7th Birthday Fun - Part II

Well, the weekend o' birthday festivities continued over the past few days and I think it's safe to say LO had a tremendously awesome birthday! After the birthday pancakes and gifts from mommy, daddy and her brothers on Friday morning, it was time for a trip to the movie theater to see Planes: Fire & Rescue (which I really LOVED, btw, as well as the kids). Dinner was a trip to Red Robin, per the birthday girl's request, complete with singing and an ice cream sundae.

Before we knew it, Sunday was here and, after church, it was time for her big birthday party at the local water park! YAY!

She had a lot of fun with her friends, especially this sweet girl.

Mmmmm, pizza!

E had his share of pizza, too. Daddy was feeding him pizza pieces with a plastic knife... Yum!

After pizza it was time for the CAKE! Check out this amazing masterpiece (and, as if I even need to mention it, I did not make this georgeousness)!

This year, I decided to use Icing Smiles to make a dream cake for both LO's and Chase's birthdays. Icing Smiles is a national non-profit organization that partners with local bakeries across the country to provide dream cakes for medically-fragile children and their siblings. This was something I had always considered doing for the kids, but I wanted to wait until after Chase was post-Fontan (3rd scheduled heart surgery). I heard about this amazing organization from other heart families and have seen some amazing works of art provided for these kids! LO's cake was certainly no exception! She was blown away by this cake. The unexpected bonus? LO has ONE Ariel doll that sings and plays music, so she can't get wet (obviously). Well, our amazing baker purchased an Ariel doll to complete the cake that was made to be used in the water -- pool, bath tub, etc. LO couldn't believe it and was completely thrilled!

Isn't it gorgeous?

Speaking of gorgeous... this girl!

Time to open gifts! Yay for more books!!!

The My Little Pony Monopoly game? This thing is AWESOME! We played it last night -- LO, Chase and I -- and it was amazing how much math fun we were able to do with this game! Chase was counting the numbers on the dice and the spaces, as well as counting the money to buy property and pay taxes, etc.! And I was blown away at how well LO was able to figure out payments, change, etc. This is definitely a must-have for fun learning through play!

Rainbow Dash purse? Check!!

Now this is gonna be hilarious. I can't wait to bust out this Just Dance Disney Wii game the next time the kids earn some screen time. It's been so wonderful being "unplugged" for the past month or so, and it makes it really awesome for when we DO turn on the TV/Wii/etc. that it's a real treat and a reward, and not the norm any longer. Win!!

This guy. He was AWESOME at the water park all day. Love!

One of her absolute faves? Applejack, of course! Her MLP collection from Build-A-Bear is complete... that is, until they release the next one!

She's smitten!

The one and only DVD she requested: Barbie's A Pony Tale. Because we can't get enough horses around here!

Another board game -- this time it's The Little Mermaid! I can't wait to play this one with her!

After the cake it was time to hit the water park again! Here's my girl waiting patiently to go down one of the ginormous slides.

The water park party was a huge success for the kids -- LO had a blast, as did Chase (although I'm realizing he wasn't around for many pics) and E did great as well. In fact, he eventually snuck in a nap!

After the water park, we came back home so LO could open a few last gifts that Gramma & PaPa delivered.

She loves making duct tape accessories with her cousin, so this gift was a great fit!

Now for this ginormous box from Gramma & PaPa...

WHAT? An amazing telescope for our girl! She was totally stoked! Our science curriculum this year is an entire textbook of: ASTRONOMY, so this gift is perfect for her!

I still can't believe this girl is 7. I love her so much and I am so thankful for the relationship we have. She's my best girl!!!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for her party, for the birthday wishes, gifts, and love for our sweet girl!

7th Birthday Fun - Part I

Well, I guess it's true! My sweet baby girl is turning *7* today!!! I still can barely believe it. Time really does go by waaaaaay too fast!

So we started the big day with our usual celebratory fare: birthday pancakes!

Then LO was able to open her gifts from Mommy, Daddy and her brothers. She was pretty excited about it and I couldn't imagine making her wait all day to open them (more for my own sanity than anything else... LOL!).

First up... one of the My Little Pony books she's been pining for!

I think she was happy. ;)

Another new My Little Pony book! Terrible pic, but she was pretty ecstatic to see this one, too!

New pj's!

Oh... she's pretty happy to see what's in this next box!

A dress with a pony?! SCORE!!! :)

A new framed pic for her horse-themed bedroom! I took this photo when she and I went to visit my friend and her horse. She was so excited to help care for the horses! I took this one of her and Beau when she took him out to graze, then matted and framed it to match her room! I can't wait to see this one up on her wall!

