Ella's Birthday Weekend!!

Ella had an eventful birthday weekend! My mom talked to me a couple months ago about taking her to Waco, TX to do a fun birthday girls trip for her 13th birthday. We weren't sure it would work with the Rockets playoff schedule, but with some help we were able to make it happen. I surprised her and picked her up early on Friday from school and told her we were taking her on a road trip to Waco. She is interested in being an Interior Designer and likes the show "Fixer Upper", so we thought it would be fun to show her where it is filmed since it's only about 3 hours from Houston. She was excited and off we went. 
Well...little did we know, but the weather turned pretty bad and there were tornado warnings around when we were trying to leave. After a prayer, we decided to move forward with our plans and head out. We left and hit some pretty bad rain, stopped a few times, but then after about 30 minutes were ok the rest of the way. We found out later that there were funnel clouds behind us and the road we had taken flooded not long after we left. We were blessed for sure!
Our first stop was Bucees. Grandma bought her a slurpee and some candy so she was thrilled!

That was the beginning of a LOT of sugar for the weekend. ;) 

When we got to Waco, we went to Inn and Out Burger for dinner. I love Burgers, but this one was a little bit disappointing. We then went and did a little shopping for Ella at Target and Hobby Lobby and headed to our rental house. 

The house was small and cute, but it was not in a location we expected and completely in the middle of no where and kind of in the ghetto of a town called McGregor. We made it work and it was fine. 

Ella used her new watercolors and we played Five Crowns and watched Planet Earth. 

She was excited to hang out and share the king size bed with me! 

Ella was fascinated by all the snails on the porch ;) Sadly I didn't see one...whoops!

The next morning we headed to the Magnolia market.  

We looked around and saw what all the hype was about. We also took a short shuttle tour around the square.  

Of course we tried the famous Silos cupcakes, and they were DELICIOUS! 

We ended our outing at Barnes and Noble where she picked more birthday presents and then we went to Olive Garden where she chose dinner. 
We had a nice time with my mom and sister and I am very grateful for their willingness to take time and money to make the trip happen and entering into Teenagehood fun for Ella!!

On Sunday, May 5th, her actual birthday, we had a low key day. It was fast Sunday so we went to church and then Ella decided to take inventory of all their beanie boos ;) haha. They have 163 between them! 

Afterward we had dinner and opened presents. 

She got some drawing stuff for sketching, gift cards, a squishmallow, and another beanie boo. 

She got a camera which is what she wanted. 

This shirt just reminded me of her, and she agreed.

Then she had asked to do Tie Dyed shirts, so we did our best to make them work. 

They turned out ok even though they faded a lot on the first wash.

Then we had cake! I am so grateful for Ella. She is a great oldest child and a good example. She LOVES to read and is an experienced speed reader. She read a almost 700 page book on the 3 hour drive home. She reads everything! She also is very into music. She always has songs playing and she just loves music. She has a natural talent for music as well and does well on the cello and singing and when she practices, she could be great at the piano as well. She also is great at drawing and making Caricatures. She still is obsessed with anything SOFT and is very tactile and loves stuffed animals or beanie boos. She is a pretty even, happy girl and we love her and hope teenage years are kind to us all!