7 Year Old Birthday Interview

We've got a 7 year old in the house!  Blossom had a Halloween themed birthday party this year.  We wore costumes, played Halloween Charades, made slime, ate cheesecake and enjoyed the day with lots of friends.  Here's Blossom's 7 Year Old Birthday Interview...

Delicious Summer!

I'm so glad Summer is here - it's my favorite season.  I'll take the heat, bugs and humidity when it also means swimming, gardens, minimal clothing, ice cream, berry picking, sleeping with the windows open ... I love it!

The boys are both back from California now.  Reed turned 13 right when he came home! 

Bobby bought his a pool pass for his birthday, so now he has started riding the 2 miles on his bike to the pool nearly every day!  It's exhausting for him now, but I'm sure by the end of the Summer he'll be a pro at the ride.

I'm doing childcare nearly every day of the week, and we have so many sweet kids that come over to play.  On a recent walk we took, I led the kids into an empty lot to see if any blackberries were ripe - oh they were!

The girls filled their skirts with the ripe berries that were weighing down the branches.

They picked and explored for quite a while before they decided they were tired of getting scratches from the brambles!

Stained hands and bellies full of berries made for another wonderful Summer day!

5 Year Old ZB!

Zion Blossom turned 5 years old this week!  She's only been looking forward to it and planning the party for 11 months now.  She started the morning with birthday breakfast (requested waffles and bananas this year) and present opening!

Even a new bike arrived from Grandma, which was immediately adorned with the new basket and bell from Sissa and taken for a ride!

Cake was homemade ice cream cake from vanilla and mint chocolate chip with whipped cream topping.  She wanted to decorate with strawberries, fresh mint leaves and rainbow sprinkles...

Blossom had a few friends over to help celebrate and had a most lovely day!

When uploaded these photos on my computer, I found that the teenagers had gotten hold of my camera after the birthday party!!  Some of the photos were obnoxious (okay, most), but this sweet one was on there of Clay and his girlfriend Bella. So cute that I had to share!

4 Year Old Birthday!

This was the first year that ZB has been very aware of her birthday, we had so much fun!  We decorated after she went to bed.  The 4 year old woke up with balloons, ribbons and streamers hanging in the doorway and balloons all over the living room.

We made delicious coconut flour blueberry pancakes for a special birthday breakfast.  ZB sat in her birthday throne (her chair decorated with construcition paper shapes), ate her pancakes, and then opened her presents.

I bought her a first Disney Princess doll.  Those of you that know me, know I'm fairly mortified about this.  But dang, the girl really wanted it!  So, I tried to be the good mama and got it for her.

B made her something extra special, but only gave her a part of it.  ZB exclaimed, "I've always wanted this!!  ... What is it?"  We convinced her to bring it outside and we'd try to figure out what it was for.  She guessed for snowboarding.

Didn't work.
Then, she guessed maybe it was something for making her jump higher on the trampoline.

 Didn't work.

With a couple hints, she finally spied the new swingset that B had built in the yard.  "Ah!" she said, it's a bottom swing!"  She loves having her own big girl swing, and uses it every day.

We spend the rest of the morning decorating for the party  Grandma and Uncle David came in from Omaha to help.

The party was so fun!  Lots of friends came.  Reed had a face-painting booth set up.  Here is one of ZB's friends sporting a new kitty face:

I enjoyed seeing the sandbox get put to good use.  It was quite rewarding to see lots of kids using it at the same time and all have space to play!

There was lots of play time in the school bus, around the yard and on the trampoline.

The pinata was a pretty comical affair, since most kids there had not done one before.  There were several kids who insisted on just poking it with a stick on their turn.  After pinata, we did a cake.  ZB wanted a rainbow cake and the Frozen characters.  Since I was not planning to draw Frozen characters on a cake, I broke down and bought more Disney Princess junk toys and stuck them on the cake.  She was a happy camper.

2 or 3 pieces of cake later, ZB got up again to play with friends until it started getting cold and friends went home.  We finished the night with a big family dinner at a local pizza place.  Such a fun day, I felt really blessed have such beautiful weather for her birthday, and get to be with so many lovely friends while we celebrated this awesome girl!

