Esthers Bubble-palooza Party!!!

Picture it: Exactly one year ago. Esther has just turned two. Her Grandpa Tom lovingly bought her some bubble wands and a bubble machine to help her celebrate the occasion. Her mother while snapping picture after picture has a lightbulb suddenly blink on in her head. Bubbles. Lots of them. Esthers 3rd Birthday party. The heartfelt photographic moments will abound. She starts mentally planning. "Surely the weather will cooperate," she thinks to herself. The week following the party gets into 80 degree temperatures, Maybe just maybe, her party hopes and dreams will come to fruition this year, three is a charm as they say. Alas. Mother Nature always has something to teach Mother Ann. In this case that lesson was always plan for rainy weather in April. And if having an outdoor Birthday party, always have a plan B. And no matter how Ann plans, there will always be surprises.

So jumping out of whatever narrative I was just in.......Yes Esthers party was last Saturday and despite my yearlong planning/daydreaming for the event, I was still unprepared for the very rainy almost snowy weather. I guess I just didn't believe it would happen because the weather was downright summerish all through the week.

Despite the storm, it still turned out to be amazing. I have only my friends and family to thank for that. I was at the last minute able to reserve the basement room in our apt, and we had the party inside. We BBQ'd hamburgers and hotdogs, and let the kids play with bubbles and pool noodles inside. Abby had made a cd of all of Esthers favorite music (steve songs, wizard of oz, things like that), playing in the background, adding to the atmosphere. Me and my friend Missy (the blonde by the cake with me) stayed up until a quarter to three the night before frosting that two tiered baby....thanks to her it turned out beautiful. Esther got lots of fun presents, and then we had to clean up quick to move out for the next folks who had the basement reserved. Everybody helped clean and the place was spotless in 10 minutes! It really made me appreciate my loved ones!
After we cleaned up those that wanted to, came up to our apt on the 3rd floor and blew bubbles. The pictures were not exactly as I imagined them (the children in them had mostly grown up) but in some ways I swear it was more magical. That's why I put so many pictures in the slide show. I know it might seem like if you've seen one you've seen them all, but I just wanted to portray an appropriate mood, everyone was having fun it was like we were all kids again. So my party didn't go exactly as I had planned. I think it turned out to be a lot better. I can always try again maybe for Ezra's 3rd Birthday. All I know is at the end of the day I felt happy with everything and extremely grateful for life and all of our loved ones that fill it.

p.s. just in case you want to see a picture bigger, all you have to do is click on it.

When your Esther the party never stops!

I made this cake because I recently started a cake decorating class, and I needed the practice, and we also wanted to celebrate with Brocks mom, who unfortunately will be scaling pyramids in Egypt over Esthers party. I don't know how to do much yet, but I liked how it turned out, and it tasted pretty good too...yellow butter cake with strawberry filling.....mmmm dee-licious!

Three Glorious Three!

Here she is our great big (little) three year old! She turned 3 on Monday April 20th, around 3:30 in the afternoon. Truth be told I have been seeing the "signs" of three-dom creeping up on us in the last few months.....I'll just say that it will be nice when she's four. But on a more positive note, it is really fun to here her speak in full sentences, tell stories, here her asking, "why.....why.....why?" She has just recently figured out how to operate her leapfrog computer, navigating the mouse and keys to actually play the game...that has been really fun to see because we got it for her when she was almost two, and had no idea what to do with it. On our way to Target to get her official birthday portraits done, she mentioned that she can't wait to be big, so she can go live on a bus....This has been her funnest Birthday yet for me, because she definitely understands now what it is all about, well at least the part that is all about her:) I had fun pampering her and letting her get away with a tiny bit more than usual. She got to have two baths, because she wanted to play with her new bath toys...I bought her a chosen toy at the store....things like that. All in all a great day, and she still has a bubble-palooza party to look forward to on Saturday! Talk about Queen of the world!



mmmmmm.....cream cheese frosting.....


I made cupcakes to deliver to the neighbors with party invitations...a sure way to make(and keep)friends:)


I made a little red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, as you can see it was kind of a mess, but it tasted good.


We went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries to celebrate for Esther's Birthday dinner, It was pretty good, I was blushing in this picture because I felt like everyone was watching us...

Ma first 5k!!!!!

Yipee! I just ran my first 5k today and it was alot of fun! I have to say I feel so proud of myself, I know that 3. whatever miles is not that big a deal but 6 weeks ago I could barely run 10 minutes without feeling sick! I can't believe how empowering it feels to train for something and then do it, and have fun doing it in the process. This all happened thanks to my good friend Missy (green sweater) who encouraged me to start training with her and other good friend Erin (brown jacket). I am so thankful that she kept asking me to go with them, the first few weeks were definitely uncomfortable, but now I feel like I could conquer the world! sort of. Sadly the temperatures were not appeasing and my family did not look like they had a good time waiting for me:( Ezra I guess had been screaming for the last 20 minutes before we finished, so hopefully next race will be better in that department. My next goal is to run a half marathon at the end of the summer or beginning of fall, I'm not sure which, with Erin. I just want to thank Erin and Missy for being my friends and getting me to run with them, it's been so much fun!