Happy 7th Birthday Kylie!

Last Friday the 13th, Kylie turned 7 years old!

My parents and Jonathan's mom were able to come into town to celebrate.  Jonathan's dad had to work.  :(  Jonathan took the day off and we did some work to get ready for her party!

Our theme was Wizard of Oz, so for breakfast, she got "Monkey Bread"-get it, the flying monkeys?! 

To keep the present commotion down come party time, she opened her gifts from Nama and Bopa.  Nama sewed her a dress, and crocheted her a swimsuit cover up and a matching bag to hold her pool supplies...including a new towel.

We took everyone to Red Robin for lunch, but didn't get any pictures.

Her friends arrived in the afternoon.  This was our first organized kid party with just a few friends and I told all the moms they could drop their kids off and go do whatever they wanted for the next couple of hours.  In the past, we've had big parties with kids and parents, and as fun as that is, this was WAY more intimate and less overwhelming - and I thought a lot more fun for Kylie (and me!).

 When the kids arrived, they did a maze to help Toto find his bone.

 The table scape.  The kids had Glinda's PB&J wands, apples with dip (remember the mean apple trees?), rainbow gold fish and animal crackers (Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!)

This was definitely the hit-rainbow fruit kabobs!

Of course we had to play Twister...get it?  "Its a twister!"

The cake made by daddy.  He was very proud of his work!

 

When the kids arrived, they saw that our doorbell didn't work, and that our house landed on the wicked witch!  We also had the cyclone song playing by the front door.  Near our drive way, "Munchkin Land" was playing out the window.  Sorry neighbors-hope it wasn't annoying!

Playing "Pin the Heart on the Tin Man".  Jonathan also made the tin man.

 

Playing Oz memory.  Once it got going, they were excited to find pairs and had a hard time keeping quiet when they knew where a match was but it wasn't their turn to pick.  They all got very excited for each other and there were no poor sports.  Everyone got at least one match too.

 Onto Oz bingo.  This was super fun too.  It was so cute to see the bigger kids help out the little kids find words.

 My pretty baby.

All 8 kids squeezed on our kid table-it really DOES hold 8 kids!

K cups

Of course they had to run off all that sugar energy.

 Kylie gave all her friends big hugs after she opened their gifts.

 Micaela

 Alyssa

 Lauren

 Sissies

Grammy and Grandka gave her an art table.  I tell you what-we've had this thing for less than a week and it is AWESOME!!!  They LOVE it!

Cake time!

 

 Everyone singing.

 Micaela takes piano lessons with the same teacher as Kylie.  She played part of "Heart & Soul" as well as "Happy Birthday" for Kylie.

~Family photo ops~

Bopa and Nama.

 Both grandmas.

 Grammy and Kylie

 Kylie with us.  She's so BIG!!!

Later that night she opened her presents from Uncle Jeffery. He always has great thought to his gifts, and I think most all of them have been ordered online while he's been deployed overseas.  He got Kylie "Chose Your Own Adventure" books-which is a joke on Jonathan too because he loved these growing up.  He also got her Monopoly Jr., which in the Kassebaum family, you DO NOT play Monopoly with the boys.  I learned that mistake many years ago.  They are brutal and ruthless!  He also got her an interactive world map-very cool!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, smart, silly, reserved yet adventurous, helpful, inquisitive, sensitive, brave and sassy daughter.  I love you Kylie!!

Daddy date-Ava

This last Friday it was Ava's turn to go out on a date with daddy.  She picked out a sparkly pink dress and white strappy shoes as her ensemble for the evening.  They went out for Thai food, and turns out Ava really liked pad thai!  Then daddy had round two of "Rio".

 I just noticed Jonathan wore the same thing for his date!  Maybe I should have gotten him something new.

 While Ava and daddy were out, we played make-up!  Kylie did some good work us Juliet and I.

Juliet's Ballet Recital

Juliet finished up her ballet class this week with a recital at an assisted living home in town.  For the past 4 months, our Tuesday afternoon has consisted of us going to the home of a home schooled girl who is a senior in high school, and one way she raised some money for bible college was to teach ballet to little girls.  This was a great (and inexpensive) introduction to an activity for Juliet and she really loved it.

Waiting to start! She was very exited and even happier daddy took a bit of time off work to come watch her dance.

 Sorry the pix are a little fuzzy.  We were standing really far away and the lighting wasn't all that great.

Being goofy before starting. She kept looking over at us and waving and smiling.

Showing off her best dance moves.

She had a smile on her face the whole time.  Not an ounce of nervousness!

I too had a smile on my face the whole time and was almost brought to tears watching my cuteness dance her little heart out!

Daddy date-Kylie

A couple nights ago, Jonathan took Kylie on a date.  After getting dolled up in her new dress and heels, she was properly escorted to dinner at Brio and a movie to see Rio.