ZB 4 Year Old Interview

Here's a little capture of this moment in the sweet life of Blossom!



Birthday photos coming soon...

Awesome Dinosaur Pinata

Prepping for ZB's 4th birthday party was lots of fun!  She insisted that a pinata was essential for the party, and wanted it to be chicken shaped.  On the first day of construction, she changed her mind and wanted it to be a dinosaur.  She chose an apatosaur, and we started construction!

First the balloon and newspaper inner structure were built, then the first layer of goopy paper mache.  I know there are fancier ways to do this, but I stayed old school with newspaper and a basic flour/water glue.

After it dried overnight, ZB decided it needed "thorns" (spikes).  So these were added.  They are the dividers from egg carton.

One more layer was added that day, and left to dry.  When it was all dry the next day, we stuffed it full of treasures (kazoos, dark chocolate squares, gummy snacks, magnifying glasses, etc.)  Then time for the first layer of paint.  ZB decided it was to be purple.

Details were added:

On her birthday eve, when she was tucked in bed, B blew up all the balloons, and we set the finished dino in the balloon jungle as a fun wake-up surprise (she was quite delighted by the scene)!

14 Years Old!

We finally got around to celebrating Clay's 14th birthday!  He had a bunch of friends over to our house last night.  They had lots of delicious Mellow Mushroom pizza and a good game of trampoline dodgeball (rules made up on site).  Once it got dark, we hung a sheet up on the side of the school bus and played two Austin Powers movies with our friend's projector and speakers. Between movies, the campfire was going and s'mores were made (though I did have to make a quick late-night run to the grocery, since some kids had eaten an entire bag of marshmallows as a movie snack!). 

At some point in the night, the kids settled into tents and the schoolbus (one boy slept on the trampoline, I heard).

At 10:30 this morning, we had a yard full of zombie-like teenagers.  They were easy enough to lure into the house when I promised them a good breakfast spread of juice, fresh fruit, bacon and doughnuts.  So, this was the easiest birthday cake I've ever made... not the healthiest, but still, it was enjoyed by all...

 I'm glad his party went off so smoothly!  Here's to another great year :)

Rainy Day Birthday

Little ZB is 3!!  She's so excited about it, too.  Each day since her birthday, she has been asking if she is still three, just to be sure :)

Her party was rained out, so we took her to the toddler free-play at the gym.

She jumped and played the entire time.  Apparently, she even has some time to kick back and relax as the parents did all the work with the parachute!

 A few of her friends were even able to make it and play.  After gym time was over, we walked across the street to the Asheville Brewing Company.  The parents enjoyed their great beers, and the kids enjoyed pizza and homemade ice cream.

 ZB asked for me to make chocolate and avocado... yum!  Made with good ingredients like maple syrup for sweetener, and eggs from our own hens, it was nothing to feel guilty about eating :)

We are all so in love with this fun little girl!  She's growing up way too fast...

Thanks to everyone for their sweet birthday wishes and gifts, she has enjoyed everything!
Love to all!

Double Digits

Reed has officially left behind the years of single-digit living.  He celebrated his 10th birthday in style over the holiday weekend.  On his actual birthday, he and a friend went swimming in the neighborhood pool.

Blossom liked swimming for a while, and then preferred to enjoy the view from the shade.

We then went out for hamburgers - these guys were pretty fun to take out to dinner!

The following day was the birthday party.  For games, we drew a giant (human-sized) board game with sidewalk on the back patio.  They had a big painted die and everything (though in hindsight, I would have made 2 dice for getting through the game quicker!).  Each square they landed on had a task (ie - act like a monkey, shake your bootie, give someone a hug, or go crazy!).

Even ZB wanted to participate!

The older kids helped spray-paint a lawn Twister game.

Reed was inspired by a Mardi Gras party he went to earlier in the year, and wanted a King Cake (minus the plastic baby).  It was fairly easy to make and Reed loved it!

I am so glad to have gotten to know Reed this last decade.  He's had some ups and downs and they've all turned out to make him a great kid - thoughtful, respectful, kind, artistic, friendly and easy-going.