nora's minnie mouse birthday

Since Nana was in town for Nora's birthday, the birthday girl stayed in our room.   Jimmy woke up extra early to be my super secret helper to set up a surprise for her.  First we hung a happy birthday sign right on the back of the bed and then we took a long spool of yarn and made a Frozen Fever style present hunt for her.  She just had to "Follow the string!"  She thought it was so very fun and exciting and the boys loved watching her do it.  

Among her stops she found: her completed Minnie dress and ears (which she already knew about, but hadn't seen all completed), the Anna dress she had asked for, a doll that used to be Mom's who she named Nancy, and a big ABC floor puzzle that you can color with dry-erase markers.  

The last stop led to her spot at the table where she found a little piggie bank with a porcelain Minnie Mouse in it.

She loved it so much.  And then she promptly dropped it on the floor.  

It broke but we were able to glue it so there weren't too many tears.

Then we made Pink Pancakes upon her request.

Then she wanted to play with her new things...

When it got close to party time, she got on her new Minnie Dress...

 

She was pretty excited to help assemble the cake and cupcakes as well.

We kept the party mostly family this year, but Nora really was really excited for her friend Aurea to come.  

And, of course, she is always excited for Dot to come over.  

A lot of other favorite people where in attendance also:

Baabee...

Mimi and Johnny...

Nana and Aunt Nat...

She got some fun Minnie presents...

Then it was time for the cake!

Then the little girls wanted to change costumes and wear all of Nora's Frozen dresses...

Then they put on a Fashion Show for the whole crowd.

They wanted to do it over and over again.  They could have gone all night!

But alas, as fun as birthdays are, they are also exhausting...

I can relate, Nora.  I was tired, too.

start of summer

We love the start of summer.  Sure summer in AZ can get pretty darn hot, but we love that it means swimming and no school!  We love all being together as a family (that is when Dad gets a little bit of time off of work) and going on fun adventures.  Once we break out our kiddie pool it really feel like summer has started...

Jimmy had a fun last day of school with some buddies...

The kids also love when we get our flood irrigation and our yard becomes a lake. 

We made tin foil boats to float around in Lake Weisse and Nora loved splashing around in her galoshes. 

We make a big Summer To-Do List at the beginning of the summer of all our plans and fun activities to look forward to.  One of our early summer favorites is Free Donut Day.  We usually head to Krispy Kreme where the donuts really are free.

Nora fell asleep for that one, but was happy to have her donut at home. 

Then when the boys went off to Vacation Bible School, I took Nora to meet Elsa and Anna at Desert Ridge.  She was super shy with them, but talked about it for days.

We had a fun pool day at the Phoenician...

Zach and I became Godparents for our friends the Gunn's, little boy Jayber...

We had a donut and library outing with the Burches...

Zach and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.   Zach had always said we would go to Rome for that one and I would laugh and remind him how we would have lots of kids and no money.  Well, I wasn't exactly happy to prove him wrong because Rome would have been amazing, but we had a great anniversary anyway.  We got a special package deal at the AZ Biltmore and had some good meals and pool time sans kiddos.  

It is always good to get time away, but we always miss our kids, too.  We managed to take our semi-annual anniversary picture in front of St. Thomas.  I think the last time we did it was right after Nora was born.  We love going to mass where we got married and remembering that wonderful day. 

Mr. Burch was kind enough to gift us some tickets to Newsies and we got to go on Father's Day..

Mom might have been the most excited, but the boys all loved it as well.

We had a fun year of Aunt Nat living in Phoenix, but it was time for her to move on.  

We were all sad to see her go...

We love games in our house.  Dad got Pandemic for Father's Day and the boys were so excited the first time they actually won and saved the world!

Mom looked up about a million fun summer activities on Pinterest and actually did ONE of them!  We made bubble snakes which were super easy--A water bottle, a sock, and a rubber band.  Dip it in soapy water and blow (in, not out, as Nora learned) to make a long snake of bubbles.  And of course, we also love a good toy set-up...

And what would we do without our slip'n'slide to get us through the summer...

And this was only the first month of fun!