I'm soooo glad . . . .

. . . that today was the first day of school!!! We've had a long summer, and it's going to be lovely to get back to structured days again. Hannah, Eddie, and Leo were excited too. Ginger, on the other hand, is going to be lonely.

Ginger's Tea Party Birthday

I had so much fun throwing this party. The two best parts of the day were, 1st When we were setting up and preparing food before the party and Ginger was examining everything and saying, "Oooo, it's so faaaannncy!" and 2nd Watching Ginger drink like seven cups of raspberry lemonade because she was so excited about playing tea party. It made all of the work soooo worth it!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Ginger Fantastic! I love you!!

What good manners these girls have as they wipe their faces with their napkins :)

Leo's Water Birthday Party

Leo is happy with a cake and presents---the details of his birthday party don't really matter to him. I had to remind him to play with his guests, because he kept standing by the gift table dreaming about what could be behind all of that colorful paper.

This was an easy party. We set up an inflatable water slide, dunk tank, and a moonwalk and sent the kids off to play. There was one little boy who came to the party, ran around and looked at everything and said, "isn't there anything else to do?" About fifteen minutes later he was yelling, "this is the best birthday party EVER!!!"

I had to add a picture of Leo's "kung fu" pose. He has made this pose every time he sees a camera for the past year. I wonder how long this phase will last.

Eddie's Birthday of Olympic Games

The boys showing off their messy faces after a pie eating contest.
The boys showing off all of the medals they won. Someone even shared one with Ginger.

Eddie celebrating cool presents.

Do all these pictures look the same? I didn't get any good pictures of the actual contests. I was too busy running them. Eddie loves all sports and he loves to compete. We did a long distance race, a basketball shooting contest, a soccer dribbling course, a football toss, a baseball to knock down milk bottles, a cherry pit spitting, a pie eating, a dancing, and an inflatable obstacle course contest and awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals for each. It was so much fun to watch these boys---they all wanted to win sooo bad. It turned out awesome! I had to add this next picture because I think it is hilarious. Ginger has decided that My Little Ponies are the best possible gift anyone could ever give. I got one from her for mother's day, Hannah got one from her for her birthday, and Ginger even picked one out for Eddie on his birthday. She's so proud of herself in this photo. You might think that she just wants the ponies for herself, but the truth is that every time she finds that I've put my pony away in her toy box, she brings it to me and says, "Here mom. Here's yours Rainbow Dash."

Hannah's Karaoke Birthday Party

The perfect party for my Hannah . . . too bad she lost her voice the morning of the party. We still had a good time. My favorite part was watching the girls sing and dance to "girls just wanna have fun."

A Little Crazy

This is one of the pictures that I used to make Valentines for my kids. It is supposed to be my "fancy" face, but instead I look a little crazy-----I'm pretty sure that I am. I tend to get a little obsessed with things. Lately, I've been a little obsessed with throwing birthday parties for my kids. We had four parties in less than two months. (As a teacher, I always planned to have my kids at the beginning of the summer and it actually worked. Now, it's birthday party chaos.) I must say that I outdid myself this year and as I look back at photos I'm thinking that I really deserve a gold star in the middle of my forehead. I've decided that I need to brag a little by sharing some photos from each party in my next four posts.

My kids are awesome.

My kids are some of the coolest people I know. Today I went grocery shopping and left Hannah home to babysit. I came home to find an absolutely silent house----the kids were having their own Read-A-Thon.