Open House

Gabbi was so excited for her open house. She waiting, impatiently, for the party to start. She was all over the place. I finally sent her and the boys outside to play just to get out of my hair while I got things ready. When it was finally time, her guests started showing up.

The kids instantly went to play on the swing set. I was glad that they were okay with not being able to go in the house to play. While they all went to play Gabbi took her place on her chair. She really does love to be that center of attention and wanted "to get things started." I asked her if she wanted to go play with her friends, she smiled and said no and happily waited to be able to open her gifts. 

She again was spoiled. She got a jewelry making kit, an outfit, homemade bracelet and necklace, art kit, homemade doll hair accessories, and a bag of starburst.

After she was done opening her gifts she wanted to get straight to the cake. I was surprised that she still didn't want to play. So we called everyone over and they all sat around the picnic table. I brought the cake out and we tried to get the candles going, but the light wind was preventing that. So while we tried to get them lit everyone sang happy birthday. When they were done singing she got to blow out one of the candles, the other one just didn't want to light.

When all was said and done with the cake all of the kids ran off to play. It was a great party and she was happy. That's all that matter. The only thing that would have made it better would be Ben being home.

Birthday cake

With her birthday we did an open house. In preparation for that open house she had a request for her cake. She wanted an art cake. Christy and Shantelle weren't able to come and help me out, so this one was solo.

She requested an art cake. So I made a 3 layer round cake, covered it with white fondant, and a splash of color. We made it look like paint on a cake along with a paint brush. Gabbi was able to help me pick out the colors of the paint splats and then where she wanted the paint brush placed. She loved the end result. If I do say so myself, it turned out pretty good.

Now just to wait for the party guests.

10 year old pictures

Same time as always, a birthday means new pictures. Gabbi choose what she wanted to wear and how she wanted her hair done. When she was ready, we drove to the Botanical gardens by the walk way. They have some pretty flowers blooming and it seemed like a great place to take them. Gabbi did really well too. She smiled when I asked her too and posed how I wanted her to. We were done in no time flat. She did well enough that I rewarded her with a treat when we were done.

Cake

Shantelle asked Christy and me if we would help put together a cake for a baby shower. We love to make cakes, we were both happy to jump in and help out. We were given a few pictures to look at to get ideas and once we saw those, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. We were told pink and gold and then we went at it. It only took a few hours and I think it turned out great. We even got to try a few things we haven't done before.

Birthday

As usual, we went out to dinner for Gabbi's birthday. We went out once already with Ben before he left, this time around it had to be something cheeper. She choose just to go to McDonalds.

After we were done eating we went back home and we sang to her and let her blow out some birthday candles. She was happy to just have the left over cake from family dinner, so that's what we did. As long as she was happy with it, I was okay with that. She even got to open a few birthday cards that came in the mail today.

Buddies

I sometimes have a hard time when we get together with my side of the family. Well, not me personally, but feel bad for the kids. Gabbi is the only one that has a cousin to play with her age. The boys however kind of get lost in the shuffle. Owen tries to fit in and play with Cameron and J.D., but that doesn't last long sometimes. William on the other hand will play with anyone, but they get board of him really fast. The only thing that really helps is Kayden. He will happily play with William the whole time we are at family dinner. He'll do almost anything he asks. Its so sweet to watch. William absolutely loves it. It will be sad when Kayden goes on his mission and no longer has his Buddy to hang out with anymore.

Birthday dinner

This time around at family dinner we got to celebrate Gabbi’s birthday. It was also our turn to host, so I even let her choose what we ate for dinner. She was super excited, she loves to be the center of attention. Some times that can be a bad thing, but luckily she didn’t let it get to her head this time around. She just couldn’t wait to open her presents. Sadly she would have to until after dinner was over and waiting for Papa to get there. She was a good sport, luckily she had her cousin there to occupy her time and keep her mind off presents.

When Papa got there, it was finally time. This year Gabbi asked for Art stuff. She was jealous when J.D. got some really awesome stuff for Christmas, and wanted some herself. I told her that she won’t get what he got since she hasn’t been drawing for as long or like J.D. has. She said that was fine, she just wanted some so she could start to practice drawing. My family did great. She got a few different how to draw books, calming coloring book, some canvases, paint brushes, paint, paint kit, sketch pad, etc. The looks on her face after she opened each one was great. She was so happy and couldn’t wait to use them.

Food party

As a reward for donations earned from the school's fun run, Owen's class got a pizza and doughnut party. He was so excited when he told me about it after getting home from school. He said the best part was getting to have two lunches today. That made me laugh. Anything to make kids happy, right.

Tree

William is a walking magnet for face injuries. This time it was a tree. He was running in the back yard at family dinner last night and the next thing you know, William is being brought in crying. He apparently ran into a tree while running and hit the side of his face. He has a  bruise around his eye and had some "road rash" type scratches to the side of his face and cheek. The best part about kids is that all you have to do is give them the magical hug and that fixes most problems. That's exactly what happened in this case. Such a tuff kid.

Easter Pics

Even though Easter was a week ago, the kids were still excited about their new church clothes, especially Gabbi. I don't think they were as happy to sit and let me take a few pictures, but they still obliged me before heading to church. They all looked so cute too.

Sagez get together

We weren’t able to get a day that worked for everyone in March to celebrate birthdays, so we pushed it back to April. We luckily we were able to get together the last Saturday that Ben had left before heading to Texas. We made it simple as well. We planned to eat at the Grille Restaurant and then move over to the alley and bowl a few games. After that we planned to head back to Nelson and Deann’s for some cake and gifts.

Dinner went off without a hitch and the best part, we didn’t have to make it or clean it up. When everyone does eating we went over to the alley and got ready to bowl. We were able to get a few lanes and let the kids have at it. The kids were on lanes of their own and the adults that wanted to play were on their own. It was fun watching the kids bowl. They tried to bowl like the adults, but half way through it never fails, they pull out the ramp. Which of course it fine, but it’s still fun to watch them try. Great Grandma Sagez even pulled Gabbi a side and showed her a few things. She came back with more confidence the next time she grabbed her ball to bowl.

When the games were over, we headed back to Nelson and Deann’s place. When we got there the kids ran off to play, but quickly came back when we told them about cake. We sang Happy Birthday to all those that we were celebrating and then we ate cake. Once the cake and gifts were done, the kids cleaned up their ironically enough small mess, we then said our goodbyes and headed home.