Three Years Later...

Here we are at the Texas State Fair in 2011

 And here we are in the same spot in 2014!

(Wyatt still has some trouble looking at the camera. Ha!)

Lila's Art Party {8 years old}

This summer, Lila turned 8. Eight. She is two years away from double digits! Where has the time gone? Her birthday happened just a few weeks after we returned from our summer trip to AL/Ireland, and I knew I would have a hard time pulling a party together to have at home that fast. So, we decided to have the party at a painting place. Then I was not in charge of the activities - just the food and a few decorations. Lila thought it was a great idea too :)

 At the painting place, I was limited to one counter for the food/decorations. So here it is!

We had "paintbrushes" made from pretzels and hershey kisses covered in chocolate.

Art palette sugar cookies (with m&m's for the paint).

A color wheel of fruit!

(Also, not pictured were "Creative Juice" boxes.)

In addition to their finished painting, the girls got to take home a little art caddy.

This was my one time-consuming decoration. I saw a similar over-sized paint tube online and (like with most things), I thought, "I think I could do that." It turned out pretty cool! So cool I was able to sell it to the paint place for what it cost to make (which was great because, really, what was I going to do with a big paint tube after this party?!)

Me and the birthday girl

Here she is working on her painting. She got to choose which painting they painted. She chose "Trendy Tulips".

The painting place gave her a little gift - a small canvas and some paints.

It was fun to watch the girls' paintings come along. I'm sure if it was a group of women, there would be much talk and laughter. But these girls were intent and quiet.

Ta-da!

We were extra lucky to have family in town so Lila's cousins could be at the party too!

Here's Lila's finished painting (and the original example in the background).