She's Four

It was birthday time at our house again!  Honestly, I feel like we just had her 3rd birthday last week so it was really weird that she was turning 4.  Anyway the night before I blew up LOTS of balloons and we decorated the house with streamers and banners because this little girl was pretty excited about her birthday.  Originally I was going to decorate her doorway and just outside her room but she is in the habit of waking up once or twice a night and I wanted this surprise to wait till morning so we did the kitchen and dining room.

she really liked the crazy shaped balloon!

The night before as I was putting her to bed we were talking about her birthday and she asked if dad and I were going to draw her surprise pictures.  She does that for us on our special days and for friends when they have birthdays so of course that is what she wants us to do for her.  Good thing she said something cause I never would've thought to do that.  So here is her birthday breakfast with pictures from mom and dad!

 We let her open one present before dad left for work so she could have something to play with during the day.  It was a barbie kitchen table with chairs that don't break.

This girl loves to 'make something'.  At least that is what she is always asking to do.  Really it just means cut things, glue things and tape things.  All of which make a huge mess but it is all good for development so as long as she helps clean up (which we are still working on) I usually say 'sure'.  Today it was 'making something' with the streamers.

 She was born at 5:15pm so at this exact moment 4 years before this little gal was being pulled from my belly!

I was so proud of how this cake turned out.  This was my first time working with fondant.  I tried out the marshmallow kind and it was so easy.  I'm kind of excited to try it again.  Plus Addy was able to help me cut out the shapes and put them on.

I hope she made a good wish!

She also requested to go to McDonalds for her birthday dinner.  I really tried to convince her to choose something else because I really don't like eating there but that is really where she wanted so I happily went.  Then we came back for the cake and ice cream and a couple more gifts.  Plus she got to stay up extra late with mom and dad so she was one happy girl on her birthday!

Little Ballerina

We decided to start Addy in a little dance class this year.  It is actually a combo class so they teach a little gymnastics as well as dance.  She was so excited when I asked her if she wanted to start and then so sad when she found out it wasn't starting for a couple of months.  I guess I should've just waited till the actual day to tell her.  When the day came to start she still had to wait until the afternoon so I tried to think of fun stuff we could do to help the time go faster but she still asked me probably a hundred times if it was time to go yet.  We ended up taking lots of pictures because she had to show me all her dance poses.

She had me retake this picture because I didn't get all of her leg the first time!

So far we have gone twice and she has loved every second.  I love it because it helps get some of her energy out plus she gets to interact with more kids her own age.

 

Bar J Wranglers

My brother and sister along with her man, came up to visit and go to the Bar J over Labor day weekend.  We have loved having lots of visitors this summer and it had been quite awhile since these one's had been up.

We got there plenty early so we had lots of time to play games while waiting in the line.

The biscuits were a little messy for some of us!

So they have a new meal plan which is called the 'super combo'.  Mitch just ordered the steak but came over so excited about the other meal so I told him to upgrade and we could all share some of the food.  Well, instead of giving you another ticket stub, they hand you your own tray which is ginormous.  You then have to carry around until dinner because it is also your meal ticket!

This was an amazing amount of food: chicken, shredded beef, a huge steak, a slab of ribs, applesauce, beans, biscuit and spice cake.  And no he did not finish it all!

It was such a fun weekend and can't wait till next year to do it again!

Rigby Lake

I've been saying all summer that I wanted to take Addy out to Rigby lake because she loves to swim but even more than that, she loves to play in the mud.  We have a whole bunch of river rock under our deck in the backyard and she has cleared out a whole section this summer so that she can dig in the dirt.  It drives me crazy cause she is always filthy but I try to remind myself that she is just a kid and I would've wanted to do the same thing. 

This is seriously heaven for her!

I also love that she has no fear of the water...as long as she has her life jacket on.

why do my pictures always load sideways? This is such a cute picture that I just put it on anyways.

Cousin Week

In August, we had Gracie up for a fun cousins week. Sadly, I didn't take hardly any pictures of our fun adventures because my camera was acting weird. So I just have blurry ones from my phone.

For the most part they had lots of fun together!

happy faces

silly faces

On Monday, I had lots of errands to run and our first stop was the Verizon store.  We ended up being there two hours which could've been miserable with two little girls but turns out a camera is a great distraction and they were great!  When I went grocery shopping, they held my list with a pen and took turns crossing off all the stuff we got.

Seriously these two are such cuties!

The next day we went to the summer kid movie which was the chipmunk movie.  They spent lots of the movie dancing in their seats since it has lots of music in the show.

Wednesday we went to the pool.  Gracie was swimming and playing all over the place and Addy was so exhausted that she just wanted to sit in the chair and watch.  

Just before we left, she totally fell asleep in the chair.  I was amazed because she never does stuff like this.

 Another day we went to the zoo.  These girls loved it so much that we spent most of the afternoon here.  I just remember having to run Addy to the bathroom every half hour.  Apparently she was well hydrated that day!  There favorite animals were the goats.

The lion even though he spent most of the time asleep.

And who doesn't love the monkeys.  Especially when they come right over to the glass and stare at you!

We also spent a lot of time playing at the park and going on bike rides around the neighborhood. And since I was also in the middle of painting my bathroom, they were great to just play around the house too.  By the end of the week they were so tired that it was good to have a break from each other!