Lia's 16th Birthday Family Party

After hosting Lia's Sweet 16 party the evening before, I had to rally my energy today to host Lia's family party.  Luckily, it wasn't nearly as big of a production.  We started off the morning with serving Lia and the rest of the kids our traditional, birthday waffle breakfast.  After church, Lia then went to NWTL for a 4-hour audition for their big, teen production this spring of Mean Girls (that Lia has been looking forward to for almost an entire year).  Ron pick her up at 5 o'clock to bring her back home to join the rest of us for her family birthday party.  Since my dad is at the Priest Lake cabin right now while my Uncle Doug is visiting from Utah, my mom came with her brother instead of my dad to join us for the evening.  The eight of us spent a nice evening together enjoying Lia's favorite, breakfast-for-dinner followed by gift opening, and then a banana cream pie for dessert.  She enjoyed receiving some fun gifts including a pair of Converse sneakers, a ticket to an Olivia Rodrigo concert, and a phone holder for her car.  It was a nice way to wrap up this weekend of celebrating our oldest child and this milestone birthday!

Lia posing with her siblings and her birthday waffle.

Blowing out her candles for the third time this weekend.

The family gathered around the table at the beginning of dinner.

Lia posing with Emmett and her birthday gifts.

Lia opening up her box of Converse shoes.

Showing off her pair of white, Chuck Taylor high tops.

All three kids crowding around Lia while she opened up another gift.

Ella posing with Lia after she opened up her gift, a set of Taylor Swift charms for Lia's crocs.

Lia holding up her formal dress and high heels that she wore for her party last night, but were technically a birthday gift today.

Lia and her siblings with her very bright, banana cream pie lit with with 16 candles.

Blowing out candles for the fourth and final time this weekend.

The family photo we managed to take before we enjoyed dessert at the end of the party.

Lia's Sweet 16 Birthday Bash!

After thinking it over, Lia and I came up with some ideas of how we could host her Sweet 16 birthday party.  After making a few calls, I was able to put our plan into place and sent out invitations to 19 girls a month ago.  Much to our surprise, all 19 girls RSVP'd with a "yes," and this epic birthday party became a reality.  Lia and I decided that it would be fun to call her a party a "fancy affair" and asked that all of the girls come wearing a formal dress that they already owned from a previous high school or church dance.  In addition, I found a limousine driver who was willing to drive for one hour transporting the girls to and from Orting where a friend of mine met us to take pictures of the girls for 30 minutes.  After the photo shoot, the girls returned to our house for a formal, sit-down, candlelit dinner that I prepared.  I also had Ella invite two of her 6th grade, theater friends to come over to help be waitresses to take the girls orders and to serve and clear their dishes.  After dinner and dessert, the girls moved into the family room for gift opening before changing into comfortable clothes to watch a movie in the basement.  With a lot of planning and preparation, I was able to pull off the entire affair without a hitch.  With the exception of it sprinkling a little bit during the photo shoot, the entire evening went off perfectly, down to the girls finishing their movie right at 10 p.m. as parents arrived at our house to pick them up.  Everyone seemed to have such a good time and thoroughly enjoyed the limo ride, the photo shoot, the fancy dinner, and watching the movie.  It was so fun to watch all of Lia's friends mix and mingle so nicely together.  This will definitely be the last major party I ever throw for Lia, so I am glad that it was a success and that we were able to go out with a bang!

  

Lia wore a darling dress and shoes we bought a few months ago for her next high school dance.  Her outfit ended up being the perfect, party dress complete with a Sweet 16 tiara and sash.  Here she is standing outside our house as the guests arrived.

Lia standing at the end of the long table I had set up for nineteen girls complete with flowers, candles, and a balloon arch at one end.

The head table with Lia's cake as the centerpiece.

A close-up of Lia's strawberry cake with chocolate, buttercream frosting.

The middle table with flower arrangements and more candles.

The group of girls posing in front of the limo right after it pulled up to our house.

Another shot of the girls after we arrived at the place in Orting where the photo shoot was going to take place.

All seventeen girls lined up with Lia in the middle.  Unfortunately, two of Lia's friends arrived later in the afternoon due to other commitments.

Another shot of the girls on one of the two bridges we took pictures on.

A faraway shot of the girls and the river below.

We then took small group pictures with Lia and all of her friends from the different chapters of her life.  Here she is with her elementary school friends, Elle, Sienna, and Mollie.  Rian was missing from this picture due to a dance competition.

Lia with her junior high school friends, Katelyn, Heather, Jaqueline, and Erika.

Lia with her high school and running friends, Esley, Hope, Erika, Ani, and Julie.

Lia with her theater friends, Olivia and Isabelle.  Her good friend, Abbie, came late from theater rehearsal that Lia actually missed today.

Lia with her good friends from church, Ainsley, Hope, and Alyssa.

Lia making a cute and final pose for the photographer before we headed back to the limo.

Since the limousine held only 11 girls, I gave a group of girls a ride each way to Orting.  Lia was able to ride both directions though.  Here is a cute picture I managed to snap of Lia and some of her friends after they pulled back up to our house.

While the girls changed and hung out in the basement, Ron came home with Ella and her two theater friends, Hannah and Rosie, after picking them up from rehearsal.  The girls quickly changed into their serving outfits with the matching aprons I had ordered for them to wear that said, "Lia's Sweet 16," in gold letters on the front.  They were so excited to take the girls' dinner orders and deliver and clear their dishes.  All three of them were a huge help and had a great time being in "character" all evening long.

