Birthday traditions and Grace's new hairstyle

Grace has a new hair style!  She deserves a trophy for this little number...she sat for 2 1/2 hours straight for this look.  We headed to a local beauty school where an amazing stylist said she had an "idea" in mind.  I love it.  It has the cuteness of pig tails and the ease of the braids.  If you have a daughter like mine (who likes to be "fancy") and you don't have the skills it takes to do this type of style, you may want to check out a beauty school.  There are a lot of women at our local school who know how to braid, and the price is unbelievable.  Can you believe that this style (and a 2 1/2 hour appointment) only cost $20?  Needless to say, I tipped very well!  I am hoping we get a good two-three weeks out of this style before it starts to look too fuzzy...I'll keep you posted.

 We've been celebrating a lot of birthday fun around here.  Since I use our blog as a "scrapbook" of sorts, I wanted to write a little something about our family's birthday traditions.  The kids always wake up on their birthday to find their bedroom doorway decorated with crepe paper.  I just tape lots of streamers hanging down from the top of their doorway (sort of creating a curtain of crepe paper).  They also find "the birthday basket" which appears while they sleep.  We have a wicker basket that we fill with little goodies like candy, small gifts, etc.  It is a fun way to start their special day.

Our newest birthday tradition addition (say that five times fast), is this cute wreath that we hang on our front door.  I found the inspiration on Pinterest (of course).  It was super easy and is really cute.  I plan to switch the photo on it to represent whoever is celebrating a birthday.

 Of course, birthday treats are part of our fun.  This year, I made these cute little basketball hoops for Bryce and his friends.  The chocolate basketballs were easy to find at our local candy store.  The boys thought they were REALLY cool.  

 Of course, the birthday boy needed a treat to bring to school on his birthday.  We decided that our favorite rainbow cupcakes would do the trick.  Everyone LOVES these.  I am telling you, something so easy can still get such a huge (and very positive) response.  The kids went crazy when they bit into the cupcakes.  I happened to be there volunteering, and kids were asking me to give their parents the recipe, email their mom "how to makes these,"  etc.  

We eat a "fancy" birthday breakfast in the dining room (a room that is usually only used for me to spread paperwork all over...).  This little tradition is tricky, because we are usually heading off to work and school in the morning.  The "birthday breakfast" is a little rushed, but the kids feel special drinking out of stemmed light up glasses filled with juice.

 Bryce's birthday dinner was at a Mexican restaurant.  He can really rock the sombrero, don't you think?

Last, but not least, I found this cute idea for Bryce to take to school today...he is the "star of the week" after all...  He needed to bring in one more fun thing, and since he is a fan of Star Wars, we made lightsabers out of pretzel rods, colored chocolate and colored sugar.  They turned out really cute.  Bryce is so creative that he even came up with the idea of using tin foil for the handles.  These are really cool because the colored sugar makes them sort of sparkle like a lightsaber.  

Hope you enjoyed some of our little traditions and projects.  Have a wonderful weekend!!!!!