It's Great to Be 8! - My Beautiful Ella turns 8

My little girl is 8.  It is bittersweet for me as each birthday passes for each of my children. I so enjoy this magical, innocent time but I know each stage in my childrens' life brings great treasure.

We started Ella's day with her favorite - pumpkin raisin muffins.

Welcome to our Fairy Garden Tea Party!  This was so sweet. How lovely little girls are. I loved planning this party - the decorating, food preparation, invitations, favors and games. Each fairy received a scroll rolled up and wrapped with some twine and flowers.

It looked like this:

Each sweet fairy arrived to greet me, the fairy god mother. Yes, I was dressed up in this 80s Jessica McClintock dress and the girls knew no different. They loved it and asked me where I got it!! Ha, ha, ha!  I had my little wand and sprinkle them with fairy dust - actually put some shimmer powder on their faces.

Then each fairy had to earn their wings and wands by playing a a couple getting to know you games while testing their fairy memories.

Aidan always wants be included so I had him dress to be the fairy dragonfly complete with wings!  He helped serve our fairy fruit (chocolate dipped strawberries), fairy tea sandwiches (turkey and chicken salad sandwiches cut up in the shapes of flowers and butterflies and of course, our fairy juice (cherry 7-Up)

I got some tulle and hung it from the chandelier to  make it extra pretty.

 Cheers to fairies!

 What are little girls made of made of? What are little girls made of?  Sugar and spice and everything nice.

I was up all night making these hanging flowers out of streamers but it was so worth it. Our living room was transformed into a flower garden for a day. The girls loved it.

 A great activity that took up some time was letting the girls decorate their own cupcake. I love this idea as it was fun for them and low maintenance for me!

I love you, Ella bella!

An Intimate Brimley Christmas

Because Matt and I virtually have no family in Utah, and because Nicholas is on his mission, our Christmas this year was very quiet and intimate.  I actually really enjoyed it this way.  Of course, having Christmas fall on a Sunday is even more special as we start the day with church and really helpsset the tone for the rest of the day.

I don't have much to say. The photos show it all. I love this age!  I hardly sleep the night before as I am just as excited as my kids to see them open their presents.

We started Christmas vacation with letting the kids stay up longer than usual which means we let them sleep in the same room. They share a room but Aidan, my little talker keeps Ella up so we usually separate them until they fall asleep then put Aidan back in his bed. This is just one of many nights where they fall asleep with each other. Notice they're holding hands. Priceless.

 Ward Christmas party. Aidan is so into Santa but he realized this one was one of his"helpers."

 Same with Ella. She had a whole list, though.

 We got ski lessons at Park City for the kids. There are about 3 to 4 to an instructor. It is so great. Matt and I get to drop the kids off then go have lunch and shop!

 Our tradition with just our family Christmas Eve is to read and act out the Christmas story then Ella and Aidan get to open two presents. The two presents are always a new Christmas book with an inscription and date from me and the other is always a new pair of PJs.  Then we drink cocoa and eat more treats.

 I think Matt was a happy camper this year. I made him tell me exactly what he needed.  :)

 I love these adorable panda blankets from Costco. I mean from Santa.

 I love this age!

 I love Aidan.

 This was Ella's highlight. A Moxie Doll and horse stable set. She played this for hours all Christmas vacation. I love listening to her imagination as well as Aidans.

 Aidan's big wish this year was a remote control helicopter.   He got two!  One from his Uncle Anthony and of course, one from Santa.

 I'm pretty happy myself. I have had my heart set on this painting for a long time.  Thank you, Matt!

And this is how they fell asleep, new jammies and new blankets, old traditions.

Happy New Year!