Ella's Y Birthday Party!!

My baby girl is 9! 

 

On Sunday we celebrated Ella's birthday with a party at the YMCA. I am generally a VERY bad birthday party planner so this year I tried hard to plan it early and do something fun besides a sleepover or party at home.  She chose the Y and it was a good choice!

On Saturday (her actual birthday) we went shopping and got her a couple new swim suits. I love the one she decided to wear to her party.  She looked super cute in it (and I also love that she "doesn't like bikini's" - she's still my little girl :)

Some of her friends in the pool during the first hour of the party, and Silas
who got to enjoy the party too!

 The 2nd hour of the party was wall climbing. All the kids did great.
There were a couple of them that decided it wasn't exactly their thing, so they just watched.
Ella did a great job. She is definitely part monkey. 

 

I was impressed that Silas tried and got almost to the top too. 

The wall looks SO tall to me in this picture below. This was
Ella's 2nd time climbing up.

We were SO thrilled with her birthday cake.
I have a neighbor that has a cake business and (knowing how much
Ella love fancy cakes) I asked her to do one.
This was the result!!
Ella was ecstatic when she saw it :)

 Even the top ribbon was edible, which the kids all tried..

And of course, Ella got some very fun and cool presents.
One of the girls got her a dippin dots maker. That should be
fun and messy to try!

I think that this will go down as a party that she'll remember for a long time.
I know I will...

 LOVE her hat that matches the cake!  :)


Happy 9 Miss Boo!  We love you!!

Can't Complain...

I've been so frustrated lately because I feel like I don't have any time to keep up with the blog and I'm barely taking any pictures, unless it's with my iPhone. It's sad to not get to do these things that I greatly enjoy.
Work is really crazy, has been for months and will be that way for the foreseeable months.

It's really hard to complain about work though, seeing that I have such flexibility. I love being here when the kids get home from school or being 30 seconds away from the school when the nurse calls that some isn't feeling too hot. While working from home has tons of hassles, it's also something that I feel blessed to have for my family life.

While the crazies of life have limited my photography and blogging for the time being, We have been doing lots of fun stuff.

I have been running pretty regularly the last 4 weeks. Sarah and I have been meeting at the trails on the weekend and running together. For someone that usually runs alone, it's a nice change to run and chat and it's a good motivator.




It's been pretty chilly on our runs but I love running in cold weather. Even the little ice balls hitting my eyeballs last weekend didn't derail me from going 7 miles.





Another thing I've been making time for is music. We've been to a few great concerts in the last couple weeks and have 4 more already planned in the next few months. On Sunday we saw the Black Keys and Arctic Monkeys and WOW, they were awesome!!










And Young the Giant the week before.

 (YG's picture from the stage)

Much of our time has also gone into working on getting the basement settled. It's close to completion but very functional now. We have an office that I LOVE (but still needs decor and organized).




We have the TV/movie space and a new table that will be perfect for some euchre! The kids have loved hanging out in the new space.




Oh and I also went to an OSU basketball game too! It's been a lot of years since I'd been to one and it was damn fun.




So it hasn't been all work and no play.  Rather than complaining, I'll just have to try harder to get out with my camera and to sneak in a little more blogging time.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone