Cambrie turns 6!

Cambrie turned 6 years old today! She woke up this morning to find the house decorated with streamers, birthday signs, and birthday balloons.  It was a day that began in smiles and ended in smiles.  I guess you could call that a successful birthday celebration!  

Our tradition is that the birthday celebrator gets to choose their birthday meals for the day.  Cambrie's day began with cinnamon french toast and chocolate milk...yummy!  

But once the birthday breakfast was over she had to wait, and wait, and wait for the rest of the birthday celebrations.  (How rotten huh?)  This girl was going crazy waiting for 1:00 when her birthday party with friends would begin.  To fill the gap we painted nails, put on her new birthday outfit and accessories, and played with Nana a lot.  We also headed to her favorite restaurant, Noodles & Co. for lunch.  Their mac and cheese is fantastic and we never come home with empty tummies.  

A sister's birthday hug

Finally, it was time for her birthday party to begin.  Cambrie has wanted to go to Color-Me-Mine ever since she found out it existed.  This party was the perfect opportunity to do just that.  She asked Audrey and Ella to join her on her artistic adventure as they painted ceramic creations.  I had to keep from laughing as they chose their ceramics and paint colors.  Each girls' personality was reflected in their decisions: Cambrie chose a dragonfly statue and a good variety of garden colors, Audrey chose a fairy dish with pinks and reds, and Ella chose a hamburger piggy bank but not a single hamburger color.  I wanted the girls to take their time and really take pride in their creations.  I was relieved to see that they followed directions and really did do a good job.  

As Cambrie worked on her dragonfly, her little tongue kept creeping out.  She must have really been concentrating.  

The girls were slightly disappointed to find out that they couldn't take their ceramics home with them right away.  Instead the store will fire them and we will pick them up in a few days.  But they all said they had a good time.  Cambrie was super cute as she stepped outside, threw her hands up and declared, "That was so much fun!"

When we got home Jeremy had the cake waiting for us.  We are always kept in suspense as he creates his masterpieces.  Our jaws dropped to the floor as we saw Cambrie's ocean-themed cake.  He created modeling chocolate figurines and sugar candy seaweed to adorn the cake.  I was incredibly impressed.  

Cambrie's face was pure joy as she saw what her daddy had made for her.  "This is the best birthday cake ever!"  

After officially dying everyone's lips and mouths blue, it was time for birthday presents.  We decided to combine the family presents with the friends presents and make one big celebration.  

Ella gave Cambrie a secret ink journal.  

Audrey ordered a best friends necklace.  

McKenzie gave her some Legos and a flashlight.  

Daddy got her some diving sticks.  

I got her some perler beads.  

And Nana gave her a Friend Lego city.  

It was so much fun watching her unwrap her gifts.  She was truly excited and grateful for each one.  I don't think there is any way we could have wiped that smile off her face.  

After the party was officially over, Audrey stayed and played Legos for a time.  

Then we were on to the birthday girl's dinner.  She requested french dip sandwiches.  I think they're delicious (and incredibly simple) so it was perfect.  Jacob came over and dropped off a birthday present for Cambrie too.  He brought over 3D sidewalk chalk and bubbles for all of the time they spend playing in the front yard in the evenings.  The kids wasted no time going outside and playing with the new chalk.  Can you believe that the 3D actually works?  

Cambrie's final birthday request of the day was to wrestle with daddy.  Since it was such an incredible evening, they wrestled outside on the grass.  I love seeing the girls' smiles as they play with Jeremy.  

I can't believe our little girl is 6!  Happy birthday sweetheart!

The 4th of July

Frankly, I didn't expect to be celebrating the 4th of July this year.  I thought for sure that this little guy would be here, or be coming at least.  On the night of the 3rd, I realized that we needed to make some quick plans so our 4th wouldn't be a bust.  We ran to the dollar store to grab some supplies for the girls' bikes for the neighborhood bike parade.  They each chose what they wanted on their bikes and we were pretty happy with how they turned out.  We also picked up some glow sticks for the fireworks show that night and some goodies for our own little BBQ.  The morning of the 4th, there was still no baby so we went ahead with the festivities. 

Holiday pancakes by Jeremy.

The girls got dressed in their red, white, and blue, hopped on their bikes, and joined the throng of children riding around the peanut in our neighborhood. 

We met up with our neighbor, Jacob, and the kiddos cruised. 

Once their parade was over they each received a patriotic Popsicle to cool off. 

Here are some of their other little neighbor friends, Greer and Jacqui. 

McKenzie was seriously loving that Popsicle. 

It was such a beautiful day that we simply had to go to the pool.  The girls decided the water slides at The Bay sounded like a good idea so we packed a lunch and headed out.  Cambrie is loving the fact that she past the swim test and can now go down the water slides on her own. 

