Third Birthday Party

Got the girls to pose for a few quick shots in their cute birthday party outfits before we got changed into bathing suits and hit the water slide.  The dresses are a bit too big as you can see on Kaitlyn especially from the side in the second photo, but that's ok.  They can wear them again next summer.  :-)

Here is the big birthday extravaganza!!!  We rented a blow up water slide, and boy was it a hit!!!

Now, it's time to come inside for some cake!  Everyone sang Happy Birthday which was wonderful, and then it was time for the girls to blow out their candles.  Too bad some of the bigger boys (Carter and Nolan) thought they'd do it for them.  It was funny.  We had to light them again and let them try again.

The photos displayed behind the cake are their third birthday portraits that we had made.  They turned out SO cute.

The board the cake is sitting on says, "Princess Kaitlyn" on one corner, "Princess Nicole" on the other corner, and "Are 3!" across the bottom.  And the cake has three figurines on top of Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Cinderella and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) on it that they got to keep and still "play" with.

And here's a good view of the side.  What fun!

Enjoying the tasty birthday cupcakes (or pup cakes as the girls still accidentally call them).

Ah...good times.  I have a video clip of the girls going down the water slide that I'm going to try to upload next time.  Stay tuned.

Birthday Party

We recently just had the girls' birthday party at the end of July.  It was postponed due to illness.  And I haven't updated or even mentioned this illness until now, but it was doozie!  The girls got a bacteria that we couldn't get rid of for almost THREE MONTHS.  On the outside, you would have never known they were sick (other than to change a diaper if you catch my drift).  And that is DEFINITELY something to be VERY thankful for.  On the inside though, we just couldn't kill this bacteria.  So, basically, the girls couldn't go to daycare for almost three months, which made Mike and I very thankful that they were only in part time daycare. 

I have often wondered what would have happened if they were in full time daycare and if we didn't have a flexible nanny who was able to pick up most of the slack.  It really could have resulted in either me or Mike losing our job.  Who knows?  Or a lot of imposing on family, which probably could have only carried us so far.  There were numerous doctor's appointments, and we finally ended up with a wonderful doctor.  It's past us now. 

The girls are healthy, and I hope they never get this bacteria again.  Most all of us carry this bacteria in our gut, but it just depends who it affects and who it doesn't. We were unlucky.  And antibiotic usage is what "wakes" it up, generally, if it's going to wake up.  The girls both had a sinus infection diagnosed on March 31st and started taking antibiotics for it.  Three months later, there we were cancelling their birthday party. 

So, anyway...back to the party.  We just had it, and let's just say it was worth the wait!  It was awesome!!!!  We rented one of those huge blow up things, but this wasn't a bouncer.  It blew up to be a huge water slide with a small pool at the bottom.  It was a BIG hit!  And we own a bounce house (not a commercial size one, but it's plenty for the kids), so we had that set up too.  It was supposed to rain that afternoon, which could have ruined the whole thing, but it only rained for about 5 minutes.  It wasn't a heavy rain, so some people didn't even go inside.  And that small rain shower actually turned out to be a blessing because it brought cloud cover with it for the rest of the evening, so the adults weren't roasting outside either.  It was actually quite nice and pleasant. 

I'll have photos for the next post.  Sorry...haven't downloaded them off the camera yet.  In the meantime, here are some other random summer photos that we have: