Another Birthday

One month after Madi's birthday, it was time to celebrate again. This time, it was for Alissa. She had an odd birthday this year, turning nine, so we celebrated as a family. She was excited to open the gift from the kids.

She got nail polish from Katelin,

a necklace from Madi,

and all the kids got her a box of some of her favorite candy with cute sayings tied in and written on them. For example, the Reses Pieces said "We love you to PIECES!" Its been too long for me to remember the other ones. Thats what I get for being a late blogger. I guess you can use your imagination. : / 

 Since Madi chose to get started on a room of her own in the basement, Alissa got the idea to do a room makeover. She felt she was getting too mature for her Disney Princess room. She decided to go with a theme of one of her favorite things, giraffes. Had I known how rare giraffe patterned decorations were, I may have talked her into something else. I did get lucky and found this brand new giraffe picture frame for cheap at Good Will. She loved it.

 She also had mentioned that she loved this rug at Target when we were there, so I got that for her and used the colors on it for inspiration.

 I was happy that Alissa chose a pretty simple cake this year. Just chocolate with peanut butter frosting and reses cups. We added twisty candles to make it cuter.

 Then she opened a gift that came in the mail from her Grandparents and Aunt. 

She got another necklace, 

 the Teen beach Movie,

 and a shirt.

And now for the room reveal. 

I couldn't find any older girl style giraffe quilts, so I decided to make them. Brylee shares a bunk bed with her, so I actually had to make two. Between school, the holidays and everything else, it took me 4 months to complete, but I finally got the blankets done. I used the colors from the rug to pick out the fabric. Its hard to tell, but the pink material is the giraffe pattern. Here is Alissa's blanket.

and Brylee's. As you can see from Brylee's bed, she still wanted to hang on the the Disney Princess theme. 

And her rug and newly painted wall. The giraffe figure and the chair were added from Christmas.  

Since I had a hard time finding giraffe pictures, I asked an atristically talented young women in our ward to paint us a couple. Here are the finished paintings. This one goes with the room colors. 

 And this one is more realistic.

  She gives it all a thumbs up.

How did our little girl get so big!?