Girls Weekend Fun

My mom, sister, and I recently had a little girls' weekend getaway in Michigan! Always a really good time for us, full of laughs, shopping, good food, movies, so much talking, and more! I always look forward to these trips. 

This time were close enough to Holland, Michigan AND it was near enough to tulip time that I wanted to go check the tulips out before arriving at our rental house. And boy did those tulips show up for us! 

We're SO glad we decided to try and go. Windmill Island Gardens is where we went and it was just the loveliest afternoon there. We were about a week early for peak tulip season, but it was honestly PERFECT because there were NO crowds and PLENTY of tulips there! Everyone we talked to there said we were so lucky and it was the perfect weekend to be there. So, heck yeah, we nailed it! I'd do this timing again in a heartbeat. We took SO many pictures. The tulips were so bright and so pretty. I loved them so much. What a wonderful detour!

I loved the random red tulip hanging out in the middle there. 

This flower reminded me of those birds with the tuft on their heads like so. And the funny thing was our rental house had a picture of the bird it reminded me of, too, which cracked me up. 

This was our cute, cozy rental house!

 And that's all the pictures I took! But trust me when I say fun was had! 

Awards for Daniel!

Two exciting things happened for Daniel recently- he won a raffle prize AND he earned a high school letter for his good grades! How awesome is that? On both accounts! I mean, we don't win prizes in this house, so yay for that one! And keeping up his excellent grades and working hard in school- that's cause for celebration! We're so proud of Daniel and his steady, strong efforts at school!

Oh- and I adore that letter picture! It's such a great picture! 

A Golden Easter/Birthday Party

Easter fell around Annabel's birthday this year, so we celebrated both together with a family party. I gave my kids their Easter baskets- filling them up will never get old, it's too fun! And then our family guests arrived in short order for Easter brunch and birthday fun! Annabel opened presents, and we partied, people chatted, kids played. It was a good time. I say it every time, I think, but it's always lovely to have everyone at our house together a couple times a year for these parties. I'm going to keep making them happen!

AND I have to share the most fun news- Hannah discovered our playroom for the first time this time, too! She LOVED it up there! It was SO cute and such fun! I loved seeing that room in action with the cousins all having fun up there! 

Enjoy our pictures! 

First up, Easter with teens, who sleep in... they got fun baskets of goodies!

Party time! Gold balloons! Presents!! Cake!

I love this darling picture of two cute girls!!

Hannah has a camera that prints pictures and she'd brought it with to the party. They left us with these two cute pictures- I love them!

Hannah having fun in the playroom!! The Hot Wheel track was a huge hit!

Hannah loved the loft, too!

This cute selfie is a new favorite picture of mine!

Google collage- so cute!

Happy Birthday again, Annabel! It's been so fun celebrating you!

Golden!

Happy 14th Birthday to Annabel! Her GOLDEN Birthday! 14 on the 14th! 

I had a LOT of fun going all out with the gold theme for Annabel's birthday this year! She woke up to gold decorations all over and number 14 trays filled with gold-wrapped candies. Some of her gifts were even gold! And they were wrapped in fancy gold-foiled paper, which turned out to be IMPOSSIBLE to rip open- oops!- but it was still fun!

I pulled Annabel out of school at lunch and we spent the afternoon at Oakbrook Mall, with our first stop being lunch at Cheesecake Factory, which was delicious of course. They decorated her dessert for her birthday, too! We had a lovely lunch and shopping date. 

Presents were opened later that afternoon- she loved them all! We were still really too full for dinner and definitely too full (oops again) for her requested Dairy Queen ice cream cake, but we still did the candle thing and sang Happy Birthday of course! And you can bet we ate the cake the next day- no worries there.  

Annabel also had gifts dropped off from thoughtful, sweet friends and her boyfriend, too. That was fun! 

The pictures capture Annabel so perfectly- she's so lovely and fun to be with, so confident in who she is, and so delighted by life- she's just the best! We love our darling girl SO much and see great things ahead for her this next year, with high school on the horizon! Happy 14th Birthday, Annabel!

P.S.- She likes to remind us that next year, she'll be old enough to get her driver's permit! Good Lord! Slow down, girl!

Gold-wrapped presents!! So fun!

Except that fun gold paper wouldn't rip... yikes!

I found Stitch dressed up as Elvis in a gold outfit- perfect!!