Birthday Week Re-cap

She doesn't want me to stick a Barbie in the cake next time. Her words not mine.

The presents from Mom & Dad... or Auntie.
BTW, those bubbles are truly that large, and she filled it about a quarter full of pea gravel. I can't bring myself to throw them away. Seriously.

She has wanted paints for a very long time.

The Ariel costume that is "just like Madelyn's."

This giant bubble wand is one of those things that she saw on television and Ooo'd and Awww'd over. Thanks to her little friends who joined us for a birthday lunch and brought this coveted wand with them. She uses it also to whack at some of my plants. Does not make Mama happy.

Typical outfit - the crown was from her VIP day at school.

I had to add in this picture from the night we went to dinner with Auntie, JW and "Uncle Bictor."
We waited forever and all the kids were so good. Sydney, well she's my little ray of sunshine.

One of the other rockstars who was so good to wait forever for some dinner. Notice the sun has now gone down. Oh how I just love to snuggle him. He loves him some Auntie time too.

Happy Birthday Noelle

We've been celebrating since Saturday. She has loved almost every gift, even if she thinks everything we gave her was from her Auntie. She informed me that next year she does not want me to put a Barbie in her cake. (picture to come) Despite my efforts, Boo is the big winner for buying her a hula hoop.

The Pretty Poppy

If any of my blog readers out there need a personalized gift check out the Pretty Poppy at their Etsy Shop.

Also, check out this great letterpress shop, out of Idaho, The Dingbat's Agenda. I love letterpress - mostly because I'm a tactile person and well with letterpress I can actually feel the words. Mmmmm.... makes me so happy. When I'm rich I will have monogrammed letterpress stationary.

Go take a look at both of these little shops.

Utah

We don't usually travel to Utah this time of year, ie. winter. But it was nice to see the mountains all covered in snow and to play in it for a day or two. Sure glad we were able to see all of our families and a few friends while we were at it.Uncle Riley's farewell

Noelle with Frank the cat

Playing dress-ups with some cousins

Sydney and Cassie being cuties together

Noelle enjoying snow! Good thing I bought her some snow pants two years ago and they finally fit and we found a use for them.

The Grand Finale

Man o' man are we going to sleep good tonight. We worked all day long so that we could get all of our grass finished. But we're excited to have our own miniature soccer field and play ground in our back yard. It feels great to be finished with this massive project. Not sure I'd tackle it again in the same fashion (would probably hire more day laborers.) Here's to no more shoveling and no more mud baths.

The play set was assembled by Boo while the girls and I were in Utah. I've already hit my quota on time standing there pushing the swingers. Not my favorite thing. Also the gravel came on Thursday afternoon and since I couldn't find any young men to help shovel it out of the driveway I paid some young women. They were great workers and better sports about it all.