Ava is going this upcoming Friday, and Juliet knows she has to wait until she's a bit older.

Spring Update

I'm a bad blogger, I know!  I just haven't been giving it any time on my list of priorities...that and because my small amounts of free time has been spent reading!  I can't believe its taken me this long to appreciate the resource that is the city library.  After I purchased all 3 books in the series The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I realized I was going to be in big trouble if I continued to buy books!  Reading really helps me to calm down and its one of the few things that can pull me from house work without feeling guilty.  I've since checked out other great books for myself (including the trilogy Hunger Games...still need to read book 3....and The Help) and the girls.  Kylie is reading the Little House series of books and Ava is reading the Magic Tree House books. 

We've been re-doing the back yard since Christmas.  I can't find the "before" pictures, but basically the yard was not kid friendly.  There was no place for the girls to run and play.  The old owner had a pond in the middle of the yard, and we liked the pond idea, just not its placement.  Jonathan dug a new one and we did a LOT of dirt and rock moving, paver re-locating, plant removal and transplanting, sprinkler system re-laying (moving it wasn't enough...we found U-turns of PVC underground...Jonathan wasn't thrilled about that!) and new landscaping. It took about 3 months to get done (we did hire day-laborers a few of those days to get it moving along in the beginning).

  And don't tell Jonathan I told you but the pond leaks...he's working on it.

 

New grass!!

 Bigger grass area to play!

 Its soooo hard to get them all looking!

 New pond. 

We've since planted a queen palm in the corner and a few other filler plants around it.

 Jonathans parents were in town for a weekend so he felt it was time to turn the tables on his dad and have him help us with our yard work!

This random photo was cracking us up.  We wanted to close one of the heater/AC vents in our formal living room.  No ladder will reach this so we had to improvise.  He got it closed after only a few attempts!

 The girls like playing games and here we are playing THE LOOOOONGEST game EVER!!  I like the ladders part, but the chutes can really test a mothers nerves!

I love little hands.

Spring soccer has started as well. 

 Cheetahs (same team as in the fall)

 Dragons

 Doing sprints with daddy before the game.

 Ava really came out of her shell this season.  She's more aggressive and light on her feet!

 Look at that form!

Kylie plays well, but it seems like, while playing, her mind is somewhere else.  Still not sure if this is her sport or not.

Coolness watches from the sidelines.  She'll most likely start in the fall. 

 

Its really really really tough keeping up with all of the girls activities.  In addition to soccer, the big girls are still doing gymnastics (which they love!) and Juliet is finishing up ballet.  She even has a little recital May 6th at a retirement community.  She wants to try gymnastics too.  I'm still going to the gym 3 days a week too.  Needless to say, we are out of the house a lot.

Oh yeah, Kylie also began piano lessons back in March.

 She's has caught on very well.  I'm learning too!

That old piano we bought back in Florida is actually being used for more than displaying stuff, and her teacher said it isn't that badly out of tune.

Now that both Kylie and Ava can start and stop their bikes on their own (I taught them mind you!  I was so excited since Jonathan taught them to ride without training wheels, I didn't want to feel totally worthless in the bike riding department) and Juliet has figured out how to ride a bike instead of a tricycle, we've been out riding bikes a lot.  We even took our first family bike ride a couple of weekends ago and it was so much fun!

Pool weather is here too.

And just yesterday, I stole and idea from my friend Amber, and the girls and I went on a nature scavenger hunt.  They had a list of stuff to find and Kylie was really into it.  Juliet enjoyed pulling the wagon and I had to remind Ava she had to find her own things and not copy Kylie all the time.

 Let the adventure begin!

 Some things were to be collected, while others required just a picture.

Touching something prickly.

Just this past weekend Jonathan and I traveled to Florida to fix up our house for our new renters.  We are grateful our old renters are out and have better hopes for our new tenant.  It was weird to be back at the house and after we spruced it back up both inside and it, it was sad to leave it yet again.  The girls stayed in California with both grandparents for the weekend and we got the pleasure of being up for 21 straight hours on our last travel day and managed to set foot in both houses we own on opposite coasts in the same day.  At night we went out with wonderful friends that we miss terribly (who were also extremely helpful in letting us borrow stuff, and do things for us when we weren't in town), saw a few other friends during the day, had Starbucks every morning for breakfast, and Jonathan and I enjoyed working together.  We never even had one argument!  We joke around that we'd never survive something like "Amazing Race" but maybe we really could.

The only pictures I got were what our renters managed to do to our house....I'll spare you the dirty air filter and broken screen door.  I failed to take a picture of the moldy shower curtain and the chewed up gum left on a window sill.

I'll be better, I promise!