Alia, year by year

Alia turned 6 years old today!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet angel!! I thought it would be fun (or tearjerking) to walk through her last 6 years. Oh my...enjoy.

Alia, just born! This was jason and I right before we left the hospital.

Alia, age 1


Alia, age 2

Alia, age 3

Alia, age 4

Alia, age 5


Alia, age 6

Alia's 6th birthday party!

Alia turns 6 on June 17th but we had her birthday party today. We had 15 kids running around our house but it was so much fun! I was a bit nervous beforehand but totally shouldn't have been. Everything went smoothly and I'd say it was a success! AND I'd day I'd do it again! Am I crazy!?!?!?!

The water bottles I had out for the kids (and the few adults). I don't think you'll ever see me pass out regular water bottles anymore. I'm addicted :)


Upon arrival each friend got a lei from Alia. They ended up sitting on the floor because Alia couldn't reach them. teehee.

The set tables.

Here's a banner I made...Alia picked out the fabric of the flowers and we got matching felt. Her invitations were similar. It was really easy to make. Just cut the fabric into triangles and hot glue them to the string! Wa la! A cute flag banner!

The place setting. This happened to be Alia's...notice the silly hat I made :) I used pieces of cardstock to make the "placemats".


I put some pretzels out in case the kids got hungry for "real" food. I then used cute cupcake liners for them to use as little bowls for their pretzels. They were a perfect size. And ribbon...like I've said before...a little ribbon makes anything extra cute.

I had a hard time finding ideas for cupcakes so we settled with this. The flowers on top are actually lollipops that were on a long plastic stick. I just cut the stick short and stuck them in!

A close up.

The project!

We were going to have Alia's party at JoAnn's fabric store...but after feeling like the party coordinator wasn't as reliable as I needed her to be we decided to create something simlar at home. And so we made beach bags...or, we painted beach bags. I found the bags at the dollar store and we used stencil dots and some other things to make the flowers. They turned out really cute! A special shout out to Kristy, Diana and Jennifer for being available to help me with this! They were lifesavers!

Alia was the last one to finish her bag. Amusing. :) She said she wanted to make it perfect. Like mother like daughter.

Here she is, creating. They all had a big foam letter that they put on their bag-it was their first name initial.


The project (and the help) in action!!!

This was my example for the girls so they could see what they were doing.

(Mary, don't show this to the girls...cause this one is for Avery)

All of the bags sitting in the sun to dry!

Game!

So we attempted a small game after the project. Jason and I didn't talk about it beforehand and so it didn't turn out liek it was supposed to. BUT the kids had fun anyways. It was a relay of sorts between two girls...to see who could dress up in a hula outfit the quickest.

Elijah had the job of saying, "Get ready, get set, GO!" He told me tonight that that was his favorite part of the day :)

Presents and Cake

When Elijah had his party at The Little Gym they set up a platform for him to sit on so he'd be elevated in hopes that the kids could see the gifts. I took that idea and pushed our coffee table in front of the fireplace and had Alia sit on that while she opened her gifts. It worked for the most part :) The girls still gathered around but I think they could all see pretty well...with a few reminders to sit on their bottoms :)

Happy 6th Birthday, Alia!!! I love you dearly!
Right after this picture was taken her hat fell off and landed in the cupcake...and there was still a candle lit! opps! We didn't burn the house down. Ha!

This morning Alia asked if I made her a birthday hat. Her teacher had a hat made for her on her birthday (which was super duper cute!) and she wanted one, too. So this was what I whipped together. Pretty silly, if you ask me, but she loved it.

Such a happy moment.



Here's a group picture!!! The total ended up being 14 girls plus Elijah.

Silly faces!! Hilarious!

Summer Reading Program-Bubble Man!

Today was the kickoff of the library's Summer Reading Program. So after a trip to the gym and rushing home to shower and get dressed we headed out to the library! How does the program work? Each child reads (depending on their ability...Elijah will have books read to him, Alia will read her own books) 5 books, then brings in their book log to the library and gets a sticker and a prize. Then every week they have special performers on Thursdays.

Today's performer was the Bubble Man! I think I might have had as much fun as the kids :) He did some cool stuff with his bubbles.

This is the best I could do at keeping Ethan entertained. He struggled a bit, which means I struggled a bit...but overall he did good.


There were a ton of kids!! Can you find mine? My own version of Where's Waldo.

At the end he picked about 8 kids from the crowd to go into a bubble...amazingly he picked BOTH Alia and Elijah!

Here's Alia in her bubble!

And Elijah...I think he's trying to blow a bubble out of his bubble.

A moment in time

Last week when I was at Michaels I noticed that all of the stone kits were on sale (I think they still are, too!)...I've always wanted to make these of my kids...and so I decided that it would be a good summer project for the kids. :) This is the kit I got.

Notice me mixing the cement in an Easter bucket!? :) That's the best I could find and it worked perfectly! It wasn't too big to pour. Please disregard the mess you see in these pictures...the cleaning lady hasn't been to our house in a while. HA! cleaning lady...that's a good one!


Then you get to smooth out the wet cement...creating a good surface to work with.

Our kits came with stars and moons to put into the cement. I also found some clearance pieces of smoothed glass and let the big kids sprinkle it where they wanted-keeping the center clear for their hands.

Once the cement has hardened up a bit let your kids push their hands in! That's the real fun part!! I had them push pretty hard to make sure their handprints would stay. I don't have a picture of Ethan doing it because I had to hold him and put his hands in the cement QUICK! otherwise he would have cried. It was all over before he even knew what happened!


The final results!! I love them!!! I've always wanted stones like this. And now I have them :)
I might make it an annual tradition!

How cute are those little hands. They will never be that little again. *SIGH*

Rancho Notso Grande

Today's activity was a fun morning of berry picking! However, upon arrival at Rancho Notso Grande in Hanford, CA I opened my van door to this: a flat tire!! BUST! Now...it might not look so flat in this pic...and it wasn't FLAT to the ground...but it was definitely headed that direction! And with 3 kids in tow I wasn't about to take any chances. Thank God for AAA! I called and someone showed up within 30 minutes to put the spare on for me. And thanks to Dwight Hofer for staying with my car so we could get on with our picking!

(I won't mention the state of my backseat when I returned, however. Wasn't so impressed with the tow man's abilities...not to mention he kept insisting the tire was under the car...not on the side, where it was. I had to show him in the manual for him to believe me! But enough about that!)

Here is our MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group getting instructions about what to do. We had quite a group!



Here's me and Ethan picking blueberries. Alia took this picture, pretty good, huh?

We brought home a small bag of blackberries. YUMMY!

By and far the kids enjoyed picking the blueberries the best! I think because they are easy to pull off...you know which ones to pick (just the blue ones!)...and they were lower to the ground. So we hung around the blueberries for a while.

Poor Ethan...he sat in the stroller for most of the picking. It was me and my three kids and I couldn't figure out how to pick and keep an eye on Ethan. Poor third child :( At any rate...I was super proud of myself for finally taking him out and letting he wander around. He's too little to understand the idea of picking the berries...but he did a good job staying with us. As good as a 19 month old can do.




Elijah was a master picker! He spent a long time kneeling down at one bush and quietly picking! Man...I need a blueberry bush in my backyard! I could just send him out there to pick and he'd spend a good 30 minutes out there! He's such a cutie pie.

And here's Alia with some blueberries (see Elijah in the back kneeling at his bush??)! she kept talking about how good the blueberries were. The best blueberries she's ever eaten!

Oh...my precious ones.