August birthday party

Despite the fact that August is statistically the month with the most birthdays (followed by July and September), only one of Maggie's friends had a birthday party this month that we could attend. (Her Papa - my dad - also celebrated his birthday this month, but he didn't have a party. Happy belated birthday!) Maggie's friend recently had a princess party complete with a backyard bounce house and plenty of friends to play with. Maggie loved it.

cowboy birthday

Maggie's bud, K-Bob, turned one this month and we got to celebrate with him this past weekend. His family threw him a darling cowboy birthday party in the country complete with stick horses for the kids, hats, bandanas, photo ops, swimming, food and a pinata. A great way to spend a warm weekend evening.

third birthday party

We threw Maggie her third birthday party on Saturday and she had a blast. She is super proud to now be three! Eight of her friends came to help her celebrate, and along with their parents, my parents and a few others, the group totaled over 30 people. The kids started out painting birdhouses (the very light party theme focused on birds. If you watch Portlandia you get it and if not, click here to see why). Then they played in the sprinkler toys for a little while before sitting down for lunch. After eating we had cupcakes and then let the kids take a few whacks at a bird pinata we stuffed for them. We filled it with the usual crap: candy, bouncy balls, bubbles, mini skateboards, etc. and the kids enjoyed both trying to break it with the stick and gathering the loot from the ground after it was broken. Finally we opened her gifts before everyone set off for home.  It was a busy but fun party and we're pretty sure most everyone had a good time. We hope anyway!

Happy Birthday, Mags!

Today is Maggie's third birthday and yesterday we celebrated with her friends. More photos later this week, but for now...happy birthday sweet girl! We love you!

Glendale/Los Angeles

For Chad's birthday my parents watched Maggie for the weekend so we could spend a couple nights in LA. We did things Chad wanted to do and we both had a nice time. Super fun seeing our old favorites down there and getting to relax a bit between stops. We hit Chad's favorite restaurants: Damon's, Scarantino's and Fred 62. We also drove to Montrose, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and by our old apartment in Glendale. We spent time people watching in the Americana and saw a couple movies, including The Avengers (eh) near our hotel and then Moonrise Kingdom (yeah!) at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood. Overall it was a great weekend with perfect LA weather and good company.

Happy birthday, Chad (a bit late...)

We spent the morning of Chad's birthday at one of Maggie's friend's third birthday party. While not the first thing that came to mind as a fun way for Chad to spend his big day, he had a great attitude and we all enjoyed the morning. That evening for dinner we went out to celebrate and Mags and I helped him eat his birthday dessert.

Weekend Visitors

Today I finally started to get overwhelmed by how behind I am on blogging. The pressure finally gave in and I'm back.  So we left off in April...

We had our friends from the D.C. area out for my birthday weekend. We ate lots of food, snacked on yummy home-delivered ice cream, took a drive in the foothills, watched some MMA fight at our neighbors' house, visited the Forestiere Underground Gardens (go if you're a local and haven't been) and hung out. It's always nice to see them and we really appreciate the effort they make to come out here to see us.

birthday party

At the beginning of the month Maggie was invited to her friend's 4th birthday party. It was at Pump It Up in Madera and the kids all had such a fun time celebrating his big day. After jumping for awhile there were snacks and cupcakes before he opened his presents. Maggie would not eat any of her yellow cupcake, but she did hold it, and she did lick the frosting a few times. Mostly, though, she wanted to use it as lipstick and smear it all over her lips.

Pirate Party

On Wednesday one of Maggie's friends turned three. He had his pirate themed birthday party at a local park and his mom went crazy with the decorations, food and activities. I wish I'd taken photos of everything before the kids enjoyed it because it was so stinking cute. Maggie got to make a pirate hat, search for some jewels in the pirate's booty tub, spot treasures with her scope and, of course, play at the park. The food included the most adorable blue jello cups with orange floating pirate ships, cupcakes, tons of fruit, crackers, etc. Cute cute cute.

Birthday Party Videos

As promised, here are a few little videos from Maggie's party. As I mentioned before, there were 8 kids there to help her celebrate. A few of them are shown in this video. 

