Movie Theater Birthday Party

Evie was so super excited to see all her buddies at the theater for her birthday party. We have done two of Kara's parties here as well. It's just so easy, fun, and I don't have to clean up. I always try to talk them into doing this, haha. She brought a couple stuffed animals to sit on the table, and because they are sort of ball shaped, they did end up getting thrown around a little bit. 

Big sisters are awesome helpers. They filled up lots of drinks, and assisted on eleventy-billion bathroom trips. 

We left a cushion at the end because she really wanted to open her gifts with her friends. 

It was crazy-chaos-kookoo time. 

It took so long, that we went over our time, and had to be kicked out so they could clean up before the next party. Oops! The girls all thought that was funny. She finished tearing things open in the lobby. 

I think most of the kids liked the movie. The beginning was a little boring for them before the characters started showing up. I was worried for a hot minute there. I still think they'd have liked Hotel Transylvania 3 even better though. 

It was an easy party with this many sassy girls! I feel like I really lucked out that we caught them all on a good morning. They were,however, kinda loud and squeally. I think the theater employees were relieved to see us go outside.

Just some goof balls goofin'.

Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch...

Everyone was so happy to see Jingles after a few weeks away. She was beyond ecstatic to see us too. She wanted a LOT of attention, and followed us all around for days. She even let Kiersten try her shark outfit on her. It was fun. I'm about dead just seeing the photos again. 

We had a very jubilant kitchen that afternoon. 

Because we were travelling on Evie's birthday, we set her party for after we got back. She wanted to update the cupcake tower. I guess yellow and black batman paper wasn't doing it for her. Since her party was going to be at the movie theater, we decorated it to match the movie, Christopher Robin. I cut out some beehives, bumble bees, and flowers on the cricut on sparkly paper. I wanted to do red, bright blue, and bright yellow, but Evie wanted pink and pastel blue/yellow. I thought she was wrong, but went with what she wanted anyway. It turned out super cute, and the colors worked, even if they came off a little "baby" to me. 

She had fun sticking all the decorations on. She had a pattern, and therefore didn't want any assistance. There were too many decorations, so we kept them in a baggie so we could scatter them around the table at the party. 

Since we were in crafting mode, Evie decorated her letter "E" we had gotten a while ago. She ended up using washi tape and markers, and maybe a few stickers. She was quite proud. 

Kiersten also decorated her "K". She wanted more of a clean look. 

Here's a picture I took of a hummingbird. So cute!

Kara helped me bake the cupcakes for Evie's party, so Kiersten and Evie got to help decorate them. We decided to do Tigger, Piglet, and Pooh themed cupcakes. I have to give credit to Ben for them, though. I was so disappointed that Evie switched her movie from Hotel Transylvania 3 to Christopher Robin, because I had a fun idea for donuts wearing vampire teeth. So when Evie insisted on switching movies, I couldn't think of anything fun we could do. I thought it would be too hard to make cupcakes that looked like the characters, and that it would take forever. So Ben pointed out that they didn't have to look like the characters to convery the idea of the characters, and suggested we use the melting chocolates to create piglet tails and tigger stripes. He had a different idea for the Pooh cupcakes, but when I saw the perfectly sized yellow melting chocolates, I called an audible on that one. The best part is that I just had to create the pieces, and once they were set up, the girls were able to do all of the work without needing help. 

Evie had the idea to use mini chocolate chips for eyes and noses. I thought they were cute. 

Almost all of the piglet tails broke in half. I guess I made them too long. But none of the kids found anything suspicious about shorter tails than I'd planned. 

The Tigger ones were my least favorite, but surprisingly popular at the party, so go figure. 

It was time to get back to soccer practice almost as soon as we got back from Idaho. They've gotta kick all the rust off, I guess. 

Morning Hike

After we left the cabin, we didn't want to say goodbye, so we decided to take a short hike together. Ben found a nearby loop we could do with all the kids. I think it was about 3 miles. There was a lot of cousin togetherness, and everyone was all smiles. 

They didn't want to say goodbye to Grandpa! But my parents needed to get on the road for home. 

Sorry to see Grandma leave too :(

We left Chris in the parking lot with her painful, sunburned feet, and started out. It was hard keeping up with Kiersten, Kyrie, Linkin, and Cash, but they were the rascals I tried to stay up with. 

Addy was so sweet keeping track of the little girls. They adore her. 

I thought this picture was fun. I guess all these kids were up ahead of me at this point. 

Near the top.

Fortunately there were lots of tempting logs and tree trunks off to the side that they all wanted to climb around on. It actually slowed them down somewhat so we olds could keep up. 

It was pretty nice at the top. I miss the Rocky Mountains. 

I made the teenagers/young adults (I guess!) get a photo. I love these kids beyond words. They still seem like wee babies to me. Hopefully they don't remember all of teenager Becky's babysitting mishaps back in the day. 

Evie has always loved her cousin Jayden best. At one point she was calling him her "manservant". He's very kind about it. At least she doesn't want to marry him anymore. 

My love. He's a good guy. I know how much he loves hiking. 

We let the kids play on this tree for a while. No one wanted to go back down the trail yet. 

Some of the kids were super high. We made them get down, because we are fun spoilers. 

They'd have stayed up there all day if we'd let them. 

Eventually it was time to start back down. 

The kids scratched their names on the rocks with smaller rocks. 

Shelly, Chris, and Angie's families all headed down to Utah for a few more days together, but the rest of us ultimately had to say our sad farewells. We had some tears. 

 But hopefully we can all be together again soon. 

On our way back up to IF, Evie wanted to stop at the Paris sign. She was so excited about it. She got a snowglobe and magnet too.