The party!

Since Evie loves Minnie Mouse so much, I saw these cupcakes on pinterest that I had to make for her birthday party. I frosted them, and Kiersten put on the ears and bows.

All the kids had fun playing with the balloons. My intention had been to make a balloon wall, but I'm glad I just left them loose, since the kids had such a great time with them.

Ben set up a slip n slide in the back yard, and we turned on the sprinklers too.

birthday baby with a water gun!

The kids got to frost a cookie to eat. I think Kiersten did a couple. she was in there for quite a while.

we had some velvet posters for them to color. Evie was pretty good with the markers. I was surprised!

We all got a kick out of Jacob's cookie! I was sure he'd get sick, but he ended up only eating a couple bites.

Kara said hers was a work of art, and she wanted to save it forever... until she ate it.

Evie loved opening her gifts!

of course I had to get the baby dolls right out of the packaging so she could play with them before moving on to the next gift.

She has lately started to love the new strawberry shortcake cartoons. So she was pretty excited to get some of the scented dolls! We do get tired of her demanding to watch "shawtcake!" all the time.

It was a fun party, and I think all the kids enjoyed themselves.

Yesterday, Nancy and Victor wanted to go to the temple, so I got to hang out with Tommy and Whitney. Of course Whitney was a dream, and went straight down for a nap with no fuss. The other kids wanted to come outside with me while I watered all of the new plants, so I got out the sidewalk chalk for them to play with.

Tommy was so funny. as soon as he drew a picture, he would grab the eraser to start erasing it.

After sidewalk chalk, they all had popsicles, and then we made cookies. They were all pretty good about taking turns helping. Isn't this a fun bunch of kiddos?