Courtney's Sweet 16!

Since Courtney's birthday is on Christmas day, it is always a struggle to make her birthday special. When she was little, I would always try and have her parties around the first part of December - so she would know the difference between her birthday and Christmas. This year, her birthday party was after Christmas and a SURPRISE! She had already got her car, and had a cake at my Mawmaw's, so she thought that was going to be it this year. But it was her Sweet 16, so we had to do something fun. She had a basketball game on Tuesday afternoon, so after the games, I took her and several of her friends to the Dallas area for the weekend. The look on her face was priceless when she saw all her friends jump in my Tahoe. And she never really figured out what was going on until we got to McKinney. Bless her heart, she is geographically challenged, and can't put towns together to figure out where we are going. For all she knows, Bonham is on the way to Texarkana...lol

Our first stop was in McKinney at Saltgrass Next, we went to Stonebriar Mall is Frisco for some ice skating. She loves to ice skate, and when she was in the 5th grade, I took her and some of her friends ice skating for her birthday. It was around 8pm when we got to the mall, so there was only an hour left to skate. I tried to convince the girls for us to go on to the room, and come back the next day to skate, but they wanted to skate right then. Which really worked out great - for one, the cashier dude was nice enough to let them all skate for FREE since there was only an hour left...and second, turns out an hour on the ice is all they could handle. It wore them out pretty quick.

Courtney & Charlie
Hailey doesn't really like to skate, so she was the shoe holder

Jaci, Kati, Courtney, Charlie and Hailey

The spectators: Hailey and me

Courtney trying not to fall down

The girls were exhausted after their short time on the ice

But not too exhausted to go up the DOWN escalator backwards!! Where is that mall cop?

Charlie had to try it too...

I am sure the mall people were glad we only had an hour to spend in there

We stayed at the ALOFT hotel in Plano which was pretty cool. I got the room on priceline.com for $38 which I am very proud of. If only I would have known to get TWO! The hotel had very "modern decor" which the girls enjoyed.

Court opening her gifts

Of course the girls were not ready for bed at 11pm, so they went downstairs for a game of pool.

Kati, Courtney & Jaci

I am not sure what time the girls FINALLY went to sleep, but I know at 2am, they were standing in the beds having pillow fights. I really wanted to wake them up like that the next morning, but I was nice. I was trying hard to be a 'cool' mom :) But next time (if there is a next time), there will be TWO rooms! :)

The next morning, we got up and went to the Gaylord Texan to the ICE display. The hotel was beautifully decorated, and I enjoyed seeing all of the decorations and displays as much as I enjoyed the ICE.

There was a huge gingerbread house where you could decorate your own cookies

The girls in their parka's

Everything was made out of ice and it was pretty cool. They keep the temperature at 12 degrees, so it was pretty CHILLY!!

Me and baby Court Court

Courtney and Jaci coming down the slides made out of ice

Courtney & Jaci

Courtney's glasses fogging over

They specifically told us NOT to put our tongues on the ice

After we left the Gaylord, they wanted to go back to Frisco to shop. So we stopped by there for several hours before coming home. I think all the girls had a good time - and most of all, Court had a great birthday. I am still trying to recuperate!