Happy 5th Birthday Julia!

Julia turned five (!) this year and for this birthday we decided to have a large birthday party. The Ramiro's wanted to have a get to together this month to celebrate all the April birthdays in the family, so we invited all the Ramiro's to come. As far as kids, Julia also had a friend from preschool, two friends from California that now live in Utah, her two Wheat cousins who were in town, and three of my cousin's kids from the Sandberg side. We had all the kids come early to do crafts and games and then had the adults come later for a BBQ.

Julia decided that she wanted a Disney Frozen themed birthday. Not a big surprise since she lives Frozen nowadays, but she did just decide it the week before, at first she wanted My Little Pony. Julia helped me make paper snowflakes and cut out strips of paper with quotes from the movie as decorations. We hung those up with pink, blue, and white crepe papers and balloons (but half the balloons were tied outside and blew away). For crafts we decorated foam crowns (Julia is wearing her crown in one of the pictures from the party below). We also did painting with Epson salts, which makes the picture look like it has little crystals when it dries (I didn't take any pictures of this part because I was still making her cake as they were doing this).

Then we played pin the nose on Olaf. My cousin Daniel drew Olaf for me which is a good thing because he did a lot better than I would have done!

I think James and Tyler tied, they both got it right on the nose!

We were happy it worked out that Robert's brother David and his family were in town at the same time as the party. Robert Mom, his sister Lauren and her husband and another cousin, Woody, and his wife were all able to come too, so we had a good representation from the Wheat side as well.

After games we had a Frozen theme pinata to wrap up the game portion of the party.

Everyone who wanted got a second try at the pinata. After Julia's second try she started to cry when we made her pass the stick onto the next person because she was afraid someone else besides her was going to break it and she wanted to be the one to break it.

Micah was so excited to get all that candy. He loves candy so I have to keep it all out of sight or he will keep asking for it.

"Die Elsa, Die!"

Aunt Jen made Julia this cute Elsa dress that Julia just loves. Good thing too because the Disney Elsa dresses are, no joke, going for $200 on Amazon. We found out in preparing for this party that Frozen toys are in high demand but short supply, so prices on Amazon are jacked way up and you can hardly find some of the other toys elsewhere.

Julia performed "Let It Go" for everyone during dinner. It was epic. (and maybe kind of a little crazy that she is so obsessed?) She is standing behind the couch because there was a coffee table tucked back there when we pushed the couches aside to make room for more tables. Julia insisted on using it as her stage.

We had to go to four different stores to find that Anna toy. We were looking for an Elsa toy but couldn't find her anywhere. I made the ice out of sugar, corn syrup, water and food coloring. 

She insisted on facing the cake towards her so she could see the decorations.

Camden joins in on the fun.

Post party crash?

Okay, I have to admit this is mostly so you can see the decorations in the background since we didn't have any pictures of the decorations =).

Snowflakes

Opening presents. I stepped away to feed the baby and when I came back Julia had a pile full of new toys. Since I didn't see who everything was from, thanks to all who came, and all who gave Julia presents!

This one is from this week. One of the presents she got was a kit for live caterpillars that we keep and watch turn into butterflies. They came in the mail  last week as teeny tiny caterpillars and we have had fun watching them get big. Now they are turning into chrysalises, and next week they will be butterflies!

Happy 2nd Birthday Micah!

Wait, didn't we just have Julia's birthday? Yes, but I'm behind, I've had this post ready to go with pictures for a while but haven't found time to sit down and type something.

So Happy Birthday Micah! He is now a big (but small) 2 year old. He is learning to talk and understands pretty much anything you tell him. He is saying sentences now like "Mama, where are you?" and "Grandpa home soon?" It's pretty cute =).

We decided to just have a small birthday party for him. Lucky Micah had both sets of grandparents there as well as some of Robert and I's cousins. I got a little monkey pinata for him that we broke in the basement on a punching bag stand.



Camden is also getting big.

Getting ready for the pinata.

Micah was not quite sure what to, but Julia was ready.

So was Kirsten.

Proof that I was there too, with the baby.

Logan and James knew what to do too.

Micah loves planes, trains, automobiles and especially trucks. And that is mostly what he got for presents!

Cars book, one of his new favorites.

Planes backpack that he uses to store all his new cars and trains.

We got Frozen when it came out but kept it hidden because Julia wanted it for her birthday. But we decided to surprise Julia and just give it to both Julia and Micah on Micah's birthday. Julia loved it, and now that Micah has actually seen the movie he likes it too. It's funny to see him get excited about pictures of the Frozen girls and say, "Anna! Elsa!"

With his loot: cars, trains, trucks, and planes.

I made construction truck themed cake using some of the toys he already had.

Julia had to help him blow out the candle because he didn't understand what we were trying to tell him.

I just threw this in here. Micah and Camden have started to interact and it's fun to see them together.

Happy Birthday Robert and Lauren

Last Saturday we spent the afternoon with Lauren and Jess to celebrate Robert and Lauren's birthday (they share the same birthday!). We started out with lunch at Costa Vida and then went to a park near Lauren's home for brownies and play. Micah was very excited for the park. I used to take Julia to the park everyday when she was his age, but now with three kids we go about once a week, so Micah gets really excited for park time. Lauren brought a kite and Julia had fun trying to get it up. There was a bit of wind, but only enough to get the kite into the air, not enough to keep it up there. So julia had to keep running around to keep the kite up in the air.

We decided last minute to bring the nice camera and take some portraits of the kids since they are all at a milestone age: Julia, almost 5; Micah, just turned 2, and Camden, almost six months.

Camden is close to being able to sit up by himself, but not yet. So since he wasn't acting too smiley at the time we decided to just wait a couple weeks to take his pictures until we can get him sitting up by himself.