As usual, James created another awesome birthday video! Check it out. My favorite part is the last scene!
Archive for the 'Birthday' Category
08
Jan
13
Ella’s 7th birthday video!
07
Jan
13
Ella’s birthday party!
Ella had her seventh birthday at Capital Gymnastics!
Her amazing cake that my friend Jen made!
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The adorable plates I found on Hallmark.com
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| flippin’ fun! |
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| playing which team can get the bean bags first! |
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| the pit! |
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| gotta love the sparkler! |
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| dad photo bomb! |
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| opening up her Kindle Fire from mommy and daddy! |
06
Jan
13
Ella turns 7!
Our Ella Bella turned 7 years old on Saturday! She is street smart and book smart, funny, cries WAY too easily, but also LOVES others easily (which I know I need to work on!) We believe her love language is touch, and she could cuddle all day long if we let her. She enjoys chaos, and has to frequently be separated from her brother because she makes him wild! (Her and Rilyn are very different in this aspect…Rilyn tries her best to calm down her crazy brother!) 🙂 Her favorites right now are stuffed animals, Barbies, math, reading Junie B. Jones First Grader books, riding her scooter, and making crafts with all sorts of scraps.
Ella’s party day actually fell on her real birthday this year for the first time so it was a busy day!
She woke up to her traditional birthday morning donut!
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| birthday hugs |
Then she got to run through the kitchen to open presents and read cards from her family!
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James’ card was very sweet. Ella declared last month that she is now collecting snow globes, and got one as a souvenir every place we went in California. So James made a snow globe for her as a card!
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| Her reading daddy’s card |
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| Ella reading Asher’s card |
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After the morning festivities, she changed into her new leotard that she got for Christmas for her GYMNASTICS themed birthday party later that evening. Of course I did a mini fun photo shoot of her!
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| SEVEN!!! |
Fun on the trampoline!
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| happy to be seven! |
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| Rilyn got in on the fun too! |
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07
Jun
12
birthday dinner!
For Rilyn’s birthday dinner on Sunday, we headed over to Austin Park and Pizza! She got to pick a friend to go with her, and she chose one from school.
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| Rilyn realized she loved rock climbing! She did this wall a couple of times on different
sides. |
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| free fall ride |
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| putt putt! |
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| bumper boats! |
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| tea cups! |
After dinner, we headed over to Sonic for a dessert!
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| 8 sparkler! |
And we gave her our gift from mommy, daddy, and my parents!
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| we wrapped it in an manila envelope and told her it was a birthday card. |
A Kindle Fire! I’m so excited about this present because having to read everyday for 30 minutes has made this momma buying lots of books, and I’m running out of space!
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Rilyn’s 8 year old portrait!
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I left out our go karting experience on purpose, so stay tuned!
05
Jun
12
8 years ago…
Since this blog post is being written on June 5th, and not Rilyn’s actual birthday, June 3rd, I thought it would be “fun” to reminisce about June 5th, 2004. That was Rilyn’s first night at home, and my wise mom told me to write down how I felt the next day, (as I was in tears), because I would forget one day, and I could look back, read it, and see God’s grace and provision. Here I am, exactly 8 years later, and as I read the words in Rilyn’s baby book, I remember the feelings that spun around in my racing mind- hopelessness, “my life will never be the same!”, “I will never sleep normally again”, crying because Nancy Reagan just died (a little hormonal don’t ya think?), and because it was my first, having no timeline of when seasons will end…
June 5, 2004 “Your first night home” (she was born on a Thursday)
“Rilyn, all day on Saturday you were loved and cuddled by family! You never got a good nap. The extended family all left at 10 p.m. except grandma who is staying for the week! Me and daddy were so tired! Your first night was very tough! Me and daddy both cried that night. We thought you would sleep in your pack n’play at 10 p.m. in our bedroom. We were wrong. As soon as we put you down, you cried. Mommy fed you, but you still kept crying after you were done. We didn’t know how to quiet you. Me and daddy both started feeling sick because of the lack of sleep and worries over you. Grandma got a wake up call at 3 a.m. from me. I walked in her room sobbing (and you were crying too!) “I don’t know what to do! I just want to sleep!” Grandma took you in the living room and held you from 3 a.m. til 6 a.m. You fell asleep on her chest. Grandma was a lifesaver that night. Daddy slept all day on Sunday trying to get better. I napped and walked around like a zombie. Needless to say, we were not prepared emotionally for you-babies are a lot of work! We pray that we will get the hang of being parents!”
