Our sweet friends, Emme and Layla, celebrated their 6th and 8th birthdays at Sweet & Sassy at the beginning of November.  Ty has to be one of the coolest Dads in the entire world!  Check out the gorgeous cakes he had made for his girls!  He described their little personalities to the bakery, and he said they got it just right!

Anna Kate wasn’t feeling at her best, but she had a great time, as always.

 

  

Of course, Noelle was right at home, lol!

Cutie Kate enjoying Emme and Layla’s “Rock Star” themed birthday!

Emme and Noelle

 

Let the dance party begin!

 

Talking to Rose through their microphones, lol!  I love how baby Rose’s dress was almost to the floor, ha!  She was loving every minute of this party!

 

Singing and dancing are our middle names!

 

 

Time for some limbo!

How LOW can you GO!

 

You go girls!

 

This is Rose when they told her to go get back into her clothes for cake and presents.  You would think her world had crashed.  She was definitely the last girl off of the stage!

Layla and Noelle were having fun checking out Layla’s cool presents!

 

Cake time!  Rose was in the party room with the big girls by herself.  I went in to ask if she was okay and she gave me her thumbs up!  Silly girl!

Our 2nd graders!

Lovin’ on the birthday girls!

 

Emme, Noelle, Layla, and Macy are so happy to have each other!

Here’s a little story to brighten your day!  Noelle wrote this late Thursday night; It’s her version of Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type.  She’s so nurturing all the time.  Noelle’s such a great kid… and story teller!

Rose has been here, watched this a million times as a baby, and it was finally her turn to participate in a Sweet & Sassy birthday party!  I decided to do a post all about Rose separate from the party because this was her first time to be a super big girl at S&S!

 

First up, polish!

 

Next up, hair!  She looked like such a big girl in this big producer’s chair!

Our blue-haired mess!

 

On to eye shadow and spray!

 

Yay, now it’s time to go play!

 

She was so excited to see herself on the big TV in front of the stage!

Like, so excited!  I think she knows she’s a pretty big deal!

 

Trying out her moves for the camera!

 

The runway is so fun!!!

 

This is Rose’s “I’m pretending to be shy face!” on the left.  I see it daily.  Rose can sing!  Like, really.  And when she starts singing, and the room gets quiet to listen, she’ll stop singing and make this face.  Hello world, Rose is here!

 

Anna Kate and Rose love playing around in their pjs on non-school days!  Today, they made a friendship bracelet door knocker together and put it on Mike’s office door.  They knock on it every time he is in there working.  See how much work he has going on in there, lol!?!  The door knocker has been up for about a month now, and I just can’t take it down.  Love having little girls!

 

Over the last month, I haven’t taken too many cheer pics, but these were some cute ones of Brianna and Noelle after one of their games!

 

Here’s Rose trying on lots of rings at Sweet and Sassy.  These tiny fingers and beautiful eyelashes get the best of me!

I love you, Curtis Mitchell Ziemke! 

I have been thinking all day, what can I write about about our one year anniversary of losing Curt.  There are simply no words.  His absence has cut like knives over the past year.  I can’t go into my emotions because I keep this G rated for the girls, so instead, I’ll let you in on a hilarious memory we had with Curt (again, the G version)!

 

So, Mike, Anna Kate, and I took a trip out to Cali for Curt’s 44th birthday bash in 2010.  Cindy is always so awesome about taking us to the beach, because she knows how much we love it!  Curt had been officially diagnosed with ALS only months prior to these pics, but we had suspected something was up for about 6 months, I think it was.  The birthday party was so special because we got to tell Curt how much he means (this verb has to stay in the present even though it happened in the past, sorry) to all of us; Every moment with him was a gift we all treasured as such.  It was the most surreal moment of my life.  People were laughing and crying all at the same time.  At one point, I went into the kitchen at the venue, slid down the wall, and bawled my eyes out.  The next minute, we were out on the dance floor living it up.  It was an unforgettable, amazing night.  But that’s not my story for tonight.  I would delete all of this and start over, but I’m just too tired, lol.  So, back to the beach.  Curt was still walking really well, so he was able to go in the sand with us and just play!  Pics above: To the left, everyone posing in front of Tsunami/Earthquake hazard zone sign.  To the right, one of my favorite pics I just had to repost of Curt and Cindy’s middle kiddo, Cayden, with baby Anna Kate!

I’m not as good of a storyteller as Cindy, so I can’t figure out how to tell this story.  Here goes nothing, we loaded these pictures on their kitchen computer when we got home later this night and gathered around the bar to check them out.  As we were looking at them, Curt and Cindy made up a story about the pictures as they were unfolding on the spot, totally making up more to the story as the pictures progressed.  It’s so silly, totally dorky, but we literally could not stop laughing.  So here goes a tiny peek into our relationship with the Ziemke family.

First up, this was going on, okay.  Just to give you a context, my hair was out of control because the wind was insane.

So, I’m flicking back my hair and when Cindy saw this picture, she said, “OMG, it looks like you are trying to kiss my man!”  Someone else chimed in, “Cayden is like, what’s going on!?!”  Someone else, “The rest of the family can’t even look.”

The wind was still going crazy as Cindy and I tried to get a beach pic together.  Curt yells out, “Cat fight begins!”

 

And then when these pics came up, “They made up!”  “Now she’s kissing on Cindy!”

