"The Sweetest Wish"

Wish Night 2011- The Sweetest Wish
I LOVE candy and I LOVED everything candy themed about the night,

there couldn't have been a more perfect theme in my opinion.

Look at these amazing centerpieces!

It is amazing how big this ballroom is. It is easy to forget.

I can't believe Natalie doesn't get nervous!

The Wish Kids greeting the guests into the ballroom.

Performing!!

The Candyman!!! He was awesome!

The Goodship Lollypop girls, Natalie's big dance.

Too cute!

Check out high how they were jumping. Their number went right into the finishing group number--the number that always transitions to the conga line. What an amazing song it was and the best conga line at wish night since we have been there.

Black Tie!

Love this!

Another of my favorite pics!

Isn't she cute?

They were SO proud of being twins! Aren't they adorable together?

I think this is my VERY favorite pic of the night! All night she kept singing at random moments when not much was going on. This is one of those moments and when I took her picture this is the pose she came up with.

She was SO insistent that she pose for a picture here.

At the end of a long and fun night!


The Artwork !

For the first year, some of Natalie's art was sold with the Wish Kid art in the silent gallery. In fact she and Stephen had quite a bit of artwork featured. Natalie was VERY proud of this and I think she was even prouder of Stephen's work!

Natalie's tile is the one with all the thumprints that are made to look like pumpkins and other things. It is VERY intricate and I waited patiently for a LONG TIME in the cermaic shop trying to keep The Colonel from acquiring any ceramic pieces through the 'you break it you pay for it' policy that I am sure they had. I LOVE how it turned out and even though it was a tough wait, I am proud of how much she loves to do artwork.

Stephen's tile also made it onto this mirror. His is the red and blue handprint on the right side. His two favorite colors! Too cute, it actually turned out very cute too and only took a 1/16 of the time Natalie took:)

Stephen's mosaic necklace. I still remember how much he enjoyed making this project.

Natalie's necklace was actually quite pretty and I was very tempted to buy it myself!

Stephen stayed with his friend for Wish Night, so he wasn't there to see all of his artwork on display. This was my FAVORITE!! I almost wanted to keep it the day he painted it because I liked it so well, so it makes me happy that they used it. It looked AMAZING framed and it sold for $300. When Natalie told him he made money to help other kids go on wishes he was beaming from ear to ear!!!

His bracelet.

This was another piece of artwork framed- a Colonel Original!! Looks great doesn't it?

One of the things I enjoyed the most about seeing all their artwork is that Natalie did an AMAZING job of getting people to bid on stuff during the silent auction. There were several people that she spoke to that bid on her or Stephen's things because of talking to her. It was so fun to see--especially to see how much fun they had interacting with her. She got a guy to bid higher on this bowl in the last 20 seconds of the auction! I was frankly amazed at how much some of their stuff sold for--it was really cool!

It is a little hard to see in this shot, but this bookshelf was incredible. All the wish kids helped paint it during breaks in rehearsal over several weeks. Natalie always stayed behind and would paint and paint until the very end--David works on the Saturday so I didn't mind letting her spend the time doing it. She had a ball helping paint it and remembered each part she helped paint. I seriously wanted to buy this bookshelf for our playroom. It was SO cool!


Dress Rehearsal

I really enjoyed some of the dress rehearsal pictures because we were standing up close. David got some really cute shots--in fact it was hard to just choose a few because they were so fun.

The Videos!