Flower fairy party

In order to have a magical flower fairy birthday party, you must follow the fairy friendship code, recite the enchanted fairy rhyme, believe in fairies, and...

Create a cute invitation to send to all of your flower fairy friends. Make sure the invitations are designed and delivered by the birthday girl.

Next you must locate the perfect enchanted garden setting. Besides a lush green area shaded by tall trees against a woodland backdrop, it requires lots of tulle in several colors, a dozen large homemade tissue paper flowers, bouquets and baskets of real flowers, a birthday girl throne, and a magic path covered in flower petals. Recruit some trusted volunteers to help who are very creative with decorations and are not afraid of a little hard work. Sprinkle just about everything you can with glitter. Nothing, even bodies, is off limits.

 

Then welcome and greet 11 of your closest flower fairy friends, who have clearly put a lot of thought into their beautiful fairy outfits and costumes.

 

Note the arm covered in glitter.

Then spend some time creating special flower necklaces and discovering your very own unique flower fairy name to include as a pendant on your necklace.

Next, keep a watchful eye on the weather forecast which will surprise you every few days, hours and minutes changing from 40% chance of rain to 60% to 0% to Alert! Special Weather Advisory. Despite a less-than-promising forecast, positive thoughts are given for the sun shining in the sky, the warm weather and breeze, and reassurance is given to the flower fairies that it's all part of being a true fairy. Even when it starts to sprinkle, the tree canopy will block the rain and the hint of a few stray drops feels magical and enchanting. When it begins to rain a little harder, Daddy will bring out the tent canopy and get it ready, which still at this point is not needed because the rain is surely going to pass quickly. After a few more minutes and it's obvious that the rain is not letting up, in fact it's getting harder, the tent canopy is quickly moved into place over the table. The fabulous fairy feast is underway!!! These fairies are not giving up and moving indoors -it's all part of being a flower fairy after all! 

Fast forward another few seconds and the sky lets loose with torrential downpour, thunder, and gusty winds! The flower fairies must gather their fairy feast and make the long dash across the yard through the downpour and into safety indoors! The fairies run indoors, the fairy moms gather as much food, drink, supplies and whatever else they can and make a run for it! Of course all of this must happen with as much high-pitched screaming as possible from 12 little girls! Once indoors, everyone and everything will be completely soaked and drenched and will need multiple towels and wipe downs to regain order and composure.

The enchanted flower fairy garden in the midst of a storm. With straws, plates, flowers, and decorations strewn about, it resembled a fairy battlefield.

Continue with drying everyone and everything off, redistribute 12 cups, napkins, plates, straws and forks, refresh the food bowls and punch bowl, and squish everyone around a table not equipped to handle 12 bodies especially since every extra available chair in the house is sitting outside in the storm. Resume the fairy feast of twigs, fairy pillows, woodland berries, pixie seeds, and fairy nectar. Follow up the fairy feast with a vanilla flower cake with pink sprinkles.

One unforeseen hazard to moving an outdoor flower fairy party indoors is that the glitter that once covered everything and everyone outdoors will now cover every surface indoors. Also, it doesn't matter if you carefully count and organize and purchase just enough supplies and food for 12 girls because a sudden storm will completely ruin all of that thoughtful planning and cause you to just barely have enough of anything. Thankfully, flower fairies are a festive bunch and are resilient. 

 

Follow up the fairy feast and cake with present opening on the "present-opening" quilt which was spared from the storm.

Scratch the outdoor fairy treasure hunt and instead make 12 real daisy flower crowns (thanks to the fast, talented work by Kristi, Mom and Missy!) with the 200 daisies you picked a few days prior with the neighborhood girls.

Lastly, end the party by watching the clouds part, the sun come back out, and head back outside for lots of smiles, hugs and playing! Send every fairy home with their very own magic fairy dust (aka pixie sticks). 

Yes, Khloe changed outfits 4 times during the course of the party.

It was TRULY a memorable party! Partly for the magical setting and beautiful decorations and partly for the storm that caught us all by surprise and drenched us as we ran screaming inside! It was a special flower fairy party for a special flower fairy girl!

A day from Heaven

Summer is in full effect, which means our boat is out on the water every weekend, all day, every day. And it also means it's packed full of friends too! The summer's not complete until we have the Gumbis's (and Johnson's too - soon!) on our boat at least once during the summer. We had such an awesome fun day - ten hours of boating!!! And paddleboarding! And tubing!

 Boating on the Great Lakes NEVER gets old. I never ever take for granted this view and this blue water.

We had the best boating weather of the year so far! We certainly took advantage and soaked up all the sun we could!

 This was a great spontaneous purchase by me yesterday! Now that our girls are old enough, it was time to invest in a tube for the boat!

 Elizabeth is obsessed with paddleboaring and is an expert at it. PoHo Paddle rents kayaks and paddleboards from Lakeside Beach, so we convinced her to go rent one.. and she did... for 2 hours! Everybody got their turn on it, kids included, but Elizabeth spent the most time on it doing yoga way out by the shipping channel by herself and with her girls.

 Khloe a future paddleboarder? She is pretty adventurous and athletic!

Kayla and Mary

 THEN the tubing began! What fun for EVERYONE! It was the first time tubing for everyone in the Gumbis family and for Kayla and Khloe too! We've never all laughed so hard! We didn't want the fun to stop.

Somewhere on that tube is Khloe, with Kristi! They had a blast, and the second Aaron stopped the boat, without even hesitating to take a breath, Khloe said, "Awww, I want to keep going!"

 Elizabeth and little Emma Elizabeth

No small kids on the tube to ensure a safe ride? You should be afraid, very afraid! WATCH OUT FOR DEATH PIT!!!

After playing at the sandbar, paddleboarding, and then tubing, we ended up at friend's beach for a dinner pizza party and more playing. Then on the way back in, with Elizabeth's prompting, we had a night cap at the Zebra. Elizabeth questioned whether it was okay to wear to cut-off jean shorts inside the restaurant. Kristi responded "Well I'm going in in a towel, sooooooooooo". And she really did have only a shirt and a towel on wrapped around her waist (with a bathing suit on underneath of course)!!!!! After we finished eating was when I noticed that Khloe was wearing only a sweatshirt and underwear. No pants! Ha! And you know what, no one in the restaurant cared or noticed Kristi's towel-skirt or the kid with no pants! Nothing like introducing out-of-town friends to the Zeb!!! It makes you a true boater!

And that's how we spent our 10 hours on the water!