SIX!

Someone celebrated a birthday over the weekend in our house.

Avery turned 6! I can't believe I have a 6 year old! Mind.blown.

What's my 6 year old like?  She's fun, energetic (I wish I had a fraction of her energy), independent, sassy and loving (most of the time).

She's still in gymnastics, although taking a break for the summer. She loves school (yay!) and was sad to see it end last week. She loves coloring and drawing. She loves having us read to her too. And since she's learning to read, she does well finding words in the books too. This year she has really enjoyed riding her bike a lot. She also got some roller skates for her birthday and can't wait to test them out. Favorite foods these days include waffles, pancakes, any and all fruit, spaghetti, chicken, yogurt. She's been more "daring" with trying new foods lately which is good. Her and Cassie get along pretty well for the most part. We of course have our days and moments, but they really do love each other and play together quite a bit.

So how did we celebrate turning 6 (besides some parties?)?

Well, the day started with breakfast in bed because that's what the birthday girl requested.

They both ended up having breakfast in the spare room bed so they could watch a TV show (special birthday treat).

Then she opened some gifts from us....some clothes,

and a plasma car!

At her friend party last weekend, she had kids bring in donations for the animals at a local shelter. So, we decided to go and drop them off. The staff took her picture to put on their website and of course we checked out all of the animals while we were there.

After that, we stopped at our favorite local diner for lunch. Except that we all ordered breakfast food-including the usual huge birthday pancake!

The rest of the day we just hung around and played. The weather was terrible-it rained literally all day long. Her family party was the next day, so we spent a lot of time getting the cake ready and cleaning the house too. Our dinner that night was going to a frozen yogurt place since we had such a late (and huge!) lunch. Overall, it was a great day!

Happy 6th Birthday Avery! We love you so much!!

Turning 6-Party #1!

Avery's 6th Birthday is next weekend. She wanted a party with some of her classmates so we gave her a few options of where to have it.

Surprisingly, she chose a pool party at a local Rec center. We had never been there, but the place was pretty darn cool!

Lazy River

As you can see from the photos, there was a splash park, water slide and lazy river area. There was a larger pool as well (looked like for lap swimming) but we never went in it.

Avery ended up with 9 kids coming, which was the perfect amount! About half of the parents stayed too, which was helpful.

Avery and Cassie

We had the first hour as swim time and the kids really loved it.

Then it was up to the party room for food, cake and gifts. We did the party at an "off" time of day so all we did was snacks, which made it super easy!

Avery We decided this year that instead of gifts, we would have each kid bring a donation to a local animal shelter instead. She really doesn't need anymore toys and since she wanted a cat themed party, I thought this was a good idea. We had a lot of good feedback on it as well-the kids loved shopping for the animals!

After she opened gifts, we did cake!

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Make a wish!

Before they all left, we got a quick group photo!

And I found a woman locally who makes amazing cookies! She made us these for favors to give each kid! So freakin' adorable!

After we got home, I took a picture of Avery with all of the donations she collected! We'll be taking them to the animal shelter very soon! I'm so proud of her!

One party down, one to go next weekend!

Long Overdue

Over the weekend, we took a long overdue trip to Buffalo.  We haven't been there in at least 2 months I'm guessing...which is a long time for us!

Megan and Renee and their kids stopped by for some fun!

Puzzles:

Celebrating Noah's birthday a month late!

Cassandra loving up a "baby" (Sabrina-who's just as big as her!)!

Sabrina

As you can see, my friends have very tall kids....Sabrina is 20months old and Cassie is 3!

Leigha is only about 11wks older than Cassie!

Cassie and Leigha, Noah and Avery!

We had a nice, relaxing day! And at the end, my girls showed that they do love each other-well, at least Cassie loves her big sister! Haha!

No plans to go back yet, but hopefully now with summer vacation coming, we can go sooner rather than later. Although we do have a special birthday coming up which is interfering with our weekends!

Happy 2nd Birthday Dylan!

Yesterday we went and celebrated Dylan turning 2!

It was a great day-nice and sunny out and a little on the cool side. Perfect day for a party! We went to our friends' house around 4 to get things started!

The kids enjoyed playing some putt-putt on their putting greens they had set up!

Lots of playing on the swingset too! After some pizza and dinner, we had some delicious ice cream cake!

Dylan loves Mario Brothers so I think he was in awe of the cake!

