Birthday Fun

We've just finished a week and weekend full of birthday celebrations for our beautiful Abigail Grace.  She turned 5 on Wednesday and I can hardly believe it.  She was so excited to turn 5 and we all enjoyed celebrating with her this week.  When I took her to pre-school on Thursday morning, she asked me, "Mom, are you taking me to Kindergarten today?"  Oh, how quickly time is going by.  She will start Kindergarten in the fall and she is SO excited.  We are too but I am doing my best to really enjoy each moment with her since this girl is growing up way too fast...SIGH.

Peter took the day off on Wednesday and we went to the library and to the Bread Garden for lunch.  This is one of Abbie's favorite things to do!

 We celebrated that night with chocolate chip pancakes (at her request.)  The girls ate pancakes, we were still too full.

These two are really learning to love each other well and are becoming such good friends.  It's been a little slow going but it is so sweet to watch.

...and they are SO goofy sometimes!

Abbie opened her gifts from us after dinner.  She got some Disney Princess addition flash cards, a Thumbelina DVD, Great States Jr. Board Game, and a trio of Toy Story Dolls - Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye (still to come in the mail but she got a printed picture of them.)

We had purchased a chocolate decadence cake from the Bread Garden the day before but we thought cake with pancakes was going to be too much so we waited to cut into the cake until the next night.  Both girls got a TINY sliver of a piece and Olivia ended up being awake for about 2 hours in the middle of the night - WIDE AWAKE!  Too much sugar and caffeine, I guess.

And finally, this morning we spent our Saturday morning with friends at the library and at the Bread Garden (again) for donuts.  We kept asking Abbie what she wanted to do with her friends for her birthday and she kept telling us that she wanted to have her birthday party at the library.  I was having a really hard time trying to figure out how to make a birthday party around a trip to the library, but it turned out great.  The kids loved it and it was SO easy since it is what we normally do on Saturday mornings anyway.  It was so special to have a few of her friends (and their siblings) join us and they all had a fun time!

Olivia with her friend Chloe going down the slide inside the library.

Peter reading to Chloe, Olivia, and Levi.

My good friend Erin reading to her daughter Lucy.

Lucy and Abbie - these two LOVE all things princess and girly!

Abbie, Forest, and Olivia squeezing through the rotating door together.

Party time!  Donuts, Chocolate Milk and Orangina (have you ever had Orangina?  If you haven't, you should.)  Everyone was pretty happy!

 More candles!  Unconventional birthday cake.

Golly I think she's cute.

This is Willow.  Her and Olivia, despite not having spent a TON of time together, are an awful lot alike.

This is Asher - he is even handsome when he's blurry!  (UGH!)

Forest and Abbie

Thanks friends!  What a special day you made for this little girl.

Abbie - it is always hard to know where to start when writing to you.  So much has happened over this past year.  It's been difficult at times (age 4 was hard for all of us) but we have seen so much growth and maturity come from those moments and we are really proud of the little girl you are becoming, by God's grace.  You have learned how to love your sister and you two are becoming such good friends.  You are also learning how to think of others before yourself.  You are using more self-control when you get angry and we continue to pray for even more =).  It has been neat to see you really take interest in reading and learning about geography and maps (your Daddy is thrilled with this of course.)  You are really smart and have an AMAZING memory.  You remember so many details about experiences and stories you hear.  You love to read, sing, draw, play dress up, play with princesses and build crazy immaculate things with blocks.  You love to play outside and especially in the snow.  You have learned to get by with less television this year - which was somewhat hard for you, but overall very good.  You learned to not be afraid of water and now you LOVE to swim and keep asking for more swimming lessons.  I could go on and on and have probably forgotten so many things but I want you to know that I love you so much Abbie.  You are such a gift to Daddy and I and even though you sometimes make parenting a challenge, we are thankful for how the Lord is using the difficult moments to change us, and you, to become more like Him.  God loves you more than we will ever be able to.  You are so special to us and we are thankful for every moment that God gives us with you.  You are growing up way too fast but it is so neat to see your excitement and growth at each new stage of life.  You really are amazing.  We love you sweetheart - Happy 5th Birthday!
love,
Mommy and Daddy

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Snowy Day...

