Prom Dress Shopping

It's Spring Break!  So, of course, we needed to take care of the most important task this morning...shopping for a prom dress!  We've ordered a dress for Sylvia, so she wasn't really trying on today, but Annah was on the hunt.  When she started thinking about what kind of dress she wanted this year (a few months ago), she thought she knew she wanted purple, and would like to find a mermaid style dress.  We had looked at Von Maur over the weekend with no luck, so we went to Country Lace Bridal today.  Right away, we found several for her to try on!

This one, we were just taken by the color, and it was a nice fit.

This was the first dress eliminated.

This one, she was surprised how much she liked it, because she usually wouldn't even try on something like this--too much sparkly beading.  But she liked it and looked nice in it!

This one was my favorite.  So classy and elegant!

This sparkly blush pink gown was on a mannequin, and Annah asked to try it on, even though it was at least 10 sizes too big.  She fell in love with it!

This gown looked cool on the hanger, and we all liked the color.  It was pretty, but too big and rigid and difficult to move in. 

 

Sylvia had been dreaming of a prom dress in Cinderella blue, but had promised last year that she'd wear the expensive rose gold shoes she got "ever year" for prom and they don't match Cinderella blue.  So, we ordered her dress in a different color.  But, she really, really, really wanted Annah to try on this dress, so she did.

Annah tried the pink gown on a second time.  She asked the lady who was helping us if she could order it in her size, but when she called about it there was nothing even close.  She was told it was such a popular dress that they all sold out within 2 weeks of putting them in stores for the season.  Annah was really sad, and even had a few tears.  It just wasn't meant to be.

We convinced Sylvia to try on the blue gown, but she didn't want to ask for it since we already have a  dress on order.  But she looks so pretty!!!

 Annah did choose a gown at Country Lace, but I didn't include pictures of it here.  Gram is so kindly doing some alterations, and I'm sure Annah will look spectacular in it for prom!

It was a fun time with my girls this morning.  

Annah's 14th Birthday

Annah turned 14 years old today!  

She had cereal for breakfast with her siblings, like most other days.  

At school, she enjoyed watching the cast of the high school play put on the first act of Straight from the Horse's Mouth for the junior high.  (We're excited to see the whole performance tomorrow night.)

3 of Annah's sweet friends from church came at 5:30 tonight for a party.  They are awesome girls, and I am SO glad for their friendship to Annah!!!

They danced in the living room to Taylor Swift's Shake It Off, and Emma showed them how to waltz. 

It was a busy evening around here with the girls arriving, Jeremy getting home with food from Avanti's and a few other random things I had him pick up, trick-or-treaters coming to the door, and Jeremy taking Caeden trick-or-treating too!  

These girls all love music, and spent quite a bit of time around the piano tonight, taking turns playing and singing together.  I love it!! 

After we all finished eating and the trick-or-treating stopped, we played a few silly "Minute-to-Win-It" type games.  For this one, they had to use a straw to suck up Skittles from the table and get them into the cup without using their hands.  It looked really tricky to me, but Annah's friends were amazingly fast at it!!

Sara and Emma tied to win.

Sylvia and Caeden found it really challenging!

The goal of the next game was to bounce pencils off their erasers and into a cup.  Sara got 2 in, and Sylvia got one in.  Everyone else just got frustrated and silly with it.  It was fun for a moment though.

"Rescue the Animals" was definitely the favorite of the night.  I put 3 animal crackers in the bottom of each bowl, then covered them with Cool Whip.  They had to rescue the animals without using their hands.  We all cracked up, and the girls all said it was super fun and worth all the mess!

Somehow Annah didn't get into it quite as literally as everyone else...

Such fun!!!!

We all gathered in the living room to watch Annah open presents.

I usually love Amazon Prime, but this week they screwed up everything I ordered and it won't arrive until next week.  I printed out pictures of Annah's presents and wrapped them instead.  Fortunately, she thought it was fun.

We have reached the point where Annah's clothing taste is quite a bit different from mine and we need to go shopping together to pick out clothes.  So tomorrow, we will have a little shopping date after I take her friends home!

Jillian has a new facial expression every time a lens is pointed at her!

Annah received several items for her clarinet--a leather Rovner ligature, a thumb rest, mouthpiece guard pads, and a humidity controlled reed case.  She was pretty excited about them.

Caeden gave Annah the new Pentatonix EP on her iPod.  She has pretty thoughtful siblings!

She loved sweet Sylvia's gift, an enlargement of a photo I took of the two of them together in our back yard several years ago.  

Annah asked for an angel food cake--tradition!

How blessed to have fun friends!

The girls settled into their sleeping bags about 9:30 or so to watch Ella Enchanted.

When that was over, they decided to watch Holes.  I think it was about 1:30 when that was over and they all decided to go to sleep.  A fun night, for sure!!