Lucy's Birthday!

My little girl turned 5 on thursday! We celebrated her birthday with some family and close friends.

(ballerina) princess Lucy. all of the girls got to decorate their own tiara so they could...

play "pin the kiss on the frog". all the princesses tried to see if they could kiss the frog and turned him into a prince!

Aunt Ashley getting her turn...

The picture is kinda blurry, but this is Lucy's cousin, he was our knight with a shiny sword! he was the only boy among all of these princesses!

Lucy and her best friend, hannah, opening birthday presents!

The princess carriage cake

5 cute things about my Lucy:

1. she loves getting new shoes (her future husband might have a problem with this one...)

2. when she's pretending she's a dog, she goes all out (walking on all four, drinking from a bowl on the ground, barking, etc.)

3. she gets excited over the smallest things (such as getting a new toothbrush)

4. she's an excellent big sister

5. she has the most awesome imagination!

Happy Birthday My Sweet Girl!

food storage and drinkable water

I got these awesome rotating shelves from Shelf Reliance! I love how the cans rotate first in, first out! Now, i've just got to work on getting them filled...

Here is the tank and several filters required to make up our Reverse Osmosis system! yay! almost 6 years of having to fill water bottles every week (sometimes a couple times a week), and we've finally moved up in the world of reverse osmosis! Richie and i bought this model online and installed it ourselves. i'm so lucky to have such a handy husband! :D

Isn't it beautiful?!

4th of July in Kansas

We went to Larned, Kansas to visit some friends for the 4th of July. I lived there from 3rd grade to 10th grade, and it had been about 8 years since i had been back there.

My awesome friend, Elizabeth.

her awesome husband, Jeremy.

their adorable son, Caleb (and molly).

the girls had the whole back yard to swim in and play on the swing set before all the other little kids showed up. they had a blast, and were so tired by the end of the day.

we took the girls to a few parks and playgrounds that i used to play on when i was a kid.

for the 4th of july, we had a cook out and we got to watch the fireworks from my friends' backyard, which was really cool (and convenient), and the rest of the family there set off a bunch of fireworks. the girls were way tired by the time the fireworks got started, so they got to play with sparklers the next afternoon.
our friends let us camp out in their basement for the whole weekend, and the girls loved it! thanks guys for the super awesome weekend, guys!

Caleb's birthday!

Last friday was our friend, Caleb's, birthday, and we had yummy stew and darth vader cake to celebrate! here he is blowing out his candles.

richie actually found this darth vader cake pan in his parents' storage shed. his mom used to make star wars cakes when richie and his brothers were younger.

thanks for sharing your special day before your birthday day with us! :D happy birthday!