The snow is finally here and we are doing our best to remember, as well as make new, activities to do indoors.  

Here is what we did today.

And I couldn't have had two happier girls.

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Christmas #1...

We celebrated Christmas with the girls a day early since we knew we would be traveling to Ames to spend time with our Chidister family.  It was nice to have a quiet morning and take our time celebrating Christmas just the four of us.  First we read two new books that "Santa" had left for the girls which talked about the REAL meaning of Christmas - God Gave us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergren and Listen to the Silent Night by Dandi Daley Mackall, both mentioned here.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the girls so interested in the books with presents sitting right in front of them.  We (including Santa) kept things pretty simple this year and really tried to focus on so many "unseen" gifts that we are thankful for.  Even so, the girls did enjoy opening their gifts.  I just love the smiles on their face and the excitement at each new gift.  

{Disclaimer}:  Now before you look at the pictures I have to apologize for the lack of quality in most of these. Our regular camera's battery died after the first two pictures I took (UGH!) and so we dug out our old camera (which was great outside but has a horribly bright flash inside) and our newer and nicer camera (passed on from Peter's parents this past summer) which neither of us have really figured out how to use...yet.  I need some lessons from all my amazing friends with photography skilz!  So anyway, here are the pics from Christmas #1 taken with three different cameras...

Santa added a couple of Disney Princesses to the girls' collection...

Santa also added another Magna-Doodle to our family since the other one is highly overused.  We now keep one in the car as we have learned that it is great to have on trips.

Didn't you always love the fruit in the bottom of your stocking???

 
She dug right in...

Olivia has a Minney Mouse doll that she LOVES - as in, she must have it to sleep with every night.  Abbie had mentioned that she would like a Mickey Mouse so that they could play with their dolls together.

...and how quickly it was swiped when older sister wasn't looking.  I love the guilty look on Olivia's face.

Peter was messing with the settings on the camera but I actually like this one.  The chaos and excitement all in one.

Some of the aftermath...  (ha ha, don't you love the partially eaten apple on the floor?  lovely.)

So if you have time, let me tell you a heartbreaking story that has a good ending...I think.  Abbie had talked to both of us several times about wanting a Disney Princess Castle - "the big one, Mom....that can fit ALL of my princesses."  Well, Disney is sure making a killing because this princess castle is NOT cheap and was definitely not in the budget.  PLUS after reading several reviews of it online, I discovered that it was basically a piece of junk.  SO, there was no castle for her to open on Christmas morning...from Santa or us.  So what is the very first things she says when she wakes up on our Christmas morning???  You guessed it... "I bet Santa brought me my princess castle."  (now imagine a very excited little girl running down the stairs.)  UGH - if that didn't feel like a stab in the heart I don't know what does.  Knowing that she would be disappointed but also feeling like we made the best choice for her...so many parenting decisions end this way I guess.  So anyway, she got caught up with the other gifts and sort of forgot about the fact that there was no princess castle.  We saved a gift for last that was for both of them that we thought they would really like (I was really hoping at that point anyway.)  Both girls really like the Fisher Price Little People sets and we do too.  There are no pieces that are too small but plenty of pieces that they can both play together with them without too much squabbling.  I had seen this pirate ship and coordinating pieces and knew they would LOVE it but found out it isn't made anymore.  I looked around on ebay and found a really good deal and one that would get it shipped to us by Christmas no less.  Thankfully the girls LOVED it and spent the rest of the morning playing with it together.  I didn't feel so bad about the princess castle after that and was thankful we decided to invest in a less expensive, more quality item for them even though it caused some disappointment.  So this last picture is of them playing with the pirate ship.  Nothing special in the gift itself but two very content little girls playing happily together.

We feel very blessed, first of all, by the gift of God's Son - the reason we celebrate!  We also feel so blessed by all the gifts God has given us, especially these two precious little girls.  All the material gifts are just a bonus.  Stay tuned for more Christmas posts...

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