Eliza's 12th Birthday

Eliza's 12th birthday is pretty special! The youth of the stake went to the Philadelphia Temple Open House today. What a special opportunity to tour the temple on her 12th birthday!  I packed her a fun lunch for the bus ride up, with Happy Birthday stickers on her food. We celebrated yesterday since she was going to be gone all day today. I am so proud of who she is becoming!

Sadie's 3rd Birthday

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Happy 4th Birthday, Eliza

Today my little Lizie turned four years old! She belongs to Toys R Us's Birthday Club so she had received a birthday card and a gift card from them in the mail. David took her to Toys R Us last night to pick out a toy and spend her gift card. They gave her a balloon and a crown. David reported that Eliza walked all through the store showing minimal interest in most of the toys. He just followed her. Then she spotted the skate boards. She ran to them. He tried to show her the cheapest skate board but she said it was for boys and insisted that she get the pink one for girls. She came home and so proudly showed me her new skate board.

This morning when she woke up she came into my room and woke me up. Then she went back to her room and took her jamies off and put on her clothes. Then she made her bed and explained to David that she is a big girl now and she wears panties and makes her bed by herself because she is four now. So grown-up...

This afternoon my sister and her two boys came over for lunch and to celebrate Eliza's big day. Eliza got a fun box of princess dress up clothes from Grandma and a Play Tent from Mom and Dad. She is wearing her jamies in many of the pictures because when we set up the tent she immediately went and put them on. She gathered up pillows and blankets and set up camp inside. Later, after her cousin went home, she and Sadie were playing in the tent and had a dance party, something they often play when they dress up as princesses. What surprised me was when Eliza stuck her head in the window and said, "Mommy, we are having a dance party and all my boyfriends are here!" Oh dear! I didn't even know she knew the term "boyfriends." How many does she have? Does it matter? One is too many...

She had a hard time winding down for bed tonight. She took her My Little Pony to bed with her that her cousin, Wyatt gave her. She has been a little obsessed about the name of this pony all evening. I had thrown away the box. I finally looked it up. She'll be happy to learn tomorrow that the pony's name is Party Cake.

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Wyatt's Birthday

Last Saturday was my nephew, Wyatt's, fifth birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. The kids had such a great time. Eliza loved the rides and the climbing tunnel and slide.

Sadie loved playing games that spit out tickets. David said she just loved to pull the tickets out and then feed them to the ticket cashing in machine thing. For her prize, Sadie picked out a little bag of Pirate MoneyTo my amazement, I ran into one of best friends from high school at Chuck E Cheese. Here's Piper. My sister and her family live in our home town so thats where the party was. Piper lives in Tennessee now. She was visiting for the weekend and decided to bring her niece to Chuck E Cheese. What are the chances that both of us, who live out of town, would be at Chuck E Cheese at the same time? I had a great time catching up with my old friend! We used to run around so much and have so much fun together when we were young. It was an amazing treat to see her again.

Here we are at age 18 with Piper's boyfriend, Chopper, at my boyfriend, Kelly's, missionary farewell party. Chopper and I were the only Latter-Day Saints in our class at school so we were pretty close friends. The four of us (Chopper, Piper, Kelly, and I) had a lot of fun together.My sister, Molly, decided to have birthday cake at home instead of at Chuck E Cheese so that we'd have a way to encourage the kids to leave. Here is Wyatt's awesome Harry Potter cake.
Molly is a dog groomer by profession, and apparently a very good one, so naturally, I asked her to trim Eliza's bangs for me. Actually, since becoming a dog groomer, so many friends have asked her for hair cuts that she went ahead and bought a pair of human hair cutting scissors. Baby Elliot is so cute. The kids had fun blowing bubbles and playing in the backyard.What's a birthday party without a serious game of Mario Cart on the Wii?Happy Birthday, Wyatt. We love you!

Sadie's 2nd Birthday

Sadie's turned two a couple of weeks ago. We had a little birthday party for her last weekend. I made a Dora Ice Cream Cake. Sadie loved blowing out the candles! We all had a fun time! David and I gave her an easel because she Loves to color. Grandma gave her (and Eliza) a big dress up box full of costumes. Some of it she bought and some she had sewn herself. They have really enjoyed playing dress up every day since. After the little party we went to the pumpkin patch. I hope to post more about that later. I have tons of material I want to blog about, I just haven't taken the time lately. :)

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Eliza's 3rd Birthday

On Monday our little Eliza turned three years old! She was SO excited about her birthday. This is the first year that she really anticipated her birthday. It was fun. On Monday morning I gave Eliza a new giant Dora Coloring Book and a pack of new triangle shaped crayons. Then we waited for Daddy to come home to have cake and open her other two presents and her birthday card from her grandparents in Alaska.

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