Playgroup Birthday Celebrations

As usual, I'm a month behind on this blog, which means that I'll forget most of the cute stories that go along with these events and other milestones from these days. Gabi has certainly had some quotable lines recently. One of my favorite examples: one of Michael's bedtime lullabies for Gabi is "Lullaby" by Trout Fishing in America. One line in the song is "I'll be beside you should you fall," after which Gabi always says, "No, you shouldn't."

Bella is very steady sitting on her own now, which means she can ride in the wagon like her big sister. However, Bella arches her back when she cries, so if she gets upset while sitting, she has a tendency to fall backwards and hit her head on the floor. Ouch.


Bella buckled in the wagon for her first ride


Bella riding in the wagon with her big sister

Martin's birthday is just a couple weeks after Gabi's, and he had a big birthday party at Miss Jamie's Playhouse, which was pure chaos. The house was painted all sorts of colors, and each room had a different theme. A dress-up room, an infant play area, a black chalkboard... But these were not ordinary place spaces; rather, they were elaborately designed as if sets for a theatre stage. One room had an indoor deck decorated like a boat with sea scenes painted on the walls and wooden fish to catch with play fishing poles. Another room had white linoleum flooring and the walls were draped in white sheets painted like a snowy frozen lake scene so the kids could pretend to skate, or they could hide behind white cloth-covered beanbags/benches and have a snowball fight with balls of cotton all wrapped in white cloth. But what contributed most to the pure chaos was the extreme number of people/kids, all going wild and running from one room to the next.


Gabi on the porch in the playhouse room;
Gabi (and Sam) found the animal room


The one organized activity: Stick the Number on Thomas
(like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey)

At the end of Martin's party, we all went outside in the muddy backyard to play on the playground and eat birthday cake. Gabi is definitely our girly princess, as she was wearing a white dress and came home without a spot anywhere (except for some frosting in her hair).


Annabelle flying high


Calm, content sisters


Ava and Gabi had a blast swinging together


Bella Annabelle


Bella is always twisting and turning


Chillin' in the sun;
There she goes twisting around again


Gabi laughing and playing basketball (with Daddy's help)

Our little princess also loves to dress up, and since her mean mother secretly gave away all her princess jewelry, she has definitely made use of the stick-on nail decorations and temporary tattoo rings she got for her birthday. (Why would I give away toys that Gabi played with often, you ask? Little clip-on earrings and cheap plastic beaded necklaces and bracelets and jeweled tiaras and fairy wands present choking hazards for Annabelle, and Gabi has too many toys, and I have to keep the house clean to put it on the market.)


Gabi displaying her nail decorations and ring-tattoo;
"I'm a pretty princess!"

Every March, we have a joint birthday party at playgroup for Gabi (2/25), Martin (3/10), Kira (3/11), Ava (3/25), and Landon (3/4). Corralling a bunch of preschoolers for a photo op is hard enough; getting them all to pose is more than you can ask... But here they are, all the birthday kids showing you how old they are:


Three years old: Gabi, Ava, Kira, Martin, and Landon


Bella is very interested in Micah's face

At the joint playgroup birthday party this year, in addition to the three-year-olds, we also celebrated the first birthdays of Evan (2/26, Sam's brother) and Marli (4/7, Kira's sister). I can't believe round two of our playgroup is getting so big already! The second ones seem to grow up so much faster. Micah (Jonah's brother, born 9/9) and Annabelle (born 8/25) are both six months old in this picture.