Whew! Reading that feels pretty depressing, but it’s real, and I was a mess. I realized how selfish I was when she came into this world, and I was struggling! 8 years later, I can look back, and see God’s grace and blessings ALL over her life! I see pictures like these below, and am so thankful that He entrusted me with this precious life when I was and still am so incapable. Being desperate for Your Savior goes to a whole new level when you first become a parent, and reminiscing today is a good reminder that I should need Him today more than even June 5th, 2004. God willing, I have 10 more years in our home to shepherd Rilyn’s heart! I pray, let me be desperate for my Lord so He can use me to disciple her well!
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| Wake up! It’s your birthday donut !! |
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| running through the birthday tape! |
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| I’m 8! |
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| a present from Ella |
03
Jun
12
Strutting it!
Rilyn had her 8th birthday party on Saturday! It was her idea to have a fashion show theme, and it was up to me and James to make it happen! The night before, all our thoughts came together, and we dug out the Christmas lights, blacked out the windows, used some old tulle, and opened the party decorations I had bought. James did an AMAZING job of putting up all the lights. He also made a fun playlist of fashion show songs for each girl to walk down the runway to! I’m so blessed to have him super involved in my OCD party planning!
Rilyn said it was the best birthday party ever, so we think we accomplished our “runway” look!
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| we had one happy model! |
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| strutting her stuff in mommy’s heels! |
Speaking of heels, my sister, a self-confessed shoeaholic, loaned us MANY of her high heels for this party! As I was going through the bag of heels, I was shocked to see she let Rilyn use her Christian Louboutin heels! I asked her if that was a mistake, and she told me that my girls could HAVE them (they were too small for her)! So now my girls have some pretty sweet shoes to wear when prom comes one day! Rilyn doesn’t even know about brands yet, (which I love!), but I know one day she will appreciate this picture!
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| She told me she couldn’t wear these at her party because the red at the bottom
didn’t match her outfit! |
My dear friend made Rilyn’s beautiful cake!
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| a nail poilsh, purse, and high heel on top of the cake! |
At the beginning of the party, while her friends were arriving, the girls decorated flip flops with strips of fun fabric!
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| tying knots of fabric around the flip flops |
After the flip flops, we headed outside for pinata time!
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| cute flip flops Rilyn! (gotta have a high heel pinata!) |
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| Happy Birthday to you! |
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| eating the yummy cake |
Present time! My best friend Jen knows Rilyn all too well, and gave her a special gift! 🙂
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| nutella! |
Lots more of Rilyn’s birthday traditions/festivities to come this week!
My mom’s 60th birthday was this past week. She will tell you that she has everything she ever wanted, and that she doesn’t want anything from me (well, except to keep sending her pictures of the grandkids!). Every year, it’s very hard to find something meaningful to get her! Since it was her 60th, I wanted to do something extra special for her!
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| mom with her grandbabies! |
One present from me and my sister was this:
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I saw this on Pinterest first, and there is a website to go and print it from home (for $9)! These numbers represent my parents’ birthdays, their anniversary (in white), and then their kids’ birthdays. I saw one like this also that said on the top “What a difference a day makes” 🙂
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| my mom hugging on the girls |
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| my mom hugging on Asher |
I bought my mom some sparkler candles that were really fun to watch! I also made her a word cloud from here. To make it, I asked many of her friends/family to e-mail me 3 adjectives that describe my mom!
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| Word cloud on the left |
The final gift was “60 memories of Norine”. Two months prior, I mailed out/facebooked/e-mailed as many of her friends/family as possible to send one memory of my mom-the more nostalgic the better! I bought her a trunk, and put all the cards in it that I had received! Rilyn and Ella made a scavenger hunt around her house, and she loved finding the trunk and reading all of the memories!
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| what’s inside? |
Many memories made her cry!
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I love you mom!
26
Apr
12
chuck e cheese!
For dinner on Asher’s birthday, he got to invite one friend to Chuck E Cheese! Ella was so sweet to Asher and pressed the pedal for him on the “big boy” racing game that he really wanted to play!
