.  In actuality, 98% of life doesn't remotely resemble what we initially pictured.  But every now and again, a snapshot of the lives of our children meets or exceeds that beautifully idyllic picture, our former selves once possessed in our hopeful minds.  This is one such snapshot - complete with beautifully dressed princesses playing in a picturesque yard on a lake (not seen) under trees dripping with Spanish moss and not a skirmish to be seen!  Wow.  What a lovely sight.

Gianna's precious friend, Olivia, celebrated her birthday with a lovely princess party.

 It was decorated beautifully and royally and sweetly....

Couldn't even believe how precious my little mermaid looked on this tree swing...

This is one of my favorite kids in Gianna's class.  She calls me "Maria-Lewis".  They'll be a future Jelly Book entry on that soon. :)

Heavens....

Oh - did I mention there was a special guest?  Of the ROYAL persuasion?  

Elsa has all the poise and talent of a genuine Disney Princess...her voice was truly amazing.

Look at my child's face!

 

They each got pictures with Queen Elsa....

And a beautiful group shot...

 Check out the cake!

One of the things I loved about this party was that there was cake and ice cream and pink lemonade.  That's it.  I have to say, I was impressed with the simplicity in the food area.  People get crazy with overdoing it these days.  Good lesson.

What an amazing party.

My Mermaid had a ball.

A little road trip...

Gianna and I took a little road trip last weekend to visit Laurel and her precious girls. We met in Hammond where we visited Ms. Heather's Pumpkin Patch.  You might remember our trip THERE  two years ago.  BIG difference this year!  Last time it was 35 degrees when we went.  This year....over 90 degrees.  CRAZY hot!!!  But the girls were sports, for the most part, when Gianna didn't freak out about the bees buzzing about.

They remembered the Nature Trail from last time and looked forward to that more than anything.  (Not to mention it was less miserable because of the shade.)

 I can't get enough of this little cracker jack....

 Scary little bears....

Look at those rosey red cheeks on those hot potatoes....

 God bless those early pioneers.  These four barely made it on the wagon long enough to take a picture....

"Well, Ah say, Ah say, Ah say.....it's mighty hot in these parts." 

Not quite sure how these characters fit in to the pumpkin patch scheme...but the girls were excited (except for Caroline who was very tentative.) 

They big girls couldn't figure out who the middle mouse was.  They decided it was "Mini Mickey."  How's that for irony.

The Pumpkin Patch wore all of us out. We chilled the rest of the weekend, which was perfectly fine with us.   

Gianna cried for a full hour when we got home because she missed Isabel so much.  She kept saying, "I just want to see my sister again."

She did not take kindly my telling her that Isabel was not, in fact, her sister.

She told me, "Well, isn't Isabel your goddaughter?"

Me:  Yes, she is.

G:  And I'm your daughter, right?

Me:  Of course you are.

G:  Well, then if I'm your daughter and she's your goddaughter, than that makes us sisters, right?

Me:  Not exactly.

G:  Well, at least HALF-SISTERS!!!???

* sigh *

I was really bad about taking photos the whole weekend. Here are a few I caught with my phone.

Isabel, Caroline & Gianna

waiting to eat lunch.

 Gianna tasting her first beignets at Cafe du Monde.

Oh, and on our way out of New Orleans, we stopped by to visit the Dawsons!

 We picnicked at City Park. Not sure I managed to leave without any pics of the kids together.

 It may have something to do with our exhaustion at that point.

Case in point.