Renaissance Festival

On May 16th I took advantage of Jon being gone for the weekend and took my girls to the Renaissance and Fantasy Festival for some good old fashioned 16th century fun.

The main attraction was the full contact jousting by the Knights of Mayhem. Full contact jousting with a dramatized set up for fun. We where assigned to be from Scotland and were routing for Sir Killem (note how well the name makes for chanting while he chargers toward the other night in an attempt to knock him to the ground KILL-EM KILL-EM!) It was more fun then I thought it would be. But my favorite was a loud mouth audience member who kept spouting off in a Scottish accent taunting the Irish. She was not part of the show but really should have been. The only let down was the tournament ending in a draw, but I guess if you want to watch someone really joust that has to include the possibility of no one winning.

The girls dancing with some local gypsies!

The fairies who kept sneaking up on us.Old fashioned puppet show

Magicians

And what could be more 16th century then a styrofoam sword battle?This is a local group that gets together to battle for fun, and believe it or not it actually did look fun. Not the Princesses leg in the air-that is because it was cut off already. Jocelyn's favorite part was watching the archers shoot the others with arrows (again styrofoam).

It was a great day and I am so glad that Jon saw the signs for it and called to tell me I should go. It was the perfect girls activity. And I even got to dress up for the day. They even gave me a good excuse to be such a geek. 50% off!!

THE almost MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE

Josie's Princess Party
I am not sure why but I can't seem to bring myself to host a strait from your local Disney store Princess Party. Tressa's turned into a Nights and Ladies jousting tournament and Josie's ended up being a dance. Neither of which ever had a single mention of a Disney Princess. Oh well, maybe with Aspen I will be able to conquer my phobia of all things pop-culture.

With that being said, Josie's party had to be the best children's party I have ever been to. Not because of my great party planning skills but simply because the kids made it so great. The played, laughed, screamed, and generally had a ball with absolutely no tears (at least not until their rides showed up to take them home). They listened and participated, they cheered for each other and never complained about anything. About half way through the night I was began to wonder if it was the calm before the storm, but it never came. Not to say that it wasn't crazy and chaotic-but it was happy and fun craziness, which is so much fun. So to all of our little princess guests and their wonderful parents who taught them to behave so splendidly. THANK YOU!

And one more huge Thank You to Krista who stopped by to say hi and stayed to help with , well everything. I really don't think it would have gone so well without her.

And finally some pictures of our

Almost Midnight Masquerade
All the little Princesses running out to meet each new arrival.

The beautiful corsages that one of the Mom's brought for each girl Wish I had thought of it myself. They were such a hit and looked absolutely darling on their little arms.

The girls dancing

Making the masks (which they didn't get to wear because the glue wouldn't dry in time).

Aspen's mask that had so much glue it didn't dry for a week! She loves glitter glue.

Presents and Cake

The Prince

Josie reading the cards her friends made her.

Little girls screaming over presents (be glad it is a picture and not a video)

Loving Aunt Krista in her beautiful mask.

(Which I still have if you want it Krista)