True wrote a 10 before 10 bucket list of things she wanted to do before she hit double digits. Las Vegas was our backdrop for the adventure, and we took a Fuji Instax picture every time she accomplished something on her list. Then, she would put each picture in a little instax photo album we got her. It’s a sweet little book of memories.

1. Try a new fruit… she tried mulberries. Verdict: She loved it (we all did) and Ben plans to plant a mulberry bush.

2. Try a pinball machine… so we visited the Pinball Hall of Fame.

3. Go to Target and get an animal floatie for Glow. She really wanted to pick out something for Glow to swim with.

4. Try Milky Way… she loved it!

5. Angleland. Since we’ve been studying angles and reading the Sir Cumference stories, she wanted to go to Angleland (this medieval castle is the closest we could get).

6. Try a new ice cream flavor… she picked strawberry lemonade and red bean ice cream from Ice Pan. You pick your milk (we chose non-fat), your flavor, and they mix it right in front of you in an ice pan. The harder they beat it, the creamier it gets.

7. Play mini golf. We played it at the Adventuredome in Circus Circus. This was all of their first times playing mini golf and they all had a blast.

8. Try a new vegetable… she picked endive. Verdict: She loved it!

9. Try Turkish Delight. The girls are reading through the Chronicles of Narnia with Ben, so it got her curious about Turkish Delight.

10. Meet Princess Leia. This was the most difficult thing on her bucket list. We were hoping to see someone dressed up as Leia on the Vegas strip, but there was no one (at least not when we were walking around). Ben and I had to go to plan B and using the funny movie maker app, so we had Princess Leia send her a birthday message.

Her bucket list made for a fun birthday adventure, and she was so excited every time was able to cross things off her bucket list. We also noticed it made her more adventurous and she would try foods she would otherwise say no to (she had ginger, tapatio, and wasabi for the first time too!). This celebration is exactly how True wanted to ring in the double digits.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Thankful for an adventure out with my girls to get ice cream. We celebrated the end of testing. Woot! The end of the school year is near.

Dana’s Bakery sent over these sassy and delicious macarons. Their flavor of the month is churro… I need me some churro macarons! They came shipped from NYC and they were still fresh and kept well in the fridge. With graduation time upon us, I think this inspiration box would definitely make a great gift.

Getting ready for some home renovations soon. We are finally getting rid of our carpet. Yippee!

I did a little interview with Shop Miguez and you can learn a little bit more about me and my inspirations. Read the interview here.

These espadrilles are so cute and only $26!

Such a pretty woven bag.

Okay, I’ve been hearing a lot about this Rodan & Fields skincare thing. 1) The price kind of keeps me away 2) I am curious. Would love to hear honest pros and cons and if really did anything for you.

I made pho this week and this recipe is so good every time.

I’m thankful for reminders to savor the moment with the girls.

The Baby Cubby is offering Cakies readers 10% off with the code MYCAKIES. The pretty ballet dress from this post is from there.

It’s been an insane week, but I am looking forward to lots of rest this weekend. I’m thankful for work and busyness, but I am also thankful for rest.

Hope you get lots of rest this weekend too!

The girls were excited for Star Wars Day to finally come around. Of course, they dressed up in their costumes (True did later). We made Star Wars macaroni and cheese, Han Solo jello (though his face kind of got stuck in the mold), and they drew their favorite characters. These kids of mine are such Star Wars geeks. A friend was grilling them with all these Star Wars questions and they got every single one right. They knew things like where is Obi-Wan from to what costume is worn where, and lots of other things I don’t definitely don’t know.

By the way, isn’t Glow’s Yoda drawing so cute?!

Take home Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War with toys, gear & more at Target.

After the girls created their superhero characters, we put those characters into a story, along with some familiar ones. Armed with some Captain America action figures (and Iron Man and his crew), we used those to further develop the plot with some good and bad guys. We created little scenes with the action figures and took pictures of them on top of a white poster board. The girls dressed up in their costumes too and we would place the action figures in the picture along with them, but playing with the placement to make it look like they were similar sizes, and I would snap a picture. If you look closely, I used my (very basic) Photoshop skills and put some of the action figures into the picture with them too. From these images, we picked the order to lay out the story. I added black frames around each picture to give it a comic book look (we consulted their many comic books to try to make it as authentic as possible) and put everything into one large poster. I took it to a local print shop to get printed onto poster paper (their comic strip is quite large).

Once we had our comic strip poster, the big girls and I went frame by frame inputting their story. The girls did everything in pencil first, and once everything was just right, they went over all the pencil writing and bubble drawings with a black illustration marker. True and Brave took turns creating each box. When they first started doing the speech bubbles, they were amazed, and commented at how real it looked. They said, “Mommy, it looks like a real comic!”

Our story focused on three main parts … the context, conflict, and resolution. The girls had their Avengers team, with made up characters Ziggy Strong and Forcer Stripes, and they named the bad guys Black Shadows. The story took place at the good guys’ warehouse/hideout and the Black Shadows found them and wanted to get rid of them to take over the city. The main job of the good guys is to protect the city, so of course they couldn’t let that happen and a fight ensued. Seeing how the good guys were winning (they have good hearts and great combat skills), and the Black shadows were outnumbered, so they had no choice but to retreat and leave the city.

The girls were able to use this project to further their imagination and story writing skills. We were all very satisfied with how their comic strip and story turned out. It’s exciting for me to see their faces light up when working on creative projects. The girls love this kind of stuff. I have to resist the urge to assert what I want to do (I like working on stuff like this too) and allow them freedom to develop their own ideas. Usually though, their ideas are always way better than anything I come up with.

We will be doing a little bit of redecorating their rooms over the summer and we will need to give this poster a special place on the wall. If you want to read their comic, click here.

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As part of True’s 10 before 10 bucket list, we went to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas. It’s not on the strip, and looks like a random white warehouse, but there are definitely treasures and fun to be had inside. They have all sorts of pinball (and some arcade) machines; some of them are really, really old. I’m so glad someone is working hard at preserving these giant toys as my favorites were definitely the vintage ones. All the machines take quarters and there are about 5 rows of pinball machines to play. This place is really a diamond in the rough, but I think that’s what’s make it even more special.

Of course, my girls wanted to hit up all the Star Wars machines, and they especially loved the Star Wars Atari game. We definitely could have spent several hours (and many more quarters) getting lost here. I loved listening to the ding-ding-ding and ting-ting-ting all the machines were making. It brings back memories of playing at the arcade when I was younger.

So when you’re in Vegas, don’t spend all your quarters at the slot machines, make sure to save some to play pinball too.

I made this for True’s 10th birthday dress (see her wearing it here). It’s almost exactly like my ruffled sleeve denim dress, but just much smaller and more a straight fit than loose. Her dress is made with linen fabric. The rest of the sisters were ooh-ing and aah-ing saying it was so pretty and they want that style too. I did a thicker hem in the bottom, so that I can unfold it and make it longer as she stretches. She had “birthday dress” on her birthday wish list and I like that my girls still like wearing clothes I sew for them.

on true: red clogs, c/o hanna andersson