McKenzie is loving the fact that she discovered how warm cement can be when you lay down on it while wet. 

Both girls have made hugs improvements in their swimming this year. Cambrie can swim at least 15 yards with proper side breathing and loves hanging out under water.  She is even getting comfortable enough that if the water gets too deep, she knows she has a couple of options to keep her head above water until she gets to a wall or an adult. 

McKenzie absolutely loves swimming from the wall to me, or between Jeremy and I.  She will fearlessly jump away from where she is hanging and start moving towards her goal.  Her arms don't move at all, but her little legs start kicking and her little eyes are open and searching for a place to come up.  It is so cute to watch and I am proud that she is brave enough to try. 

I spent a few minutes nice and dry to snap some more pics.

The rest of the afternoon we napped, roasted hot dogs, and ate watermelon.  Finally it was time to head to the park to wait for fireworks.  We tried a new location this year and it was fun exploring the park.  There was a garden of cement arches that were perfect for climbing on and playing hide-and-seek. 

Once the girls were done with that, they moved to the grass to practice their handstands.  Cambrie was getting pretty good...McKenzie didn't quite grasp the concept but was determined to try. 

Before we knew it there were colorful explosions in the sky.  I love a good fireworks show and this one really was fantastic.  They had some really creative sequences and I never became bored.  The finale was comprised of only red, white, and blue fireworks which I thought was awesome.  McKenzie loved the fireworks that looked like pixie dust and I can't say I blame her, they are beautiful.  Too soon our 4th of July celebrations were over and it was time to call it a day.  I look forward the 4th every year and am already looking forward to next year.

Nursery Ahoy!

Trying to decide how to decorate baby's room was tricky.  At first I was determined to keep it as simple as possible and wanted to use the color already in the room.  However, the more I looked, the more I fretted, the more I realized that I really didn't like the color that was already there.  Once I was free to do whatever I wanted, I realized I had no idea what I wanted to do!  I eventually decided on a nautical-ish theme.  I wanted it to feel like the time Jeremy and I spent in Nantucket but it still needed to be baby friendly.  The room came together a step at a time.  First I decided on the Chevrons.  Next, I decided I love the clean lines of navy blue and white.  Then I decided the wainscotting would really transform the room.  As soon as I presented this idea to Jeremy he readily agreed with me verbally, but really he was thinking, "Is she crazy?  Does she know how much work this is going to be?"  He was right.  The wainscotting was a lot of work.  We found that in order to make it look the way we wanted to he needed to sand all of the existing texture off the walls.  That was not a simple task.  It took him two weeks to sand and mud and sand and smooth.  Dust was everywhere and the beautiful walls I had just painted needed to be repainted.  But he did a fabulous job and it turned out looking exactly as I had hoped.  We wanted to involve the girls, so they were each give a piece of wood to paint however they wanted as kind of a secret message to their baby brother. 

Once they had them decorated we placed them secret-side down before we attached them to the wall.  Here the girls are demonstrating where they placed their secret-message boards.  This kid is in for a treat with these two crazy girls as his big sisters. 

Once the hard labor was complete, the rest of the room came together in bits and pieces.  I needed to reupholster the rocking chair and ottoman.  I needed to order a crib.  I needed to sew the baby a quilt.  But the hardest thing was finding red accent pieces to finish the look.  I stumbled upon everything in the most random places and had the most success finding things when I wasn't even looking.  But now I can relax because it feels complete (minus the cute baby pictures to go in the empty frames).  The room has been done for almost a month now, and I can't wait for it to be occupied by a little baby!

 

Dinosaur Ridge

In an effort to get as much outdoor fun done as possible before the baby comes, we went up to Dinosaur Ridge to see what kind of cool fossils we could see.  The trail from the visitor's center takes you up a road that winds around a ridge.  Along the side of the road you can see fossilized footprints, sand, branches, and dinosaur bones. 

Footprints (made more visible with charcoal)

Another footprint

 

The dark red patch Cambrie's hand is resting on is a dinosaur bone.

When we first got started it was really hot and it made for slow going from the girls.  I didn't complain too much, it was just the right pace for me.  The longer we walked, the cooler it became until it eventually started raining.  We were all very happy with the cool down.  While we wished we could have seen even more dinosaur bones, we all had a good time and were glad for the Saturday excursion. 
 

We strayed off the beaten path to climb to the top of the ridge.  In the background you can see Red Rocks Amphitheater.

 
The "ball" that Jeremy is trying to catch in his mouth is a geological anomaly made by a mineral pocket when the rock was forming.  It was one of my favorite sights of the day.

 

Back at the visitor's center the girls were digging for dinosaur bones...or just filling their buckets with as much gravel as possible.