The Big Birthday Party

Every year we have a birthday party for the girls with the grandparents and any of the aunts and uncles who can make it.  The girls love it!

The girls sitting amongst all their gifts.  I don’t know why they decided they needed to sit so close together.

Princesses dresses for dress-up were a hit.

My parents and brother brought a ton of gifts that the library had to clear out of their storage space, so the girls have more craft supplies than I could ever have imagined.  We also requested secondhand clothes for dress-up, which both grandparents provided in abundance.  They also received several books, a bug keeper (for live bugs), and several other things that I can not recall at the moment.

This was Bria’s decorated cake.  It was supposed to be a picture of a tiara, but I am not very good at drawing on frosting.  She still loved it and that is what matters.  For Bentley’s cake I just made an ice cream cake.  Doing two cakes for the party, and a cake or treats for their actual birthday is getting to be a lot of work.  Next year I may have to eliminate some of that work.

The girls are just about to blow out their candles.  Bentley is wearing one of the dress-up dresses.  She ended up wearing it the rest of the day.

Getting gifts and having cake is fun, but the girls favorite part was the memories they made with their grandparents and my brother and his fiancé.  The girls wanted to put their bug holders together right away.  After they were put together they needed some bugs to live in them.  My brother’s fiancé spent much of the afternoon catching bugs for them and teaching them how to catch bugs.  What fun!

An exciting and full day!

Bria’s Birthday

I thought I would get to this a lot sooner, considering that over a month has already gone by.  Bria is now 7 years old.  We did a small family gift opening on her actual birthday and sent birthday treats to school for her to share with her class.  So far, she hasn’t asked to have a birthday party with any of her friends.  That is all right by me!

She easily guessed that her gift was a set of books just like what Bentley had gotten.  She didn’t know that the books came in two separate packages to make one total set of books, but somehow she still guessed.  The most exciting book was the sticker book.

4 Years Old

Yesterday was Bentley’s 4th Birthday!  She seems like she has grown up a lot in the last couple of months.  We just had a small immediate family party on her actual birthday.  Next weekend we will do a big party for both of the girls’ birthdays.  That means we will have a lot of cake around our house!

Bentley’s cake.  She changed her mind about 10 times as to what she wanted on her cake.

Blowing out her candles.

Opening her gift from Dad and Mom.  A set of educational books.  One of the books came with stickers that can be moved over and over again, which was the highlight of the gift.  She and Bria have already played with it quite a bit.

The party wasn’t anything big or fancy, but Bentley still had fun.  Happy Birthday Bentley!

Getting Harder

The busier we get the harder it is to keep updating the blog.  Here are some pictures from the last couple of months that are not attached to an event.

Bria was brave enough to jump off the diving board to the lifeguard during her swimming lessons this summer.

Both girls got hair cuts so their hair is easier to manage and Bria can wash and brush her own hair now.

The sunflowers in our garden when they were in bloom (several weeks ago).

Some of the corn and tomato plants in our garden.  The corn is taller than David, and the tomato plants are now taller too.  The big bushy plants in the back and the short plants in the front are both tomatoes, just different varieties.

We painted, with the help of David’s parents, the shop/man cave over Labor Day weekend.  It looks much better.

Bentley entertaining Grandpa with a tea party while we were painting.

Bria learning to ride her bike with my mom on Labor Day.

David helping Bria learn to ride her bike when Grandma needed a break.  David has been helping her after school as well.

As September moves forward, we should have some pictures of all the birthday festivities!

Preparing for Change

We spent 4 days in the last week at David’s parents’ helping them get ready for their big move; coming up at the end of this next week.

The first step in the process was cleaning out all the farm buildings, including the house, of all the items that went on an auction.  The house they are moving into is smaller, and doesn’t have the storage that the farm house had.  His parents have inherited a lot of furniture over the years, and it was more than they wanted to move.  Plus, when you have lived most of your adult life in the same place, you just accumulate things.  David’s parents had most of the items organized, they just needed to be pulled out to the yard and set up for the auction.  We spent a good portion of two days moving everything to get ready.

