Almost birthday

Guess who has a birthday coming up...

Molly made Kate a picture for counting down until tomorrow. Kate has been crossing out a heart each morning. There's only one left!

We had a little birthday play date this morning with two preschool friends. 

 Birthdays are so much fun!!!

Jumping

We were supposed to drive to Syracuse a few days ago to meet the Johnsons, swim in the hotel pool and bounce on trampolines at SkyZone.

Winter weather got in the way of our drive two days in a row and we missed them. We're still moping around about it, but I did follow through on my promise to Molly that we would go to the Rochester SkyZone instead. We got tickets today for just a half hour right when they opened and it was plenty.

The place looks empty here -- just Molly and Kate -- but really it was packed with people. It's just that the little kid section cleared out toward the end of our session.

Birthday party

Molly had her Winter Fairy 7th birthday party yesterday.

We spent all week getting the house ready...

Molly invited everybody to wear fairy or elf costumes. Almost everybody did! We had a big pile of wings and costume bits accumulated by the end.

The mother of one of Molly's friends offered to stay at the party to do face painting. She's a professional-artist-turned-at-home-mom and we're all very lucky that she enjoys doing this so much.

No butterflies or fairies for Kate. She wanted pizza!

We also used star garland and curling ribbon to make fairy crowns. The little fairies had a good time stabbing balloons with pens ... then, when most of them had popped, there was no end of trouble because there weren't enough balloons for everybody. Lesson learned for next time.

 Molly wanted a lemon cake ... the first time in many years that we haven't made pink cupcakes. We settled on a Wegmans cake with a lemon filling layer. It was yummy!

Somebody mentioned "cake" and suddenly all the fairies magically appeared at the table, sitting politely and quietly.

I served a lot of seconds ... and maybe some thirds, too.

Cake + fairies =

 

We got through it with only a few tears, nothing broken (as far as I know) and a very exhausted but appreciative birthday girl.

Bye bye, Bunny

Our little Snowplow bunny passed away yesterday, at the very elderly bunny age of 11.

He was sick for only a day or two, just enough time for us all to say good-bye.

We'll miss you, little guy.

Happy Halloween

Race day

We all got up early this morning to see a special guy run the Rochester Half Marathon.

Coming up the long hill on Highland

Waiting in the rain at the finish line

Coming in for the finish (that blue blur)

Preschool begins

We visited the classroom and teacher together Monday. Kate stays for an hour and a half today. Friday is the first full 3-hour morning.

Fingers crossed that everything is going well in the classroom right now!