4th Birthday Interview

I'm trying to start a tradition where I interview the kids each year when they have their birthday. I've only done it with Annabelle so far, and this is her second year. I made these videos the day after her birthday. Once we are able to get some printer ink, I'll print out a cute form to put her answers on as well as her hand print and a picture.

Annabelle is 4!

Annabelle's birthday was this Wednesday. She had a pretty fun and special day. She received generous amounts of money from some family members, which we were able to use to get her presents and things. She started out the day nice and early, opening her the presents we'd gotten her before Joseph got on the bus. She got the Little People Disney Princess Klip Klop Stable and Klip Klop Ariel.

She and Charlie played with the Little People set for a long time. We finally got them dressed and ready, and we headed out for the day. We went to Walmart where she bought an Elsa dress, which she'd been wanting for quite a while. Then we drove up to the mall. We browsed the Disney Store for a long time before she settled on Elsa and Anna dolls. We found her an Olaf at this awesome store called 2nd and Charles, it's like FYE on crack. We went to McDonald's for lunch, her pick, and Amber came to meet us there. She and Charlie spent a long time playing on the playground, and she got a nice cream to finish off her Happy Meal. We finally went home and she got to watch Frozen with her new dolls.

Soon, we got 3 boxes in the mail, 2 of which were for her! She opened her box from Grammy Ellis while Grammy was on FaceTime. She got lots of beautiful clothes and a pair of pretty Sunday shoes that she says are Elsa shoes. She put the polka-dotted pajamas on and wore them for over 24 hours.

After Joseph was home, we opened the other box from Grandpa and Grandma Brugger. She got Elsa slippers, two more Klip Klop Princesses, and lots of Color Wonder drawing stuff. She also got a much needed pack of panties. She spent almost the rest of the evening coloring with her new stuff. I was so tired from all the activity, plus I caught a respiratory virus, so I went to lay down. Her neighbor friend, Janina, came to play, and they colored, watched Frozen twice more, and just had too much fun while I was resting. Her dinner request was pizza, so we got a Papa John's pizza and breadsticks.she barely ate half her dinner before passing out in bed with her new dolls.

Annabelle's 4th Birthday Party

We had Annabelle's birthday party on Saturday. Mitchell had to work, so he wasn't able to be there, but we had a few guests there. Annabelle's friend, Alaina, the neighbor girl, Janina, Grandpa Ellis, Grandma Sally, and Aunt Cami were all at the party. Sadly, I was so busy wrangling kids that I didn't get very many pictures.

This is her opening her present from Grandpa, Sally, and Cami. It was the DVD of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

This is the dessert table. I made candied apples with white chocolate dyed green to look like the poison apple from the movie. There were miniature berry and cherry pies. And the apple cake. I wish I'd had the chance to get a better picture of the cake because it was really cute.

This was the food table. We had chicken and dumplings, which was Annabelle's request, as well as an apple-walnut salad with a red wine vinaigrette, mini baguettes, and fruit.

This was the drink table, with water, apple Izze, and apple juice for the kids.

Annabelle, Janina, and Charlie loved watching Snow White. You can see Annabelle's huge smile because she enjoyed the movie so much.

I'm glad everything went pretty well. I was a little too ambitious (again...) and had planned to do way more stuff, but I ran out of time. It was fun for Annabelle, though. and that's what was most important.

 

Good Stuff

I had a great birthday yesterday, but I'll have to elaborate later because Mitchell and I are in the middle of an "at-home" date. I just had to take a break to send the content for the RS Newsletter that I work on, and I didn't want to take a hit for not blogging today.

The Good and Bad.

The last few days have been pretty crazy. Last week, I had some kind of virus. I'm pretty sure it was the flu because of the severity of the symptoms and how quickly it went away, but Mitchell says it was a cold. Pretty much everyone else got it, but I had it the worst. And then I threw out my back on Sunday morning, and it's been slowly healing since then. So I've been barely doing the minimum requirements to get my family by.

The best things that have happened were being brought groceries from ward members both yesterday and today. We've also received clothes and a gift card. It has been so amazing how much help we have been receiving from our amazing ward. We also FINALLY got our food stamps card in the mail. And we got an Amazon gift card from our credit card rewards that we are using to get some of those more expensive home supplies like A/C filters and printer ink.

So I guess the point of this all is that there are always great blessings even when it seems like things suck.

Oh, and it was Mitchell's 30th birthday last week. It was fun!

Annabelle's Princess Party - Arrival and First Presents

When the kids arrived, they each had a crown to decorate. With the help of one of the moms the night before, we made a Sleeping Beauty crown for each girl. Joseph and the other little boy had crowns to decorate that I got at Dollar Tree.

Here she is modeling the crown her crown after decorating it. Doesn't she look so happy? ;) She was so distracted by everything going on.

Each of the girls also had a paper "berry basket" with jewelry, tattoos, and a princess toy in it. We kept the tattoos out of reach for the party, but they were able to get dressed in their jewelry.

 I didn't have a basked for Joseph, but he had a sword and shield instead. He was very precise in decorating his crown and only put jewels in the obvious jewel spots at the top.

He was so excited to be a prince.

Before we could start the tea party, Annabelle needed to open two of her presents. We had bought her a tea and dinner set from IKEA.

Isn't she so pretty?! And I love the Sleeping Beauty dress she picked out at Kid-to-Kid.

I was so worried about her dropping the tea set on the ground.

She was better at letting me support the dinner set.

Annabelle's Princess Party - The Decorations & Food

Annabelle's 3rd birthday was the 22nd of October and I threw her a Sleeping Beauty Princess Tea Party. I stayed up too late too many nights making decorations for her party, but it looked so great!

I made the Happy Birthday out of glitter foam sheets and her name out of felt. When she woke up in the morning, one of the first things she pointed out was this and she said, "Look, Mom! It says "Happy Birthday, Annabelle!"

I wanted the house to look like a castle and I came up with a fun idea to hang the streamers like a roof. I just loved the way it looked.

Also in the upper left corner, you can sort of see her Birthday balloons. One was a foil Princess Crown and then two pink balloons. She was so excited when I brought them to her and she played with them until they couldn't say up on their own anymore.

We used Mitchell's art desk as the food table. I made the stained glass window hanging over it. 

We had Hot Chocolate with toppings, pink lemonade, strawberry cupcakes, tea cakes (pound cake with icing), cucumber sandwiches and cream cheese & jelly sandwiches cut into crowns, lemon cookies, dipped pretzel rods, dipped marshmallows, and berries.

One of the moms brought fresh roses from her garden, and they were so beautiful!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a great birthday today. Mitchell brought me donuts when he came home from work, and then he did the dishes for me! We went to Denny's for breakfast, which was really nice. Later, we went to the mall and I got 3 amazing smelling lotions from Bath and Body Works; they were having a sale, which is why I got 3. We spent some time in the afternoon watching Season 2 of Adventure Time, which Mitchell bought with a birthday card his brother gave him. Then for dinner, we went to Mimi's Cafe. We were really disappointed there to find out they no longer have their beignets, which were the best part about Mimi's. It was all still really delicious, though. I got to Skype with my mom for a while, and then my really good friend, Kaydee, brought me a present! It's a book that I'm just starting to read. I got so many birthday messages on Facebook, text messages, emails, and phone calls today, which made today even more special. I think this has been one of the best birthdays I've ever had! Now, if Charlie will just go to sleep so it can end well, too... ;)