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I think Ella started getting claustrophobic down there, because then she started doing it this way!
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| poor Ella, she could hardly reach the pedal either! |
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| Asher made these faces during each game he played! |
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| still into making faces |
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| Cheers to Asher’s 4th! (I love how Ella is video taping it for daddy to watch later!) |
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| Caden and Asher-bffs |
24
Apr
12
four
Asher, four years ago today, you took your sweet time to enter the world. On mommy’s schedule, you were supposed to arrive around 3 or 4 p.m. like your sisters, who were also induced. But not you. You held out until almost 9 p.m. Those 5 extra hours seemed like eternity because I wanted to meet my first son! When I held you in my arms I thought, “I actually have a little BOY!” I dreamed of football, playing trucks, and getting really dirty.
In these four precious years, you have still proven yourself to take your sweet time on things. Whether that be taking a bottle (11 months old) or potty training (3 1/2) or eating dinner, or learning to buckle your seat belt (still working on!). You are not motivated by competition, (something your dad and I scratch our heads on!) and so we still are trying to figure out the best way to motivate you. You are smart, knowing all your letters, upper and lower case, and most sounds by 3 1/2. (I have educational cartoons to thank for that!) 😉 Your love for cars is pretty intense. Another area daddy and I don’t know where it came from! But daddy is ready when you are to take you to your first Formula 1 race! When we are in a parking lot, and you see a “race car” you ask me if you can “look at the back” and you walk around the car and ooooo and ahhhh at the spoiler or racing stripe. You are particular, insisting to sleep with the same baby board book on the right side of your bed for the past year. And you need exactly two cars on either side of the board book. 🙂 It’s hard for mommy to stop “babying” you because you are my baby! But when I think of the girls being four years old, I remember thinking how “old” they were. Perception is a funny thing. You LOVE to cuddle with me, and for me to sing to you each night before bed, and you always tell me “I love you” and how I look like a princess. No doubt you will follow in your daddy’s footsteps, and be very romantic to your wife one day. You love to laugh and make others laugh (usually by pretending to burp or toot!) When you are around your friends, and especially your cousin, your naughty level goes up a few notches! 😉 I can’t wait to see what God has in store for you, my little man! We love you!!
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| birthday morning donut! |
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| blow! |
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| Buster busting through! |
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| Happy Birthday! |
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| birthday breakfast! |
23
Apr
12
Party day!!
After Asher’s soccer game, in which he scored twice-yay!, his Oma and Papaw gave them their gift, a Radio Flyer – Flyer 500
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| wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee |
You can also use it as a racing ramp for his cars. Perfect!
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Finally, it was time for Asher’s party!! We had it at a local bounce house, and really you can’t go wrong with having a little boy’s party at a bounce house! Asher played his heart out with his 20 closest friends!
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| another wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (lots of wheeeeeeeeees on Saturday!) |
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They had this slide there that was as tall as a two story house!
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| wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee |
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| climbing up the two story slide is hard work! |
A slide like that can cause some issues going down…
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| and they all came tumbling down! |
I loved seeing the joy in Asher’s face during the whole party! It makes all the stress of party planning worth it!!
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| Asher and his cousin |
A bunch of spidermans!
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| Kian, Asher, Caden, and Caden |
There were many dog piles at the end of the slides in which they purposely did…(learning that this is “normal” boy behavior!)
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Asher has lots of big boy friends too, and one who has a very tender heart, came up to Asher during the party and gave him an unsolicited hug. Love!!
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| this might hurt! |
We had a soccer themed party and my best friend, Jen, made these cute soccer ball cupcakes for Asher!
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| she used 100 calorie Oreo thins on the cupcakes |
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| Happy Birthday to you! |
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| note to self: always get these for parties, they were a HIT! |
The party favors were sweat bands for the boys. I realized I should of passed them out at the beginning of the party versus the end, because everyone was so sweaty from playing! 😉
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When we got home Asher got to open all his presents! The big gift for him this year was Legos! We now have Legos in the Paquette house!! Entering a new stage…
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Thanks to all the family and friends that came to celebrate our special four year old!
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| grandma with Asher |
the paquettes 