Maggie's Rainbow Party

On Saturday Maggie's best friends came over for her second birthday celebration. It was a rainbow-themed party filled with water playing fun. We had a kiddie pool with toys and balls and a homemade car wash (kid wash?) for the kids to run through. They seemed to enjoy it. It was a fun party and I know Maggie had a blast. Thanks to everyone who came to help us celebrate our sweet girl's big day!

(A video or two will be uploaded soon.)

The following shots were taken from our photographer friend, Josh. Click here to visit his website.

Happy Birthday, Maggie!

Last Friday was Maggie's big TWO birthday. For the most part the day was spent getting ready for her birthday party, but we did take a couple hour break in the afternoon to hit Tumble America for some fun. We went with Maggie's friend and her mom (my friend) and the girls jumped and climbed and got some darn good exercise. Later that night we went to sushi for a celebration dinner (Maggie had her share of edamame and shrimp) and opened a few gifts before bedtime. Fun day! Happy birthday, Maggie!

Car Seat

On Sunday we gave Maggie an early birthday surprise and switched her car seat from back- to front-facing. I have been strict about keeping her back-facing until age 2 and finally gave in 5 days before her birthday. Chad and I anticipated some sort of party from Maggie but instead she smiled for the camera and then really didn't show much care at all. Huh. Chad and I like being able to see her when we're driving, so at least two of us are excited about the move.

Birthday

Last week I celebrated my birthday and a great one it definitely was. My friend, Loren, who lives far away came to help us celebrate and we had such a nice time with her. I received some interesting and generous and thoughtful gifts this year. Lucky me!  Thanks to everyone who remembered and helped me celebrate. I appreciate it so much!

Book Party Fun

One of Maggie's sweet little friends had her first birthday and earlier this month we got to celebrate with her. Maggie REALLY enjoyed her friend's toys and made herself right at home to use them. We're going to have to watch that.











 



Below are a couple photos of Maggie taken by the birthday girl's photographer dad, Josh Sherfield. As you can see, Maggie is pretty fond of him.

Swim Party People

Saturday we were lucky enough to help celebrate our cousin Bailey's 13th birthday. She actually turned 13 last month, but this past weekend was the first time we could all get together. We ate lots of good food, played in the pool, competed in a ping-pong tournament, played water volleyball, jumped on the trampoline, spent time with family and listened to great music. Maggie enjoyed swimming with everyone (including with her water polo cousin, Chris, as you see here). And below is another four-generations photo with me, Mags, Mom and GG.

Last Party Post

Chad and I made a giant photo booth for Maggie's party. I also made and/or gathered props for people to use so they could take photos that were a little more memorable than the usual family shots. To round out the recap of Maggie's birthday party, here are a few of the best photos taken of our friends and family in the booth. Because I haven't asked for permission to post these photos, I'm not going to include names to protect our guests' privacy. (Send me an email if you want to know who they are. Ha!)

Party Continued...

Unfortunately I didn't get many great photos of Maggie at her party. I did get some, but nothing particularly amazing or frame-worthy. I was a little busy, I guess. Instead of posting a couple of cuties I'm going to show you, using yet again another collage, some photos of her throughout the day.

Maggie's Birthday Extravaganza

Maggie turned one last week, as you probably know, and we threw her a party on Sunday. Never in a million years did we believe that so many people would be willing to come help us celebrate her big day. We are so lucky! We had family and friends (51 people total--oh my), food, and heat. Boy was it hot. We had fans going outside under the tents and the a/c was cranking inside the house. The party was busy and a little hectic for me, but I think everyone had a good time. I know Maggie did.**A big thank you to my mom, dad and friend Crystal for all the help at the party, and to my friend Kellie for a few of these photos.**

80s Party

This past weekend went by in a flash. We had so many fun things going on and I'm just finally getting around to posting about them. Saturday night my mom came and babysat Maggie while Chad and I went to celebrate a friend's 30 birthday 80s-style. The house was decorated fantastically with vintage movie posters, old school video games, a Pac Man cupcake cake and tons of cool retro outfits. Here are a couple photos we shot with our camera.  You can see Chad went with vintage OP corduroy shorty-shorts, a Cobra Kai (Karate Kid) t-shirt and checkered Vans deck shoes. The second photo is me with our friends Kristin and Amy. Are we babes or what? Ha!