Weeklong Celebration

I think I used the excuse "Well, let's just do it for Olivia's birthday" almost every day last week. We went to the pool and Red Robin on Monday, on Thursday we went to the Cuyahoga County fair, and for the weekend we went to Cold Stone for her free cone and had her birthday party. Let's just say that we won't be going out for a while...

We had a lot of fun at the fair. We went with our neighbors, Rachel, Rylynn and Carter, for Kid's Day on Thursday. The kids had a lot of fun going on rides and eating hot dogs and cotton candy. It was so hot that all I wanted was the way-too-expensive-but-so-worth-it lemonade. I also had a chicken wrap, which was so good! I could have eaten every fried thing at that fair, but not only were they way too expensive, I figured that pregnant or not, eventually I would have to work all that off!

Jack and Carter were so cute on the rides, especially this little ferris wheel. I think if the ride had gone on any longer, Jack would have fallen asleep. I couldn't tell if he was bored or just way too comfortable!

Olivia got her face painted. She decided on a strawberry to match her shirt. Later, when her friend Rylynn got a unicorn, Olivia decided she also needed a unicorn so she got her other cheek painted after this picture. Yeah, yeah, so I spoil her. I can admit it, so it isn't a problem, right?

Adam helped Olivia feed the sheep. We didn't really buy the feed, just picked some handfuls off of the floor that people had dropped. She was much more brave than I was. I still think that sheep wanted to eat my hand!

Olivia had her first real birthday party this year too. Her first and second birthday we held a really low-key barbecue for friends. Her third birthday was planned as a family party in Washington, but had to be postponed and toned down because the day before I was hospitalized with viral meningitis. So this year I wanted her birthday party to be lots of fun. It was a "Princess Party" of course. She invited friends from her Sunbeam class and her two friends from our date group. Seven 3- and 4-year-olds in my house plus Jack and Carter and Rachel (my little helper! Thanks!) and Adam made for quite the chaos.We fed the kids lunch, which consisted of "Fruit Wands" which was my mother's idea, cheese dogs in a blanket and PB&J cut into stars. It was a hit and way easy to make.Okay, so I can see that it is a little (or a lot) lopsided, but this cake was my biggest headache all morning. I'm just glad the (dumb) thing got frosted and decorated! It is four (!) 8x8 cakes stacked on top of each other with 2 smaller squares cut out and stacked on top of that from a fifth cake. The towers are frosted ice cream cones. And Adam totally helped me with this project so thank you honey! Olivia loved it, so that is all that I cared about.Olivia in her Princess dress from Nana. She wanted to wear it all day long.This picture is for Garrett- It is her party and she'll cry if she wants to, cry if she wants to... you get the idea.I love how excited Jack is to get in on the pinata action. I'm just glad we found a princess pinata! Maybe that is why Jack liked it so much...

These pictures don't do justice to the amount of kids surrounding Olivia while she was opening presents. Let's just say she had plenty of help with the opening part. She got so many fun things that we had to limit the amount of toys she got to open up each day. I love her face as she opened up each present. She was genuinely excited for every thing she got, and is now very protective of her new things (Jack is not allowed anywhere near her new things).

Jack and Olivia love balloons. I mean love. They are far too excited to be bathing with the balloons. Seriously, I need to draw boundaries somewhere! But they are too cute!