BIRTHDAY GIRL!

-4 years old-

                *sniff

Birthday Breakfast!!

 ...thoroughly enjoyed by all!

the big day was even more exciting as Kate had her first, ever soccer game!!

Now on to the P-A-R-T-Y!!

McDonald's was the dinner of choice with rainbow fruit sticks (thank you Amanda Lee, I know you are reading this).  Although the fruit sticks were not right...they just were not the same as Gretta had at her party...picky, picky!

Kate couldn't decide between a Hello Kitty cake and a 

castle cake, so we made a 

Hello Kitty Castle Cake!!  

(pink castle with kitty stuck on the top)

She dug it!

but she would not eat it...again, picky little stinker...you would think she was 4 or something!

 presents!!  Hello Kitty toys... and 

a pink rifle, the one thing she asked for!

Thank you grandma and grandpa!!

On to bashing our homemade Hello Kitty pinata!!  3 or 4 days before her birthday she asked where the "kitty thing you beat with a stick with candy in it" was.  (Something, she saw and asked for one day when we were at Party Depot early in the summer.  And something that I apparently said "yes, you can have it for your birthday" - you know those moments when you are concentrating and you hear muffled children asking some sort of question, and in the fog of the moment you just spout out a "yeah, sure honey" and then they stop bothering you... you know??  So, we decide to make one.  And a fun time it was!

Poor kitty!!

 Noel even got a turn to beat the kitty...just jokin' ya!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET KATE!

Hello Kitty creation:

I'm still finding dried paste in my kitchen!!

Balloon head, cardboard ears...can't get much more simple!

JUMBO

Yes, she is pulling up... yes, she is cutting a tooth... yes, I am crying... and yes, she is wearing a size 4 diaper! 

Ben went out to pick up a "quick, we're out of diapers" pack of diapers the other day and he returned with Pampers (my favorite ever diapers that I never buy because I'm too cheap to pay for them.  I just can't regularly splurge on something that holds poo... just can't do it)

Anyway,

 This JUMBO pack thing just cracks me up ~ 

Jumbo??  

Seriously??  There are a whopping 31 diapers, which will last all of a week and a half at best!!  HA!

 I mean, the whole pack fits in my diaper caddy 

(plug: Thirty-One, all in-one organizer, monogrammed with"Monkey Business" - one of the best uses ever: fits a "JUMBO" pack of diapers, wet wipes - the mesh pockets on the ends stow away your Boudereaux's Butt Paste, sweet smelling baby lotion, and booger sucker - sorry, just couldn't help it - I love this stuff!)

Now I know why I've never seen a "medium" pack!  

...thank you for your patience.  The Smith'sonian experienced technical difficulties over the last few days.  We now we return you to your regularly scheduled programing: BLOG "WEEK" 

- summer 2011

MAINE

A family in our church invited us to join them, along with a few other families, for a week in June on the rocky beaches of Maine!  Amazing!  

the L-O-N-G drive

All worth it once we arrived.  There were 3 houses that all the families stayed in.  They were tucked in on this rocky point, so the water and beaches were just a stroll down the road.

The Cottage: this is where our family stayed

The big house - actually divided into 2 houses - this is where we all met up to eat dinner together each night.

This house was behind the big house.

The first of the many captured creatures...

uh... rapture??  

No, I think he must have been in a hurry to go swimming.

(all mine!)

The views from the porch...as you can tell, this spot is a big fishing and lobster-ing (?) point.

This is a shot of the beaches...shells and rocks...a kid's heaven!

We could go out canoeing any time!!  How fun is that!

This was one of our day trips to Booth Bay where we took a boat ride and did some shopping!

silly girls!

Kate hat shopping

Can't go to Maine without a lobster feast!!

Noel was horrified at the executions!!

All done!

simple decor

Can you tell Ben helped the boys with their lobster??

And if your still hangin' in there, here is another day trip - to Pemiquid Point to see the historic lighthouse pictured on the Maine quarter -

what a welcome, huh?

-the first picture on this extremely long post is the Pemiquid Point Lighthouse

Picnic lunch!

Do you remember that warning sign that said -lives had been lost on these rocks?... yeah, that is my husband and kids out there playing on them - *nervous smile*

Back on "our" beach finding more treasures and sea creatures

an early morning canoe ride -

Ethan found a sand dollar on an island they rowed to!

Great trip, great memories!