It's Party Time!

We've had a couple birthdays in our family lately. That means lots of cake, presents, and fun! We've also been to a few fun indoor play areas with cousins, watched a cowboy show, and found a golden ticket in a chocolate bar! Keep reading below to see more details!

Leah turns 4 tomorrow and we had a cousin birthday party for her a few days ago. Here she is in the crown that Abbie got for her birthday a few months ago.

With her pink and purple cupcakes (that Mommy worked hard on finding in the store:)!

Painting trains and airplanes for an activity

With her cousins and presents

Yay, more princess stuff!

Hitting the Dora pinata (that we saved from 3 years ago when Abbie had a Dora birthday party)

Candy!

On her actual birthday we got her a big cupcake and had a family party.

She got some more ponies, which she loves!

Porter turned 1 on Nov. 12th! Here he is getting ready to eat his cake!

Mmmm, so yummy!

Sugar-induced blank stare

After we got him all cleaned up, he opened some presents. He got a pirate costume kit and a cool kid-sized tool box set.

I don't want to wear a girl birthday hat!

I'm ONE!

And I'm a big boy!

Jared turned 35 a few days after Porter's birthday and we celebrated by having a few of his brothers over. He keeps reminding me that he can now officially run for president! (yeah, that's not happening!)

My silly birthday boys

See the resemblance? Porter totally looks like Jared's baby pictures in this one!

A cute picture of Abbie and Porter together

And all three kids one random day

Playing at Classic Skating

We had a blast going down the inflatable slides. Here's Abbie:

Leah flying down head first. She has no fear and was going down really high slides and climbing places that Abbie wouldn't dare go.

Even Jared got in on the fun

At Jungle Jim's with their cousins

We had a blast at that place for a couple hours and then had lunch at the Arby's next door. Here we are all walking across a busy parking lot, trying to keep 7 girls in line.

Abbie practicing her cowboy lasso'ing skills

Abbie's kindergarten class has been practicing for a big cowboy program for the past month or two and they learned a bunch of songs and dances. Abbie was always singing them at home and telling us about all the things she was learning about cowboys. Here is her class at the big program! I videotaped the whole thing (on our ancient Panasonic VHS recorder so I can't include any clips on here) but didn't think to take any still pictures until the very end. Abbie is the fourth from the end on the left in the back row.

Jared has been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the kids and so one day we decided to get them a Willy Wonka chocolate bar with a real (aka made by a creative Mom) golden ticket!

Abbie was so excited, she couldn't believe she got the one and only golden ticket!