This is 7

This sweet girl is now 7!  This year she had big plans for a big park party but then we had weeks and weeks of rain so I looked up indoor birthday parties and Michaels craft store came up.  They had a party room and you could pick out crafts and once she saw the unicorn party option she was sold.

This girl loves unicorns and is constantly drawing them. So a unicorn party where they do unicorn crafts the whole time was so exciting to our girl.

The party was a lot of fun.  The kids loved it.  And went home with a big bag of their crafts.

The unicorn slime was a huge hit.  The kids were told they could use as much glitter in it as they wanted.  I'm pretty sure the amount of glitter they used more than paid for the party itself.

Norah helped me make the cake.  We were both really proud of how it came out. I didn't make the actual cake. I got a plain one at Kroger and then we decorated the outside.  But it came out great and better than I thought.

She had so much fun and loved every minute of it.

She was all smiles on her actual birthday. Her party was a few days before.  She's come a long way the past few months. I keep having teachers come up to me telling me how good she's doing and how proud they are of her. Shes a completely different child than a few months ago.

And this right here - her so happy at lunch. I didn't think we would ever get back to this.

She's still a little unsure about birthday candles

The morning after her birthday was hard to wake her up.  So much excitement for a few days.

Norah is very much the baby of the family yet acts with all the sass and emotions of a teenager.  We might be in for it in a few years with her.  She hates when Joel tells her shes the baby of the family.  They will argue in circles over this weekly.  She will say shes not the baby and Joel will insist that its true shes the baby of the family.  Then they come to me and ask me and both are right so then they will go in circles.  She is so lightweight that we still pick her up and carry her around. I told her the other day that her brothers never got that privilege because we had another baby to carry so they had to walk.  But I'm soaking it in because soon she will be too big to carry.

She loves snuggles and hugs and kisses and I must get about 20 hugs and kisses each morning before school. She constantly tells me she loves me with her whole heart and will tell us she never wants to get married and move out of our house. She will live with us forever.

She's very much glued to my side but at the same time LOVES friends.  She is constantly playing with friends and will come home from a friends house and be home for 5 minutes before she's begging to play with more friends.

She loves to create. When shes home and not playing with friends shes making up her own slime concoctions or coloring pictures while watching a horse show on Netflix.  Her favorite books to check out of the library are cooking books.

I have been in awe of her bravery this year.  It has been the hardest thing we've had to do so far in parenting to send her into school each day knowing her fear was real and deep. Our counselor said kids are so resilient and to give it time but I wasn't sure we would get to the point we are at. She hops out of the car and when I see her at the end of the day or for lunch she's all smiles.  They even had a lock down drill on a day that I wasn't in school and she did great.  Through this process she will start getting nervous about Friday when I'm not there in the mornings so on Monday I will tell her that we will worry about that on Thursday - that was not a Monday problem.  I've learned from it too about worrying about things I cant control until I have to worry about them.  Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself but if she can learn this at such an early age she will be doing greater than many adults I know.  Sometimes she will even tell me Mommy that's a Wednesday problem not a today problem.  She has been so brave this year and grown up so much.

Happy Birthday to our best girl! We are so proud of you and look forward to seeing what 7 brings this year.

Number 1

Since we are in the middle of March madness I figured I would finally get around to posting our favorite basketball player.

 He's always number 1 to us!

This year his team made it to the playoffs. They played hard but couldn't seem to get the ball in.

It was a great season

Birthday weekend

The kids had presidents day off from school so the original plan had been to take Colin skiing and Joel and Norah snow tubing.  We have not see one single snow flake this entire winter, despite all of Norah's snow dances.  We were all excited to go see some snow and play in it for the weekend.  Massanutten was all sold out of snow tubing spots so we were going to go to stay with mom and dad and go skiing and snow tubing at winterplace.  But then the weather didn't cooperate and rained the whole weekend.  So we cancelled the ski trip and went down to the Outer Banks instead.  I told the kids it was my birthday party and they kept saying thanks for inviting me to your birthday party mom! I wanted to do something fun that weekend. I was still getting over my latest mouth surgery and was getting the actual results on my birthday. Which thankfully went well and was a good gift - but I could've been getting opposite results from the biopsy so I wanted to celebrate early. 

We drove down Saturday after Colins basketball game and spent the rainy afternoon swimming in the hotel pool.

 The next day we went to the Wright Brothers Memorial and then to Jockeys Ridge.

 We had never taken them to the Wright Brothers Memorial and it had been years since I went. I think we went when I was in girl scouts once.

 They have makers where they started and launched the first flights. 4 were done that day. The kids started at the first marker and ran the length of the first flight. Then ran back to the starting marker. Back to the second and so forth. The fourth marker doesn't seem so far until you have to run it.  And Colin even made sure to pretend to touch down the several points they did in the actual flight.

 Haha - no explanation necessary. This boy is way too smart for his own good sometimes.

 We took this rubber band bird to Jockeys Ridge to fly it. The kids had fun winding it up and letting it go. Colin got it to go the farthest.

The aftermath of playing in the sand! 

 It was a quick weekend away and a great way to spend my birthday.