Hazel's 12th birthday

I'm not AS off schedule with Hazel's birthday. She just turned 12.

Hazel's birthday is of course always during summer break, so we got to have all the celebration on her actual day!

Her morning pic.

Here she is with the lovely birthday sign Leann made. =)

Leann and her kids were here for the festivities. I am soooo glad we got to hang out with them for her birthday. They got her a whole lot of candy, which she LOVED!

Post silly string pic.

Abby's, of course, for birthday lunch.

Troy had told the girls they would get a pocket knife for their 12th birthday. She has been looking forward to this for a long time. Now she can whittle for days.

We had her friend party a the new public pool. Here is Hazel, Desi, Sophia, and Naomi.

She asked for a Nutella Ice Cream sandwich cake.  I think she liked it, but she likes ANYTHING with Nutella.

We had family over for a BBQ and then headed up to the theater to see Jurassic World.  I love celebrating my girls and I love seeing them grow up into people.

#9

Hazel turned 9 on Sunday, but we turned it into a 2 day event. On Saturday we invited some friends and family out to Camp Yamhill for a forest themed party. 

There was a small water hike down Haskins Creek and lots of swimming and water guns at Inspiration Point.

The birthday girl wanted bear claws for her "cake" because it went better with her forest theme, of course.

 Here is the birthday girl on her birthday morning. I did not realize until looking at this picture how long her legs are. When did she get so big. *sigh*

 Her birthday lunch choice was Abbys, duh. Is there any other place to celebrate your birthday. =)

 Hazel wanted to see Inside Out, but I have not heard amazing reviews. So I did some smooth talking, and played to her love of animals, and talked her into seeing Max. I'm glad she did, because it was a very good movie! 

Grandpapa and Uncle David came down for the celebration

When it's your birthday, and Uncle David is around, why walk? 

I cannot believe we are in our last year of single digits. These girls make it so fun to be a mom!

8th Birthday

I thought about cramming the last 2-3 weeks into one post, but decided that that would take TOO long... a lot has been going on.

So we will start with the most important blog of the past few weeks. Our sweet beautiful Hazel turned 8 years old.  When I think about my girls, I really do beam with pride at the sweet wonderful amazing children God has blessed me with. I still can't believe how old they are, and with every year I just adore them more and more. I know that Hazel turning 8 will be just as exciting ( just hopefully not as exciting as the last week....that post is coming)

Here is the birthday morning picture. We went for an understated Monster High theme this year (with a hint of Frozen).

Grandma made the cakes. Big smiles as the Monster High dolls look on.

We had planned a water party in the park, with specific instructions in the invitation to "wear something you can get wet in".  Then it rained ALL MORNING. I was a little concerned, because it's not much fun to have a water fight in the rain, but I had a couple of back up games, and honestly...we are Oregonians. If we can't have a water fight in the rain, we haven't been raised right. 

I decided to head over to the park to decorate the Scout House, which we had reserved just in case it rained. The rain was coming down as I was loading the car with the party stuff, but by the time the decorating was done, and the first kid showed up the sun was out and was starting to look promising. We did cake and presents first to give the sun a little more time to get hot.

Then we went outside for a warm up game of toss the cheese puffs on the shaving cream covered shower cap.

The kids AND adults got a kick out of it.

Then it was on to the water fight. We had 150 water balloons and an assortment of water guns.  This is the water gun to end all water guns...notice the back pack full of water attached to the water gun....notice the devious smile on the childs face. All in good fun.

Speaking of devious faces.

The water fight lasted for a good 45 minutes, and all children (and some adults) were soaked, mission accomplished.

After cleaning up and drying off we headed to Izzys Pizza for birthday girls dinner of choice. I have such pretty girls....did I already say that? Hazel is sporting her new dress and cowboy boots.

Nothing like a buffet to put a smile on your face.

**sigh. Look at that baby on her first birthday.  #blessedmommy (and I don't even have a Twitter account)