Care Bear Party!

Yesterday we celebrated our big girl's 4th birthday! 

She chose to have a Care Bears party this year. We let her choose her theme and that's what she decided on! Bring on the flashbacks to when I was her age! Crazy!!

We prepped all week for the party cleaning the house, running errands, etc. And on Friday, some rainbows started to appear in the form of cake batter....my fun little experiment for the party (more to come on that soon!)!

Avery woke up yesterday raring to go and ready to party. Of course she had to wait until 3pm for it to start! I started working on decorating her cake at around 9am. It took about an hour and a half and it was done! I was pretty happy with how it turned out!

Decorations were put up, balloons bought...we were ready to party!

And two little girls just bursting with excitement!

The day started out very ugly. It rained pretty much all morning and I was dreading having 35 people inside tearing up the house. I ran out to get the balloons around 1 and it looked like the sun was going to peek out. Sure enough, by party time, it was all blue skies and sunshine....ended up the perfect day for a party-yay!

And good weather means bringing out the bounce house! Yahoo!

While the kids played, we got the food all set up....and more rainbows:

like the rainbow? We had purple cups too!

Loved this...huge hit too!

After we ate (burgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, green salad, beans), the kids did a quick game of pin the belly badge on the care bear (game courtesy of my husband!):

My Aunt and Uncle, Dad and Colleen

Then it was present time...

And time for cake....

Singing

And my rainbow cake batter....well....it looked awesome!

Strawberry buttercream filling and regular buttercream frosting

I totally loved how it came out!

Once cake was all cleaned up, I brought out our last batch of rainbows...a rainbow candy buffet for the kids! This is what I decided to do for their favors and it was a huge hit! I hate the little knick knacks that kids get at parties-it almost always goes in the trash (sssshhhh don't tell the kids that!). So I figured I'd spend money on something that would get used (eaten!) instead. And everyone loved it!

runts, M&M's, gummy worms, gummy fruits, starburst, skittles, spree, gumballs

And of course I had to try and get a few family shots while I had someone else there to use my camera!

Miss Cassandra

Gabe, Avery, Cass, and I

All of us with my in-laws

The party was a lot of fun-everyone had a great time! We're so thankful to have the family and friends that we have and we are so glad we got to celebrate our girl with them!!

Four!

Today celebrates the day that I first became a Mama.... my big girl's birthday!

Another year has gone by and it's hard to believe she is four years old.  I keep hearing/thinking "one more year until school!" How is that possible?

We started a tradition for our kids' birthdays...Gabe and I both take the day off and we do something special with them. Avery is old enough now that we let her choose what she wants to do. We've been asking her for weeks what special thing she wanted to do. Her answer? The Buffalo zoo!  Unfortunately the forecast on her birthday wasn't looking too good so we prepped her just in case.

We got up this morning and all got ready to hit the road. It was overcast, but not raining so we headed to the zoo. My friend Megan and her kids met us there, which was really nice! We got there around 12:30 or so and made a beeline to see the baby polar bears they have.  On our way we saw the zebras:

Then we saw the two baby bears. They're not all that small anymore though! But they sure were playful! One was playing with this ball hanging from a tree:

and the other was swimming:

The meerkats were all huddled together and looked so cute!

and we went through a rainforest and there were these really tiny monkeys curled up together. There's actually 2 of them in this photo curled into one big ball!

We went to the reptile building and as we were there, it started pouring! We hung out in there for probably a good half hour waiting to see if it would stop (and it didn't). While there, I took some pics of the kids:

Noah and Leigha

A sweaty Cassandra

And trying to get pics of two 4yr olds isn't the easiest task.....

Avery's silly face

Avery looking away

Noah's silly face

Avery was dying to see the giraffes since our zoo doesn't have any. Of course we were at the opposite end of the zoo and it was still pouring out. We decided to high tail it to the giraffe building and check them out since it was on our way to the exit of the zoo. And it was nice that they were inside because we were pretty close to them and we were the only ones in the building!

After the zoo we went to my Mom's house for a visit. Avery got to open a few gifts from her and my Aunt.

And Nama got some time with her girls!

Mini Me!

We went out for dinner with my Mom and had a nice meal, complete with birthday cake! I have a few pics on my phone, but none on my camera.  Then we drove home and all went to bed! 

Since it was a busy day, we didn't get to give Avery her presents. So when she woke up the next day, she got to open them!

She yelled "OH MY GOSH" at every gift!

Cass liked the bubbles

Hmmmm...what could it be?!

A new bike!!!

Some things you are into these days....care bears, Barbies, princesses, and you love reading books. You're not a fan of the outdoors at all! You still love your fruit...you could eat it all day long. You're not a very adventurous eater, but you're very good at trying things. You love soup, Ramen noodles, yogurt, PBJ, and are obsessed with "treats". You are great at counting and know all of your numbers and letters. You're writing your name very well now too! You are a great big sister, although at times you're not the best at sharing things (which is to be expected). You are a Daddy's girl for sure but you have your Mommy moments too! The 4 year attitude makes its appearance here and there-some days you are like Jekyl and Hyde! We love every challenging minute of it (well, maybe not every minute).

Happy 4th Birthday, Avery! You are such a special girl and you light up our lives every day! We are so proud to be your parents!

Seventeen Months Old!

Yesterday Cassandra turned seventeen months old!

She's still wearing mainly 12 month clothes now. Still in size 3 diapers for day and size 4 for overnight.

Her sleeping is still the same-11-12 hours overnight and an afternoon nap. She has some nights here and there where she cries for a minute but then she'll fall right back to sleep which is good. She also has some nights where it takes her a long time to fall asleep-but she rarely cries. She mostly just plays in her crib and babbles until she falls asleep.

She's still a pretty good eater. She seems to be getting pickier as time goes on though. She used to love meat-chicken, beef, etc...now she won't touch any of it. As soon as she sees it, she throws it on the floor. She won't even try it! She still loves her fruit though-I swear it's pretty much all she eats some meals! She tried kiwi this month and loved it! Big surprise! Haha!

This girl is quite the chatterbox. She says so many things I'm sure I forget to write half of them down! Words that I did write down for this month include:  "bye poopy!", "book", "A-vy" (Avery), "hair", "eye", "ear", "bee ba-bo" (poopy diaper), "ni moo" (Goodnight Moon), "old lady", "hush", "hold it", "why?", "oh boy". One new thing you do all of the time is go "mmm hmmm" and it's so funny! Whenever we ask you something, that's how you respond! You also ask "why?" about everything, especially if we tell you "no" for something! You also have started trying to sing along with me, especially for "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"...it's so cute!

Over Memorial Day weekend, you really became a walker! I'd say you half walked, half crawled for maybe a week and then there was no turning back! Once you figured out the walking thing, you barely crawled ever again!  We also got you your first pair of real walking shoes!

Early this month your separation anxiety really kicked in. I couldn't leave the room without you freaking out and yelling "MAMA!" If I wasn't around, no problem. If you knew I was around, forget it....you had to be glued to my side!  I'm hoping it doesn't last too long because it's hard to do anything (like going to the bathroom, etc) some days!

Let's just say that taking your picture is next to impossible too....you don't care for it one bit! As soon as I put you in the chair, all you want to do is either rock the chair like a crazy girl or climb out. So I really don't have any great ones this time around!

can you tell we're trying to distract her?

saying "old lady" while looking at Goodnight Moon

rocking the chair

My faves:

reading her book

starting to assume "the position"

assuming the position....she does this all.day.long!

Flashback: Avery at seventeen months old!