Kaia's 4th Birthday

Today, Kaia is four years old. For her, it has meant that she gets four birthdays!
Birthday #1 was celebrated at the Bouncy Place with our favorite cousins!

Kaia and Zane

Chet showing off his superior bouncing skills

Miss Zoe B

Lincoln (whom Kaia refuses to consider as merely a friend, but has elevated him to Cousin status)

Reid

Sleepy Miss Adeline

Shelley, Great-Grandma, Martha and Lily Jane

Rachel and Gabriel

Westley and Lincoln

Kaia and her kitty cat cupcakes

The whole gang

Birthday #2 was a family dinner on Sunday afternoon

Opening presents...its sooooo hard for the other kids to not rip open the paper themselves :)

Love Zoe's face in this one!

Kaia and Nana Candy

Birthday #3 was September 17, Kaia's real birthday.
Aww...my little sleeping beauty (snort!)

Singing the Happy Birthday song at breakfast

Another cupcake tower

One of Kaia's presents was a Princess Jasmine costume that she immediately had to try on and make sure that her belly button was showing like Jasmine's. Phew! It must be an authentic outfit ;)

Birthday #4 takes place tomorrow in Kaia's preschool class where they'll all receive goodie bags and she'll get to wear a 'Birthday Girl' pin.
Hope she doesn't expect this kind of celebration every year! I'm sick of making birthday cakes :)

Firsts

We've had a Week of Firsts here in the Garrett household. Last Tuesday, Zoe began Kindergarten! (Tomorrow will be the first day that she walks into school by herself, without holding my hand and giving me two hugs and two kisses...WAAAAAHHH!)

Last Wednesday was the first day Kaia and I waited at the bottom of our driveway for Zoe's bus (which also happened to be the first day the bus dropped her off at the wrong place; but she was safe so that's all that mattered)

Last Thursday was Zoe's first day of gymnastics...she loved it!

Monday was the first time we were able to eat fruit off of the trees we planted 3 years ago.

It was also the first day that Zoe was dropped off at the right spot...HOME!

And, it was Zoe's first day of ballet. Now Kaia wants to do it...my children will be so graceful! :)

And finally, today was Kaia's first day of Preschool. (Fine! I'll admit I got a little teary-eyed in the car after dropping her off...but it was mainly because she just gave me a hug and said "Goodbye, Mom." What happened to my baby?!)

On top of all this, we sent Ryan off in search of the elusive bull on Friday.

It is his first time taking mules.

And what, you ask, was I doing on my first day with no children? I got to go to the dentist. Every mom's dream, right?!

Pinterest

So there's this thing online, Pinterest. Maybe you've heard of it? IT IS AMAZING!!! Anyway, it has basically anything and everything you've ever even had the smallest idea about. It has made me a better mom. Seriously.
Case in point: this summer, instead of sitting around bored for 3 months, I have created an activity schedule. Every day we do some kind of craft or something fun and out of the ordinary. Maybe some days, I get lazy and we don't do our activity but most days we do. This picture is from our library day. The theme was butterflies. We read butterfly books and made butterflys with toilet paper rolls, paper, and pipe cleaners. See? Best mom ever.

Another idea from Pinterest became Zane's birthday present. I taped 25 $1 bills together, end to end, and put them in a decorated kleenex box. It was fun to watch him pull them out and they just. kept. coming!

Ryan's 31st

I let the girls pick out Ryan's birthday presents this year. Zoe wanted to get him headphones so he could listen to his iPod on the tractor. Kaia wanted to get him a motorcycle...I think he would have been more excited about a real one :)

Zoe's Preschool Graduation

Zoe graduated from Little Promises Preschool in May (Yes, I know how far behind I am in blogging!) She'll start kindergarten in just a few weeks!!

For Little Promises' end of the year field trip the kids went to Enchanted Forest. It looked like rain but the wetness held off until the very end so we all had a great time.
Zoe and her friend Hailey standing in front of the 7 dwarves' cottage

A few local actors put a comical Cinderella skit. They did a great job! It was hilarious!

Zoe and Hailey riding some psychadelic rainbow train

Bumper boats!!

We do have a life...I promise!

I have so many pictures that I haven't blogged that if I don't just do them in one sweep they'll never get done. So beware...this is a looooong post

Ryan blew up his snowmobile this spring. Something with a gas leak and a spark plug and a lot of motor talk I don't understand. But the gist of it is that it blew up and he had to empty the fire extinguisher on it. Very exciting! But we haven't refilled the extinguisher yet so its a good thing that bacon Ryan burnt tonight didn't burst into flames.

Two of my favorite people...my beautiful Nana holding sweet Lily Jane

We mooched off Sean and Kyra and spent a week in Park City in April. The kids loved it, we loved it and Sean gimped around. I'm currently trying to talk Ryan into moving to Utah...its the most beautiful place. Ever.

We went to Wildlife Safari in May with Shelley & kids and Carleen & girls. That place is awesome! How did I not know this??! We have definite plans for returning before school starts.

Ryan just bought two more mules tonight so I'd better post a picture of our first one quick! This is Pepper. He is 22 years old and super sweet. But apparently he doesn't like being ridden bareback...Ryan tried it and got bucked off! Ha! Wish I videoing :) Zoe won't stay away from him which gives me a panic attack but he hasn't kicked her yet (fingers crossed!)