The auction items were all lined up.  Only about half of the line would fit in the picture.

A panorama of all the items.  Taking a panorama with an iPod distorts the picture.

During the auction.

The weekend also included a brief farewell to David’s parents at their church.  The kids provided a cake, and the pastor opened up a time for comments and goodbyes from their friends.

The pictures on the cake represented different areas that they were involved in throughout their time in the community.

The grandkids all had one last hoorah with tractor rides, whacking weeds with sticks in the feed lot, and working on their forts in the out buildings.

All the grandkids on the tractor.

All the families now have iDevices, so most of these pictures were just shared by David’s family via Photostream.  There were some really great pictures taken of the farm.  I think some of them are even art gallery worthy.

Thanks Jeff, for memorializing the farm through art/photos.

This coming week, our family is headed back to the farm to load the remaining household items into a truck for the move.  Then at the end of the week, we will be headed the opposite direction to help unload the truck into the new house.  It will be another big, busy week, but we are so excited about the new experiences and memories we will be making at the new house.

July 4th, A Quick Overview

July has been, and continues to be, another busy month.  The girls were with my parents for the last few days of June until we went to my parents' on July 3rd.  They enjoyed their time playing at the youth center, picking cherries on my parents’ cherry tree, camping at the river, and all the fun things that come with camping (i.e. Smores, swimming, etc.)

Bentley helping Grandpa with the cherries.

Bria enjoying a Smore.

The beginning of the month started off with a race.  David, my dad, my brother, and another friend went to Sprint Car races the night of July 3rd.  It ended up being a long night due to the huge crowd (3 times what there was seating for) and track delays.  They drove to my parents’ after the race and didn’t get home until 4:30 am on the 4th.

At the race.

July 4th brought fun at the river (a family tradition) and fireworks in the evening.  This year we were prepared for the girls’ fear of the noise and brought ear protectors.  My brother bought most of the fireworks, making for a bigger display than we had ever done at home.

My sisters and me. We all unintentionally dressed almost the same.

Lunch at the river after some swimming.

During the fireworks.

July 5th brought a baby shower for my sister, who is expecting their first child at the end of October.  We also played a really fun game of baseball due to Bria’s insistence.

Cupcakes for the shower.

Tonia with her gifts.

Our game of baseball.

The last couple of days at my parents were much less exciting.  I helped my mom out by working at the youth center for a few hours.  Bria came with me, and we had some good one-on-one time.  Later in the day, Tonia brought Bentley down and Chris took Bria back to Grandma so that Bentley and I could have some one-on-one time together.  David and the guys worked on the combine, Chris came back early to catch up on some of his own work.  I ran into an old high school classmate, and we caught up some.  (It has been 15 years since I have seen most of my classmates.)  On Sunday we attended church and then headed home, just to get ready to leave again on Friday.

Summary of the Last Month

The last month has gone by so quickly, and I don't even have pictures to show for it.

Once school got out, the girls spent a few days with David's parents. A week later the girls and I headed to my parents' for VBS (it is three days from 9am to 2pm). The Monday after was VBS at our church. Summer didn't really feel like it started until after that first week in June.

The following week at home that wasn't too eventful. It consisted mostly of yard projects; like cleaning out the landscaping rocks. Then we headed to my parents for a little less than 24 hours. We wanted to spend some time at the river and needed to see the chiropractor. Ahhhh!

A few days later, we were on our way to David's parents to do some work around the farm, getting it ready for his parents' move. David wasn't able to accomplish all that he had hoped.

During our time there, most of the state had some very bad weather. At home there had been some hail and strong straight line winds. My garden was in shreds and some of my flowers are in really bad shape. It has been about five days so the plants are starting to look better. I decided to pull up the corn and replant because it was just to depressing to look at from my kitchen window.

Monday evening, we spent picking strawberries at the same farm we did last year. This year, we brought home three gallons and that wasn't even all that we picked. We have enjoyed pie, sorbet, and ice cream. Tomorrow we will have fresh jam. Yum!!!

Sorry if this post looks funny, it was too nice to be inside so I tried posting from my iPod.