Friday Phone Dump (on Sunday)

Ya, ya, I know I haven't blogged in a while :)  I keep looking and realizing my last post was from Maya's birthday, almost a MONTH ago!  Eek!

But, Tuesday is November 1st which starts NaBloPoMo so the plan is to use my ginormous (real word) backlog of photos to post every day for a month :)

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Michael and I recently drank the Kool-Aid and got iPhones, and I've been using mine, as you can imagine, to take many many photos and then edit them using Instagram.  A blogger I like recently started doing a "Friday Phone Dump" of the week's pictures, and since I'm all about stealing sharing ideas, I'mma do it, too :)  Pretend it's Friday.  

A Love Letter For My Daughter

You were born, and I cried tears of joy at your arrival.  You made me a mom.

You turned one, and I cried tears of sadness at how fast you had become a toddler.  You kept me on my toes.

You turned two and became a big sister, and I rejoiced at how in love with your baby sister you were.  You became my helper.

You turned three, and I laughed every day at your goofiness.  You were my source of entertainment.

And now, sweet sweet Maya, you are four.  When I look at you, I am blown away by your beauty.  You still keep me on my toes, you are still my helper, you still provide joy and laughs every day.  When you were born, I realized a love that I didn't know existed, and I am constantly in awe of how that love for you grows each day.

I look forward to this year and the many that are to come.  You are an amazing person.  I love you.

Love,

Mommy

Maya's Party

Maya's birthday party was so fun!  We had princes, princesses, photo frame decorating, a pinata (that was very, very hard to bust!), a marshmallow catapult, CAKE, and cupcake decorating.  I'm pretty sure my friends were super thrilled with the amount of sugar I filled their kids with, though Sierra did joke about the fact that I put "healthy" candy in the pinata :)  We had our friends from Bible Study and their kids, who just happen to be friends with our kids!  We had a great time, the kids were worn out by the end, and we had enough leftovers that I didn't have to cook for 2 days (yay!).

She turns 4 in 54 minutes, though we told her that she turned 4 when she blew out her candles so that has caused some confusion...today she told me that she is "almost 5" lol :)  She gets to be the "snack leader" at preschool tomorrow and wanted to take either cupcakes or suckers or twizzlers.  We compromised (haha) and she's taking homemade, lowish sugar pumpkin cookies.

It's late and I'm getting cross-eyed staring at my computer screen, so here are some pictures :)

Princes:

 

Princesses:

Photo frame decorating:

Eric kept making weird faces...I think he was hopped up on post-wisdom-tooth-removal vicodin! :)

The very, very, very hard to break pinata:

Grown-ups getting involved:

 

Then the kids got aggressive:

Michael broke it open and then had Maya hit it one more time :)

The kids took their spoils and left about half the stuff on the floor!  At what age do you have to stop encouraging them to take *more* candy???

Catapult:

 

Cake:

Isabella sampled a bit of the frosting...pretty sure she approved ;)

Happy almost-4th-Birthday, Maya!