Nellies 9th Birthday

Nellie is 9, my how the years are flying by. It was an off year for a party so she just had a family party. She has been wanting a summer kind of cake and settled on a watermelon cake. It was pretty easy to make and pretty fun too. We were of course in the middle of moving again. Poor Nellie and Kevy! Their birthdays fall at just the wrong time for this! Too many moves have taken place around their birthdays. I hope one day to somehow make up for that.

I hope the kids one day look back with appreciation for all the cakes that I dreamed up for them.

 

I realized I didn't have any pictures of nellie with her present. But I did find this random one that one of the kids took. That's right Nellie got crutches for her birthday. That is what she really wanted and she uses them all the time!! Jane and Nellie play this game that they call " the broken leg game" where they are injured and the have casts and slings etc. I would think this was weird but I played it as a kid as I am sure many kids did. Having never had a broken bone I always thought it would be so awesome to have the attention. I know that is one of the reasons that they play as well. It's been really fun to watch Mellies and Janes relationship blossom. Now that Lizzy has gotten older and gotten into other things, these two play so well together. I am going to be so sad on the day when Nellie decides she is too old to play with Jane and Jane is on her own.

 

The State Fair

After living here for five years and not going to the state fair ever,  I decided that it might be fun since we hadn't done much this summer.  We decided to go on a free kids night because it is so expensive, that way we were only paying for me and Kevin.   This was yet another poorly planned event on our part.  We got down there pretty late, dinner time, the parking was pretty bad, so it took us forever just to park and walk into the fair.  We needed to eat so we spent a good portion of our time trying to find something to eat and then waiting in line for it. which would have been fine except Kevin had to be back home around seven, so by the time we finished eating we had maybe a half hour to try and do something.  It  was pretty ridiculous. So we just found the nearest exhibit. Luckily it was one for kids so that was good.

The food was alright, certainly not for the price that we paid, but that's life.

 

It was fun for the kids do a lot of the little hands on things.  By far the favorite was the giant bubbles.  but there was a pretty big crowd around them so we couldn't stay too long there.

 

 

We have decided that if we do this again we will for sure spend the whole day rather than trying to do it in a couple of hours.  Clara was still not the easiest baby at this time, so she was unhappy as well.  So overall, not the best trip, but that is ok.  The great thing is we always can try again next year.

Our Fun Fourth

We had a whole bunch of things planned to do on the Fourth this year. We were going to go to the parade in the morning, meeting Lizzy and Kevy there becuase they ran the 5k that morning. Then we were going to come home and go to some friends a little later for water games for the kids and then have a fun dinner with a bunch of friends and then do some fireworks that night. Well Nellie woke up with a sore throat after throwing up the night before and not feeling good and I just had this deep down sick feeling that she had strep. So we met Kevy and Lizzy at the parade. It wasn't that great but the kids enjoyed it alright. I took Nellie to the instacare after that where the nurse confirmed my suspicion that it was indeed strep. So we got to stay quarantined from everyone. We tried to make it fun for our kids and we tried to have a little dinner and Kevy got some fireworks for us to do, but everyone was sick and grumpy and Lizzy came down with strep too. It ended up being such a crappy day. We didn't even end up doing fireworks that night becuase we just wanted everyone to get feeling better. Kevy did take a few of the kids to watch the city ones that night. The crappiest thing of all was that we thought we would save the ones we bought and do them the next night, and then we found out that the fourth was the last day we could legally light them! It was so disappointing. It defintely is a day I won't remeber fondly!

 

On the bright side I got to dress this cutie up in this darling outfit. To bad no one really got to see her.

 

Clara's Baby Blessing

everyone was here for Joes wedding, so we decided it would be a good time to bless our sweet Clara! All of the baby blessings have been not or miss wit how many family members were around to participate. I think we may have had the most for this one though so that is pretty neat. It is crazy to think that we have our whole family here now! It makes me a little sad to think there won't be any more sweet baby blessings for us. Kevin gave another sweet simple blessing. The was they are supposed to be.

I think it is so special that all the girls were blessed in the same dress. It is very special.

I love too that Clara was able to wear booties that her namesake made. How special is that!!

I love this beautiful little family of mine!! I am still in complete awe all the time that these precious souls all belong to me!! I feel so very blessed.

I love this sweet little baby!! She has the sweetest little spirit and I am so grateful we have been so blessed to welcome her into our home!! I still can't believe we ever could have thought we were done before we had her, she really completes our family!