Pepper's 4th Birthday

A few of you have been requesting pictures from Pepper's birthday party this year.  I was trying to think of the best place to post them... Facebook? Instagram? Email? I finally decided that it was time to post on the blog again. But apparently I have used up all of my allotted storage place on our wordpress blog. Thus, I have resurrected this one on Blogger.

Pepper decided on a My Little Pony theme this year. Frozen was a close second. MLP was really easy to do though because we have a ton of these little plastic ponies and the girls love playing with them every single day. Also, I have seen quite a bit of the show so I actually know quite a bit about the characters and story... Brony in the making? Haha. I definitely have to resist the temptation to collect every character.

It was a pretty simple party with just Pepper's preschool group. It was my turn to teach this week anyway so we had the party right after our preschool lesson. To prepare, this year I made a pony castle cake, pony ear headbands for each kid, got a humongous Rainbow Dash mylar balloon, tattoos for all the kids (to represent cutie marks,) and treat bags for each kid.

This year's birthday cake. I had a much more elaborate fondant castle planned, but as always, we were crunched for time so this was what I came up with instead.

No need to make a cake topper, we own about a million of these little ponies! Pepper chose crystal Rarity and crystal Pinkie Pie.

Paul, Liza, and Tae.

Tae and Seven.

Trevor, Pepper, and Blake.

Harper.

Pepper was so cute during the birthday song. She could not stop having a fit of giggles the whole time. Things like that really make all the effort worth it.

Didn't have time for makeup again, sigh. I'll try harder next year.
 

Pepper's birthday really snuck up on me this year and I didn't leave myself enough time to make any party games. Luckily, the kids were all such good friends and they made their own fun. My favorite moment was when, all on their own, they started a game of ring-around-the-rosie. It was surprisingly well-organized and lasted for a while. They were all laughing hysterically the whole time. Seven was so excited that the big kids included her. My friend Hitomi captured it on video, so I'll try to get that on here soon... keep checking back! Those rare moments when every kid gets along with no coaxing from parents are really heartwarming.

She got so many awesome presents, including her own Tinkerbell umbrella, a Princess book with a sound effect bracelet, another Princess book with tons of figurines in the back (the kids are ALL about little figurines right now,) a princess dress up kid, a huge dress-up Twilight Sparkle doll, a bunch of little ponies for her collection (from me, ha!,) and a package from grandma Marti with an Anna doll (from Frozen) and a castle. She was ecstatic about every single one and she and Seven have been playing together like crazy ever since. Success!

We do do a lot of fun things, and I am a little sad that so much of it has not been recorded for the past year. So maybe (MAYBE) I will start blogging more regularly again.

We've Moved... to Wordpress

So I've decided I'm done with Blogger. The photos never load in the right order, and when they do load, they're still a pain to deal with.

Plus I just like Wordpress a lot because they have a way better dashboard with more useful stats and info about your blog, better looking templates, more features, and more creative control.

And did you know that it's really easy to import all of your posts and comments from your blogger blog over to a wordpress blog?

So that's what I've done. You can now find "Can I Have a Tookie" over at canihaveatookie.wordpress.com. Go ahead and make the change in your feeds. I hope you enjoy the new format. I'll work on getting a family picture up on the header soon.

Goodbye, blogger.

Grumpy at the Park

Pepper seemed kind of unhappy last weekend (I think it's a combination of bowel problems and teething) so we took her to the park to try to cheer her up and get some fresh air.

She got to wear shoes for the first time too. She has some cute sneakers, but they're still too big for her so she had to wear her black sandals.

We tried swinging first, which she usually loves, and I think she liked it but she didn't show it much. I just think she looks adorable in this hat. (Thanks Misti!)

Also, wow, I didn't think she'd grown that much, but I guess she has! (Compare to these swing pictures from 3 months ago.)

Finally a couple of smiles!


But that was all we got for the rest of the time.


We went down the slide a few times too but we got no reaction from her at all. She preferred to watch the older kids who were playing on the slide next to us.

There wasn't really anything else for a 7-month old to do on the playground so we just chilled out on the sidewalk for the rest of the time.



She found a leaf.




Trying to eat the leaf.




Eventually it was clear that she was done.

My poor baby. She's also had so many poop blowouts the past couple of days, which she usually never has. I soaked all of her laundry in Oxi-Clean overnight and the stains still didn't come out. I will try again with a more concentrated formula.

Feel better soon, Pepper.

Welcome to the World, Ezton

Last week we went on an unplanned trip to Oak City because Aaron and Amanda's baby was born Saturday morning! He was exactly 6 pounds and 21 inches long. Everything went well with no complications whatsoever and they were able to go home with the baby the next morning.

It's been nearly 8 months since I held a newborn, preemie-sized baby that I was shocked at how much it felt like I was holding... nothing.






Amanda looking great after giving birth as always.

Pepper being smothered by her loving cousins.

Ethany and Cambrie playing dress-up.

For anyone who didn't know, Aaron and Amanda recently purchased a two story super old house out in Lynndyl (near Delta.) It still needs a ton of work but hopefully things will work out and they will be homeowners for a while.

Cambrie, the proud older sister. I am constantly amazed at how smart this girl is.

And here are a bunch of pictures of Nate and Anna's really beautiful kids.







Oh yeah! So the Henderson Bros. were going through the old shed in the back of Aaron's house, which is packed full of old and vintage stuff. I ventured back there to see what they were up to and saw this:

Awesome, right? I had to join in the fun:

I wonder what else they'll find in there. They already uncovered some cool looking dishes and stuff. It's like a treasure trove.

This is back in Oak City. Josh gave Jamin full reign over his bike while he's in Oak City. Here he is practicing tricks.