This last gift was tricky! I wrote a note on it that said to open it ONLY IF she loves to read. Of course, she does and of course, she opened it...

It's her new Kindle Paperwhite! I gotta admit, I was pretty stoked to see a ridiculous deal on these things when I logged into Amazon a few months ago (yes, months). I'm a fan of all things Apple, so adding a non-Apple electronic to the family was a pretty big deal for us, but it was such an amazing deal, I would've been crazy to pass on it. I still don't know how to use the thing, but I was able to get several books she's been wanting to read on it for her to get started with, so I guess that's a pretty big win. And I have no doubt she can show me how it all works by the end of the day. ;)

There's much more to come for our birthday weekend o' fun! A movie, dinner at her fave restaurant and a party at the water park are all on the schedule! It will be super great!

I love this girl bunches and I can't wait to celebrate HER all weekend long!!!

What a Journey... SEVEN Years!

Happy 7th Birthday to my sweet girl! What a crazy journey this motherhood thing has turned out to be! My sweet LO is everything I could have ever hoped for in a daughter -- and then some! I love her SO SO SO SO much and am so grateful God chose me to be her mommy!

My Sweet LO Finally Arrived - July 25, 2007 @ 11:48 PM!

One!

Two!

Three!

Four!

Five!

Six!

I cannot wait to see what her big 7th birthday weekend brings us! I just love this girl bunches!!!

Catch Up

Just a few things to get caught up on during this busy summer...

We bought a play set for the kiddos. They LOVE it. I love tossing them outside to play without having to provide 37 toys/games/instructions on how to entertain themselves. Win!



We've got two more big projects coming up for our backyard and I'm totally stoked about both. More details to come soon!

After almost six weeks for a "10 day" repair on our Sienna, we were finally able to get it back! I was SO happy to have my family complete once more!



I'm still so totally in love with my new china cabinet. In fact, I'm looking forward to my mom returning from a trip to my grandparents' home in PA because she's bringing some of their old furniture back and I've got dibs on refinishing some of it! Woot!!!



We've spent a lot of time at the library this summer. The kids love the computer games and of course LO loves the books. I let her get her very own library card last week!



After scheduling appointments months ago, both kids had a dentist appointment yesterday. LO has been a few times ready; it would be Chase's first time (share your #momfail lectures for later... 😉 as much as that boy of mine has been through, I haven't wanted to force anything else on him!). So with Chase, he has to have an antibiotic one hour before any procedure, even just a cleaning, so getting that taken care of was a feat in and of itself. LO's appt. was at 10:45 and Chase's was at 11:15. He would watch her do it and then have his turn to be brave! I gave him his pre-med at 10:15, had been talking up this visit for weeks, and left at 10:30. ON OUR WAY THERE, at 10:40, the dentist office left me a message that they couldn't see Chase today because the dentist was home with a migraine. OMG. And they were trying to reach me "before I gave Chase his pre-med." Really. I was so bummed because I felt like we really lost the momentum of having Chase take his turn and he ended up not impressed with the dentist and isn't looking forward to coming back next week. It's gonna be a fight, y'all. I'm so disappointed. He did sit back in the chair (to watch the tv on the ceiling), but it took a LOT of begging. Not looking forward to next week...



Today's a big day! LO and I leave for her first-ever SUMMER CAMP! It's with our church, for kids who have completed 1st & 2nd grades, and is only through Saturday. She's really excited because she'll get to ride a horse! There will be lots of other fun to be had as well. Can't wait to share updates!

All THREE of my kids picked out new Crocs for the summer. The strap on LO's old pair broke, and Chase had been wearing to same pair for about 2-3 years now I think. After tripping and falling and busting up his right knee twice in 2 days, I figured he'd outgrown his Crocs and needed a new pair as well. And E loves his too! They're much easier to put on than his sandals and surprisingly stay on really well too! So cute!!!






Guess I'd better start laundry and packing for camp! It's gonna be a LONG few days, but I can't wait!

Everything in it's Place!

I wanted to share some pics of my newly transformed china cabinet now that I've moved all of my china in! I apologize for the poor photos, but the battery on my dSLR needs charged and I'm just lazy that way. So here are a bunch of photos from my ol' iPhone!

I'm really really really happy with how this turned out! I couldn't believe I had so many boxes of china stored in our spare closet! Now that I've had a chance to go through it and store it all in the cabinet, it will be so much easier to grab (and wash) a few settings whenever I need to, making an ordinary dinner extra special in a matter of minutes! I'm so excited!