Kensleys Snow White 2nd Birthday!

5:58 PM
To see Kensleys first minnie mouse birthday, click here!

My princess is TWO! I can't believe it! Picking a theme for two year old is hard! Especially since she is a girl who has very few interests of her own! She is a monkey-see-monkey-do girl! & by monkey I mean big sister Kennedy! We gave her lots of opitions and she kept going back to her favorite princess "No White" aka snow white!

Our week was long, and jam packed. I had ZERO put together for the party & didn't start til after vacation, days away from the party! Luckily everything came out amazing! She spent the night at my moms the night before so when she came home in the morning she was blown away by everything set up! It was the best!


The cake actually came to me PINK! I ran to the store & got color mist & sprayed the whole bottom! Luckily it came out ok! but you can see see where the embellishments were yellow!
I got these fun apples from Oriental Trading! They came with crappy prizes inside so I refilled them with the good stuff! ;)

These cute little figurines I got from Hobby Lobby! They are meant for a fairy garden, but ended up being great for the desert table! They also make for a great keepsake for Kensley to remember her birthday! :)


The husband gets all the credit for these cute pops! They are marshmallows with red chocolate & red sprinkles, with pretzels  & green frosting for the leaf, which is the only thing I can take credit for!

I can't remember where I got these! I saved them months ago! If I can find, I will link it! The kids had so much fun with these! I wish I got more pics with them on! The girls are still playing with them!


Paperdolls are my love language! I got there from coolmompicks! They are adorable! Even tho I don't one person took any home :)
Heigh-Ho! More little thank you treats! Little mine carts I made from old containers & used ring pops as the diamonds! :)
This little well was thrown together in like 15 mins!! Ignore the spelling error on the signs, I was obviously in a rush! My dad got the tube from work, & I sponge painted it! The top was a corner shelf Ive been meaning to put up screwed into 2 left of fire wood pieces! I put a galvanized bucket to put water in! & I tell ya! All the kids thought it was really neat! I think Kensley put in like 20 dollars worth of coins haha!

Dress is of course by the wonderful Jenny over at Very Chic Baby!

I of course didnt get the amount of pics I wanted to, like every year! But it was the best time celebrating our baby! I hope everyone that came had the best time, thank you for loving our girl!





Great Wolf Lodge: What to Pack

5:55 PM
I was offered a discounted room rate, though I did not use because of preferences of room. We were presented with small a gift upon arrival of  our room. All opinions & review are of my own.

We just got back from our vacation at Great Wolf Lodge! We had a blast & I have tons of questions about the Great Wolf as whole & lots of other things! I have broken down some info I thought would have been helpful for us & our visit into a few posts so its isn't one giant one! All the fun pics will be the last post, so look out for that one!!

We had 3 lodges relatively close to us. We of course choose one that was the farthest! It was just short of a 5 hours trip! These tips will help for your preparation, drive & what to pack for your trip to Great Wolf Lodge.


If you aren't planning the trip as a surprise, I suggest showing your kids pics & videos of the lodge prior to your arrival! It got the whole family excited for our trip & got the girls familiar with the characters! We found some great ones on their YouTube channel and on their website where they tell the story of the lodge & have a few songs!


Coloring pages! I printed coloring pages from there site HERE, grabbed some clip boards & crayons for the trip! They had so much fun coloring & it got them excited to meet everyone! {violet is their fave} They also have some fun activies to do on your drive! My girls were a little small, but one game that was already was a favorite is the color car game!


You will want a bag of bathing suit & all your pool stuff ready when you arrive! You get to go into the park at 1 the day of your arrival even though check in is 4! Your room may or may not be ready, ours was but in case it isn't have a bag so all the luggage can stay in the car! Same goes for the day you leave, check out is 11 and you get to stay at the park til it closes! So have a bag of dry clothes & a sack for you wet clothes for when you leave!!



Make sure you pack more than 1 bathing suit for you and the kids! Even if you staying for one night! No one likes a cold wet bathing suit! There was a few times that we went in the morning then came back from lunch & a activity then went back swiming later than night! It was nice to have a dry suit to change into!


                                                                                                                                       

Even though the water park is a warm 82 every day, it gets chilly in the hallways & out of the pool! So bring cover ups & flipflops for no only the kids but for mom and dad too! And if you are anything like us you are running around doing the other things the resort has to offer! We didn't do Magiquest but if you have older kids you will want this too!


Great Wolf Lodge has LOADS of towels dry & ready for you in water park, but they have to stay in the water park! I brought  2 for the girls to dry off before getting into their cover ups on or when we would get a snack from Spirit Island! 

These refillable cups at Spirit Island snack shack were a big hit with the girls..naturally.


Speak of food, if your on a budget bring your own food! They had a restaurant on site {which was delicious} horrible service but delicious food, but for lunch or in between snacks {my girls are snackers} we bought fruit, juices, sandwiches & beer/wine to have at the room! We also brought some breakfast food although we did hit up dunkin donuts for coffee {they have a deal where you buy a cup & get free refills during your stay, YES!} and donuts for the girls for one morning! For a also easy lunch or dinner & cheap is getting pizza from Hungry as a Wolf! It was delicious & you can take into the water park, your room or even the lobby! A large was 11.99!!                           

In resort I was SO pleasantly surprised that I was hit in the face by the smell of chlorine upon walking in. But chlorine is always going to be a pool, & even tho I couldn't smell it im gonna assume a large amount is used in such a environment. Both the girls & I skin would get very dried out not to mention the hair, oh kennedys poor curls! Bring a good lotion & load of conditioner

Cute Jammies! OK so this one isn't really a must. But when everyone is meeting in the lobby for story time & posing for pic you don't want your kids in the old mismatched jammies now do ya? ;)  Don't forget the slippers! The girls absolutely loved this every night! The clock tower show was so fun & Kennedy was just head over heels for the characters. Kensley would either SCREAM or wave from a very very far distance 


Some other helpful things would be a waterproof phone case or waterproof camera! So many fun moments that will happen during your whole trip and a good hunk of them in the park! I didn't have either & wish I would have, the few pics I have in the park are great but would have loved to get some while in the water with the family!! I ended up waiting  too long for shipping but also I think it would be fun to have a stuff animal & wolf ears ready to go to wear on the way there! Although the girls did have fun picking out their stuff too at the store!


Hope this is helpful for anyone planning their trip!! Next I will posting about what there is to do at the lodge!!

Easter

12:21 PM
Uh? Better late than never?
You could just ignore this post. I just need it in my archive to look back on!
Easter was the day after Kensleys birthday party. So we celebrated with the inlaws, Friday because Jessi was still in town then with my family on Sunday! 
& now I flood you with pictures!













 hardest thing in the word getting all 3 to look and smile!!












Kensley found the golden egg!
 Easter morning!







IG @MRSMUMAW