Mommom and Poppy Time

As I was emailing some pictures to my mom, I realized that I never posted pictures from when my parents were here the second time this summer! Here are some pictures from the time we enjoyed with them!

We love having you guys here! Thanks for taking the time and effort to come visit!

Happy Birthday, Beautiful!!

It's hard to believe that 4 years ago at this very minute (4:37pm), our little Eliana Leiveka was born. It doesn't feel like 4 years have gone by, but they have. She is no longer a baby or a toddler, she is turning into a little girl!

She has gotten a birthday dress from Uncle Robert the last few years, and this is the beautiful dress he made her this year. She wore it to church yesterday. It is lovely!

We celebrated her birthday with two parties this year. The first was a princess party on Saturday morning with her little girl friends all dressed up like princesses! The second was Sunday evening with some friends who were not so keen on donning gowns for the event. ;)

Some of Eliana's favorite things at 4 are... kitties (she was SURE that she was going to get a kitty on her 4th birthday because her best friend Josie did!), swimming, "ballet-ing", the color purple, sparkles, sprinkles, being silly, and playing with her friends.

For her birthday, Eliana got quite a few gifts from relatives and friends! This is the first year she has actually understood what money is and does, so she was very excited to receive money from several people! She got some birthday money to spend from Aunt Nora, Martha E., and Grammee and Grandad. She told me she was going to use it to buy two trees for her room that go in pots and don't grow. One green and one purple. We'll see how that goes. ;) She also received some dress up clothes, some books, a princess bathtub barbie, a game, legos, an educational interactive wall poster, stamps, and more! Best of all she remembered to say thank you to everyone who came to her parties and to everyone for her gifts! It makes me happy to see her turning out to be a polite little girl!

Happy 4th Birthday, Eliana! We love you!!

Princess Party!!

Yesterday Eliana had her first birthday party... a PRINCESS PARTY! I always said I would NOT do the whole princess thing for her, but the 90% off supplies at Michael's back in October convinced me otherwise. ;) Eliana and her friends had an absolute blast! Here is a photo recap of the event!

All dolled up for the party! (She even let me curl her hair!!)

Her friends arrived and sat outside coloring princess pictures!

We had princesses Eliana, Josie, Kat, Zoe, Corinne, Evie, Etta, Hannah, and Piper in attendance! They each received a goody bag upon arrival including a crown, wand, ring, and princess tattoo!

They started off the party by coloring princess pictures, then went off to play in the princess ball pit or on the swingset.

Then it was time for games! We played "Pin the Crown on the Princess" and all the girls got a turn! Eliana went first and did such a great job that we thought she might be able to see out from under the blindfold, but she assured us she couldn't! They all did pretty well, so maybe we just put the poster right at preschooler height. :)

After the game, it was time for cake!! Because Eliana can't have milk products, we went for a dairy free cake - which turned out pretty good! It was pretty and tasty, and very princessy!

After the cake, it was time for presents!!

Her Hello Kitty Bandaids and Princess Fruit Snacks were among her favorite gifts! She liked all the others, too, but those are the ones she kept talking about!

All in all it was a successful party! She got to spend her day feeling like a princess and enjoying celebrating her birthday with her friends!