You're My Forever: Charlotte's Birthday Party Weekend Part 1

Valentine's Day kicked off a very important birthday weekend for our birthday girl!

On Valentine's Day Aunt Bare came over to take some pictures of her perfect baby bump!

Charlotte LOVES baby bump picture days.

She always shows off HER baby in her tummy.

For some reason I completely and totally LOVE this picture of her.

Aunt Kathy came up to spend the night with us. She was so excited to come and help with the party and with the kids. She brought Charlotte her birthday present and let her open it early. She needed to set up the big part of it and did it as a surprise in her room. (She needed a bit of help from me but together, the two of us figured it all out.)

Charlotte was so excited for the surprise!

"Is that for me?"

A tent!!!

She was SO EXCITED!!!!!!

On Friday night, Alex brought me home some roses for Valentine's Day (awwww) and we ate pizza with Aunt Kathy for our special Valentine's Day dinner. Then Alex and I spent the evening baking cupcakes, prepping food, and doing everything we needed to do to get ready for the birthday party!

The next day we had a special day planned for Charlotte and Daddy. However, Charlotte decided that she did not want to go spend time with Daddy. She only wanted to be where Mommy was. She tends to get anxious when big things are planned and when we have hyped up an event. We are slowly learning to not build up plans so much with her and just do the things and not prep her. I was finally able to get her to lay down and take a nap (after a MASSIVE fit). She finally napped with Aunt Kathy on my bed.

Anywho, I headed to the Embassy Suites in East Peoria around 2 so we could check in. Jodi met me there to help me get ready. I found out when we got there that we weren't allowed to bring outside food or drinks to the common area/lobby area/happy hour area (which is HUGE) in the hotel. MY plan was to have all of our food and stuff on some of the MANY tables in that huge area and then the kids could go to the pool, the room, or eat food. I talked to management and they said they wouldn't bend the rules for me. SO, I had to go to Plan B....which there was not Plan B. So we headed up to the hotel room and started to set stuff up. We rearranged some of the furniture to make more room and we hung up the decorations.

We had a bunch of family come from "down South" to the party. They all drove 2-3 hours to come spend the evening with us for Charlotte's birthday....yet another HUGE PLUS to us moving to Illinois.

I made the bedroom of the suite a place for the little girls to play dress up. We had stuff to do their hair, make up, nails, etc.

PRINCESS SHOES :)

Now that's what a birthday girl looks like!

She is clearly ready for the party. She actually took such a long nap that Alex had to wake her up to come to the party. Sawyer went to Gigi's house and Gigi and Papa were late because he took such a good nap too!

Part of the party people!!!

We made the cupcakes the night before. Homemade cupcakes and icing. It was delicious icing. Alex piped it onto the cupcakes :) Such a good helper.

Sweet Emily is ready for the party!!! Rocking her crown from her goodie bag!

So, as the party started, we got the kids dressed in their swimming gear to head down to the pool.

They were so excited to go!!!!

This girl is so happy!!

Kyla, Melia, Alana, Mal, and Uncle Richard even came up for the party!

So did Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Bev, and Uncle T! It was really a party!!!!

Grandpa hung out below the chandelier.... clearly :)

So Alex, Derrick, Jodi, Jessica, and Jim took Ella, Charlotte, and Brenna down to the pool to swim. APPARENTLY it was SO full, so loud, so crazy that the kids couldn't even swim. Honestly, that was the entire point of getting a hotel room....so the kids could swim in the middle of February. So Plan Z I guess....how many plans have we been through at this point???? But that's ok. Let's roll with the punches....

So the girls all came up stairs to play dress up.

The highlight for the girls was running around the big square of the hotel rooms. All dressed up and they would just run and run and run.

How sweet is Brenna???? Not even two and she was just running with the big girls.

Having a snack there, huh Daddy?

Kaedence was able to come to the party! (She took a late nap too!)

Once Maegen and Kaedence got there, we decided to do make up, hair and nails. Maegen and Jodi did nails. All of the girls wanted to do their own make up. No one wanted me to touch there hair :)