Other happening around the kingdom

Aside from Princess Camp at our house, Elle has had other princess-y activities this summer.  We saw Brave, of course, which Merida & Angus accompanied her to. 

And she went to a full-on Princess day at Thanksgiving Point with her cute friends, Sophie & Olivia.  

How fun to be 5 and get to dress up and sit in a princess carriage?  I mean, seriously.

Following the 12 Dancing Princesses to their dance class...

Peter Pan at Princess Camp?  Ok ....

I guess it was because Tinkerbell was there.

After a couple of hours in 100 degree heat that day, all this princess's mom wanted was a ginormous cold Diet Coke -- which thankfully, the kingdom of Thanksgiving Point had in abundance.

Princess Camp

'Twas the summer of Princess Camp. While the girls did all of the planning for it, the actual execution of each day felt like we were throwing a birthday every day for a week.  I was a bit exhausted after the week was over.  But alas, Princess Camp was a huge success.  My girls have the $$ to prove it.

Day 1: Snow White
First on the agenda was to decorate art boxes to hold their craft projects in.  We kept them lined up in the dining room for the week and the girls took them home that Friday. They also colored paper dolls (7  connected dolls for the 7 dwarves), colored some Snow White pictures and had apples (what else?) & caramel for dessert.

Day 2: Ariel

Water day!  The girls played water games in the backyard (bubbles, water balloons, slip & slide) and had fishy crackers and gummy fish for a snack.   

Day 3: Beauty & the Beast

We had several rotations of games & crafts, but my favorite activity was the tea party.  Be our guest!  I bought Cookie Crisp cereal so the cookies would be small enough to fit on the tiny plates. :)  We also had mini sandwiches and grapes.  Not much else would fit on those eensie plates.

Day 4: Sleeping Beauty

The girls made personalized banners to announce them at the ball the next day.  Haley took the idea from a 10 second part of the movie where the people carry banners at the princess' birth.  Random but it worked. They also made crowns for the ball and played princess games.

Day 5: Cinderella

The grand finale of the week was a royal ball.  We had 4 stations for the girls as they arrived.  Paige helped to outfit them in the dress-up room.....

Sydney did their hair (complete with braids, buns, updo's and glitter spray)....

Haley did makeup ....

And I finished up with nails.

Our royal prince was 5 year old Joshua from the kingdom across the street.  He was such a perfect prince!

We escorted the girls one at a time down the royal staircase, where the prince greeted each one with a bow.

And then some of the girls took turns dancing with the prince.  The majority of the girls wouldn't dance with him.  Didn't think it would be such a big deal at age 5 but whatever.  The ones that did dance were adorable.

It was a fun, tiring week.  Syd, Haley & Paige all flipped when they saw what they had earned for their hard work and they're already planning for next year.

B'Donald's

After Bear Lake, we've had the Blakes staying with us for this past week.  Maddie got ready to leave the nest and head to BYU, Erin has spent the week seeing friends and visiting other family, and we've had playtime with the youngest 2 Blakes.  

This adorable child is a huge fan of McDonald's, or B'Donald's as she calls it.  Elle and a friend had a little tea party at McDonald's awhile ago, and we thought it would be fun to have one with Kate.  She, of course, couldn't have been more thrilled.  She even wore a sparkly princess dress.

Sydney was all for it, although I'm sure the older kids were the tiniest bit embarrassed at the spectacle that we became.

 It was pretty funny watching the kids try to squirt their juice boxes into the tiny cups.

And even Christian was a good sport for Kate's sake.  Nobody tell him that I blogged this picture.  He was mortified that I even caught one action shot.

Farley Family Reunion

There used to be a one-man play called The Farley Family Reunion.  He would play all the parts of the random distant relatives that show up at a very Mormon, country-type reunion (LaVerle and Edwina for example).  And because we were legit Farleys, our tickets were comp'ed when we went.  Sweet.

This year was the first year that my siblings and mom had a reunion away somewhere together.  We rented a cabin at Bear Lake.  Check out this view ....

Pretty cool. We had 13 cousins, 8 siblings & spouses and 1 happy grandma. At least, when the sheer noise didn't overwhelm her. :)  Most of the days were spent boating. Thank to the Blakes who brought their boat!

Paige tried water skiing for the 1st time.  At first it didn't seem so hard ...

... but then it was harder than it looked. :)

Quinn & Heather came up at the end of the week with Sofi & Jake.  So glad they could come!

Back at the cabin ....  We painted nails to our hearts' content.  This was only a small sampling of colors.

Maddie had just returned from India and tried out her new henna skills on all of us....

We had daily guitar time with Christian & Jake, iPad games, real games, puzzles, cards, naps, sleep outs on the deck and the loft, giant group meals, daily raspberry shake runs ...  Total blast.

Laughing at how huge these giant decorative apples are ...

We all hiked through the Minnetonka Cave nearby. 440 stairs (good times!) but we all survived -- even my mom and me. :)

It was Raspberry Days at Bear Lake and Mike insisted that we try a Raspberry Shake at every joint near Bear Lake.  

Each of us 4 siblings' youngest children.  Which kid goes to which adult?

My sister, Kelly, wrote a sweet blog about our reunion, too.  Check it out.

Farley Family Reunion