After cake, it was time for presents! Yes, he stripped down for those!

After presents, we all went back outside to play some more. They started a fire in the firepit and we enjoyed that a bit. We left before the marshmallow roasting, which the kids were disappointed about, but we had to get them home!  It was a super fun party! Happy 2nd Birthday Dylan!!

Mother's Day

We had a nice Mother's Day yesterday.

For the past probably 6 years, we've done brunch at the local Hyatt hotel. It was always very nice and the kids always loved the kids area they had there. Last year, the buffet went downhill quite a bit from the years before so we really debated going back there this year. We decided to give them one more shot.  However, when my Father-in-Law called for reservations, he found out they were not having a brunch there this year!  So, we sort of scrambled to find a place to go!

We ended up at another hotel nearby called the Strathallen. Gabe and I did an overnight there back in February and it was very nice. The food at the restaurant was really good, so we hoped the buffet would be comparable.

And it was!

Before eating, we took a few photos...the Moms:

Me, my Mom, Aunt Pat, Camille, Molly, Ela

Gabe, Cassie, Avery and I

I took a few pics of the buffet, but didn't get the entire thing...

Desserts!

Seafood table

It was a pretty good spread. They had an omelet station and made on the spot eggs benedict. Also waffles, blueberry pancakes, bacon, sausage, pasta, vegetables, fried chicken. They had a carving station of salmon, ham, prime rib, pork. They had quite a seafood spread, which I didn't really look at. They also had a long table set up of bagels, croissants, pastries, yogurt, granola, and a salad bar. And of course, the crazy spread of desserts!  I think everyone really enjoyed it!

Group photo!

Once we got home, Cassie napped and we just lounged around most of the day. It rained out so it wasn't the nicest of days. It was nice to just spend time together and just chill. We don't get many of those days too often!

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Tooth Fairy

We've had some excitement around here!

My big girl lost her first tooth!

On Monday, 4/13, Avery came home from school all excited that she had a wiggly tooth. I was in her classroom that morning and she never said anything about it. I guess in the afternoon, she was eating her apple for her snack and her tooth was hurting her. Sure enough, I tried moving it and it was a little loose!

Over the past 10 days, she spent time wiggling it here and there and trying to gross me out-I HATE loose teeth. We were anxious to see how long it would take it to come out.

 Thursday I was getting dinner ready. We were having cheeseburgers. The kids always have theirs cut up. Well for some reason, both of them wanted it on a roll! I thought it was strange especially for Avery because she's been avoiding biting into anything with her wiggly tooth. But, I asked several times, and each time they said they wanted it on a roll.

Avery starts eating it and says how great it is and is really chowing down. All of a sudden she screams and it bleeding in her mouth. I think the sight/taste of the blood scared her more than anything. Once we got her calmed down, we realized the tooth was quite loose at this point (and I stepped away from the table because I was so grossed out). Gabe cut up her cheeseburger and she slowly ate another piece.  Then she just sat there and finally said, "Daddy, pull it out."

I was on the other side of the room but just heard Gabe say, "Does this hurt? How about this? Ok, spit it out."  Apparently he had a hard time grabbing the tooth so he just bent it back and forth as hard as he could (EEK!) and out it came. It bled quite a bit but once it stopped, she was quite excited that the Tooth Fairy would be coming that night!

And her gap is huge! Someone asked if 2 teeth came out-nope!

After dinner, she wrote her letter to the Tooth Fairy-with no help from us!

Let me translate:
"Dear Tooth Fairy, I just lost my first tooth and Daddy pulled it out. Thank you Tooth Fairy! I love you Tooth Fairy! Avery"

Her tooth went into her special pillow we bought her for Christmas and went next to her head at bedtime. She woke up yesterday with a $5 bill and a chocolate gold coin!

One down.....way too many to go ;)

Proud

We're both so proud of our big girl!

Avery's been rocking at kindergarten. She loves going to school and has really gotten into the routine of everything about it. She loves reading, loves doing homework, loves being with friends. So far, it's been a really great year for her.

And she got her first award the other day!

They had a program called "Reading Rockstars" and the kids had to set a daily and weekly reading goal that lasted about 6 weeks long. If the kid met their goal, they got an award. And Avery met her goal!

So the other night, I went with her to her award ceremony! I was very proud to hear them call her name and see her walk across the stage! My big girl's first school achievement!