Although this is literally .02% as funny as it was to us as we were making up the story on the spot, that’s just it!  We didn’t have to be doing anything to have fun with Curt.  He was the fun!!!  And he will be with us forever and ever, in our hearts and in the lives of his awesome kiddos.  Man, I miss my friend.  Too much.  Love you, Ziemke fam!  You are so strong and make me so honored to be your friend, every day.  Grieve well.  XOXO, Mo

Noelle wanted me to post a few of the fun things we brought with us to Disney: Pins for pin trading and autograph books for the characters’ autographs.  The pin trading was seriously one of our favorite things!  People come to Disney just to trade pins all day; It’s nuts but so much fun trading with any and everybody.  We came home with only a couple of the original pins we went with. 

The picture on the right describes how everyone was feeling when we got back to Texas!  Here’s Rose on our way to our car at the airport.  Everyone, except for Noelle, fell asleep on the airplane on the way home (a first for all of the adults)!  Although we were back to the real world, we’ll remember the magic in our hearts forever! 

*I’m going to post our PhotoPass pictures, but this is the last Disney post!  Wha-hoo!  I’m so happy to be 100% home, lol!

 

Our last night at Disney was so relaxing!  We took our precious time strolling out of the park, taking it all in (literally, lol) one last time!

  

How can she not steal your heart!?!  Oh baby Rose, what are we going to do with you!

  

Lingering in the park… we just couldn’t leave!  Not quite yet.

 

 

Noelle waited until the very last day on our way out of the park to pick her special prize!  And what does she pick?  Of course, the sequin Minnie Mouse ears.  Matches her high heels perfectly.  Right after I took these pictures outside of the store, she said, “Mom, I’m so glad I waited for my big prize!”  We will get our wear out of this fancy headband, for sure! 

 

Love this!

 

After we got out of the park, Rara took off running to get ready to go home!  She was trying to make us laugh, and it worked!

Fun and chocolate were had by this little bit!

Right outside of Magic Kingdom!

 

We were so disappointed in Rose for picking this rose!  Right as I was telling her, “No ma’am!” she took the biggest inhale of a flower I’ve ever seen anyone take and looked up at me, smiling, and said, “It a ROSE!”  I guess if your name is Rose, you can get away with picking one.

 

 

We finally made it to the Beast’s castle for lunch!  This is as close as you get to the actual castle.  It was like a little mirage up there; I couldn’t figure out how big it actually was.  The fake stones everywhere was really strange to me, but once we got inside, oh my!

 

The entrance, and the sneezing/coughing suits of armor I was telling you about.  Too fun!

 

Rose wasn’t so sure about the “scary men” today.  Good thing one of them didn’t come to life! 

 

I wish my grandfather could see all of this molding.  I don’t know why the ceilings kept grabbing my attention.  Finally, we made it to the check-in kiosks, and Noelle got to sit in the Beast’s chair!

 

I thought this seal on the beast’s fireplace was so pretty.  Noelle is up for a picture anytime, anywhere. 

 

The wait was about 20 minutes; Our longest wait at Disney!  The restaurant is super efficient though.  You walk in and there are computer kiosks all over the living room.  You place your party’s order, and then the book spits out your ticket.  You grab your drinks, sit down, and they bring the food out to you.  Super cool!

  

The Grand Ballroom was beautiful.  Absolutely gorgeous!  I had heard that it was an exact replica of the movie, so I was thinking an awesome dance floor (we love to dance!) with insanely tall arched windows.  The ceiling was super low (compared to the movie), and there are chairs literally everywhere!  That didn’t stop us from dancing.  I asked a friend before we came, if you could dance in the Grand Ballroom, and her answer was, “Why wouldn’t you!?!”  So although it was super awkward, we did!  Wouldn’t miss that memory!  The picture to the right, is another room you can dine in called the West Wing.  It was super dark and a little spooky, so we just walked through it and decided on the Rose Room.

 

More West Wing pics.  Anna Kate loved all of the purple wallpaper!

 

After checking out the magical rose in the West Wing, and actually capturing a petal fall on camera, we headed into the beautiful Rose Room to find our seats.

 

This room features a large music box centerpiece of Belle and the Beast!  The columns even have vines and roses on them… even the wood outline on the couth booth.  I could stare at the details all day long!

Rose was in her room, taking it all in!

 

You know Lumiere’s famous Beauty and the Beast song, “Try the gray stuff, it’s delicious, don’t believe me, ask the dishes?”  Well… we were soooo excited to get to try the “gray stuff!” and it was delicious!  Be our guest!

 

 

This is the detail that went into the ceilings and molding, in the bathroom!  I’ve never seen copper molding!  Super fancy!

 

 

I took this picture of the castle when we walked by it on Wednesday.  We never got any rain during our trip, but there were a couple of close calls!  We had our ponchos ready!

 

Oh my goodness, littles!  Mike picked out his shirt all by himself to match the girls pretty dresses; Didn’t he do good?  Go Mikey!

  

So, I’m still confused how this magic mirror stretched out and turned into a passageway into the Beast’s library for story time with Belle!

 

First, Madame Wardrobe gave each of the children a part in the play that they were going to surprise Belle by telling together.  Lumiere was in on the surprise too!

 

Noelle got to be the horsey, Anna Kate was the fork and spoon, and Rose was the salt shaker! 

 

The littles went together to meet Belle.  After they acted out the story, Belle gave each kid a bookmark that said, “Now you will always be a part of my favorite story!”  We all loved this special story time!