After the girls were called to dinner, they enjoyed sitting at the table in the lovely candlelit atmosphere, talking and eating for over an hour.  Ron helped me serve up 19 plates of dinner after the younger girls took their orders.  We served chicken, roasted potatoes and carrots, tossed salad, a fruit medley, and rolls with butter and homemade jam.  Logan was also called in to help with filling up the girls' goblets with sparkling cider and lemon water.

Lia enjoying her meal at the head of the table.

An action shot of my three waitresses during the middle of dinner.

The girls singing "Happy Birthday" to Lia.

Lia waiting to blow out all sixteen candles after the song was over.

Blowing away!

After dessert was finished, the girls moved into the family room to open presents.  Like always, we had each friend come up one at at time to sit with Lia while she opened each gift.  Everyone was so generous and thoughtful with the gifts they gave her.  Here is Lia with her good theater friend, Abbie.

Lia smiling at one of the gifts from her good running buddy, Hope/

Lia posing with Heather, one of her good friends from junior high school, after opening up her gift.

Lia with one of  her dearest friends of over 11 years, Sienna.

Lia with Alyssa, another one of her best friends from over 10 years.

All of the girls in comfy clothes and ready to watch the movie, "10 Things I Hate About You," which is a teen classic and also filmed right in our area.  This was the perfect way to end the evening!

Licensed to Drive!

Well, the long awaited day finally arrived!  Lia turned 16 today AND got her driver's license!  Since all of her big birthday plans are not until this weekend, we thought that checking her out of school during choir class today to go to the DOL to get her driver's license would help make this milestone birthday seem a little more special.  So, I scheduled her driving test for February 20th and made an appointment at the DOL on her birthday, crossing my fingers that Lia would pass her test so that we could go on this exciting outing today!  Luckily, Lia passed her driving test two days ago with flying colors with a score of 96%.  So, Emmett and I were able to pick her up at school this morning to make it to her 11 o'clock appointment in Tacoma on time.  Thanks to the ability to schedule an appointment in advance, we only had to wait a few minutes before we were called up to the front.  We were in and out of the DOL in less than 30 minutes which was just amazing!  Lia was so excited that I insisted we take a picture of her with Emmett outside of the DOL with her temporary license (which is the piece of paper that she is holding in her hand). 

After dropping her back off at school, Lia finished off the school day and then had a 3-hour, musical rehearsal for Bye Bye Birdie until 6 p.m.  Ron picked her up from school and brought her back home where I had a Chic-fil-A dinner waiting to eat, par Lia's request.  Lia then finished off her birthday evening with an extra special surprise, a box of SIX Crumbl cookies that were delivered to our home, courtesy of Uncle Brent (aka, Uncle Cookie).  Lia and Brent have had an ongoing joke for almost her entire life about cookies, and when he found out that she wasn't having a dessert on her actual birthday, he did some research and placed an order for these delicious cookies to be delivered to our front door.  Needless to say, it was such a fun surprise and thoughtful gift, and totally made her birthday!  Thanks, Uncle Cookie!

Lia and Emmett standing together outside of the Department of Licensing office with Lia proudly holding up her temporary driver's license.

Although we bought our "kid car" at the beginning of January, I have never included a picture of it in a post.  So, here is a picture of Lia driving away in our Ford Focus for the first time after we bought it.  She has already named this cute car, "Marble," and will hopefully spend the next 2.5 years safely driving around town in it, making many memories along the way!

Lia and Emmett showing off the pretty pink box of Crumbl cookies that Uncle Brent sent to our house.

Thanks to Brent's suggestion, we put a candle in one of the cookies and sang, "Happy Birthday" to her after dinner was done.

Family Ski Day on President's Day

Due to Ella's Saturday gymnastics' schedule, our days are limited this winter season to get up on the slopes as a family.  Since the kids and Ron had today off due to President's Day, we bought our lift tickets several weeks ago to go skoarding.  Due to a strange turn of events, I ended up driving both Ella and Emmett to meet my dad in Auburn last night to pass them over to him so that my parents could watch them overnight and today.  This is due to the fact that a really bad cut on Ella's toe (that she got from the vault during her gymnastics meet last week) became infected with a staph infection a few days later.  As a result, I had to take her to the doctor's office yesterday to get her put on ten days of antibiotics.  We knew that a tight, ski boot would not feel good on Ella's foot for eight hours, so we decided last minute to have her join Emmett at my parent's house. So, just the two older kids joined Ron and me for a day at White Pass today.  We met up with Elle and her dad and the six of us had a really good time spending the morning and afternoon together.  It turned out to be really snowy, windy, and a total whiteout at the top of the mountain for the morning which would have made Ella miserable, so it turned out to be a good thing that she didn't come with us.  After our lunch break, the sun came out a bit and we enjoyed skoarding in the afternoon with some beautiful views.  Ever since we "graduated" to the top of the mountain with Logan and Ella last spring, I have really enjoyed these family ski days, spending time outside in the beautiful mountains with my children and husband at my side.  Here's to hoping that we can squeeze in one more day in March and in April before the season is over for another year!

The one family photo we had Elle take of us at the top of the mountain.

Lia and Logan and the beautiful, snow covered trees.

Lia skiing down a run.

Logan cruising past me.

We all laughed at how the front of Logan's hair became completely encrusted with snow and ice during the morning.  It totally looked like he had a fur lining on the front of his helmet.  Sadly, it melted during our lunch break.

Elle, Logan, and Lia ready to go down the mountain

Logan and Ron flexing their muscles with some beautiful trees behind them.

Logan and I at the top of the mountain after our lunch break when we got some blue skies and visibility back!

My two older kiddos and me.

The stunning view from the top of  the Couloir run after the sun came out for the afternoon.