Category: Home Life

Amelie doesn’t really have a particular toy or book or show that is her favorite so I was worried about what “theme” I could make her birthday. (If you know me well, you know I love themes) But Amelie does LOVE to ride the mini train! So I had the idea for us to have our friends and family meet us at Trinity park for breakfast and then we could take everyone for a ride on the mini train. When we thought about how busy the train can get in the summer we decided to have the party early while school was in session and before it got too hot to really enjoy the ride.

Reagan greeting Amelie with a hug. I think they have both missed their time in music class.

Everyone had breakfast and the kids enjoyed individual boxes of cereal in the picnic area.

It was really windy, but Amelie was so excited about her cake that she didn’t notice.

I bought pinwheels for all the children to hold on the train ride – they were a big hit!

Waiting for the train!

Amelie and Grammie

Thessalie being cute!

I loved that Elliott was in his conductor outfit for the party. Next year he and Jude will have another brother at the party – yeah!

Mike, Nadia and Janis

Group shot at the end of our ride. It was a wonderful day and wonderful party!

 

Happy 3rd birthday Amelie! Here are some things that we want to remember about you right now.

 

• You are quite a character! You entertain us all the time with your physical comedy.
• Along those lines you love to make silly faces and do silly stuff with your mouth (see photo above).
• You don’t have a favorite toy, but you love trains when we see them and especially riding the mini train. So that is why we picked that for your birthday party.
• You still love music and you love to dance.
• Looking at books and being read to is still one of your favorite things.
• You are an adrenaline junkie! You like to be thrown in the air, swung around, go in bounce houses and down slides. You are going to love roller coasters!
• You are tenacious. It took Nadia until 5.5 to learn to swing. You wanted to be like her so much that you learned a month ago.
• In the last 3 weeks your language has exploded! You are putting together tons of complex sentences and we understand more and more of what you have to say.
• Now that you are speaking better we are learning that you have been watching and listening to us all along and you show that with the things you say now.
• You are NOT a rule follower. We think that you think rules only apply if someone is watching. We leave the room and all bets are off on your mind.
• That fact alone keeps us on our toes to keep you safe and not destroying things.
• You love to follow Nadia around and play games with her, but more and more you are showing you are  not willing to go along with all her plans.
• You ask all the time to do “cool like Ya Ya.” (school like Nadia)
• You still love to eat! We have found several thing now that you don’t like, but overall you are a great eater. Chocolate, yogurt and almost any fruit are your favorites.

Amelie and I dropped Nadia off at her last day of museum school, then went home to meet up with Grammie who was going to join us for a celebration. We returned to pick Nadia up and I asked her teachers for a photo, which turned out so cute!

Nadia and Amelie with a friend from museum school and her little sister. Aren’t they ADORABLE?!?

End of the year photo on the Museum School turtle. Kids love this guy.

We had lunch waiting in the car for Nadia and then headed into downtown for our May “sweet treats” gift card redemption. We found a parking spot, fed the meter and headed into the chocolate shop. Our freebie for May was a chocolate covered frozen cheesecake slice. OH.MY! I don’t know who had the idea for this, but it was AMAZING! I have no photos because the 4 of us scarfed the thing down.

Next we headed into The Original Cupcakery for the free cupcake for May. We let Grammie pick since she was our guest. Her choice was “Bugsy” and it was a wonderful carrot cake that the girls didn’t like so Grammie and I enjoyed it. (the last day of Museum school featured spiders so Nadia wanted her glow in the dark spider ring in the photo)

Last food stop was Yumilicious for a free 12 oz cup of frozen yogurt with toppings. We each picked a flavor so our cup had: cookies n cream, caramel, red velvet cake and NY cheesecake. Then Nadia picked crumbled oreo topping and Grammie choose toffee bits. It was wonderful and I liked the Red Velvet best.

Then we walked over to this neat decoration on Main Street that Nadia had noticed Mother’s Day weekend so we could “get a photo for Daddy.”

After visiting with Mike’s mom we wanted to do something fun for the evening with the girls, and I had a Putt Putt Groupon so we headed over there. Turns out that Putt Putt is a ghost town on Mother’s Day, which meant we could have a great time with no crowds. Moms, and kids under six, get to play free so only Mike’s game came out of the Groupon amount. That left the balance for us to use on the little carnival rides and games. We played golf, rode the rides and then had some pizza and ice cream. The rest of our time we spent playing games and earning tickets for the cheap prizes that kids love so much 🙂

The highlight of the night for me was at some point when Nadia ran up to me at full speed and hugged my waist with all her might while looking up at me and saying, “Thank you so much for letting us come here Mommy!” Pure bliss.

Amelie would swing one time and then pick up the ball and put it in the hole. She had a blast and our game moved along at a steady pace.

Mid game photo op. On the last hole Nadia got a hole in one, which was pretty awesome!

The girls enjoyed these planes.

They were very serious about the spinning tea cups.

The girls had a blast with us on the small roller coaster. They had a lot more fun when it was going backwards.

After the girls pretended to ride the motorcycles, we headed over to the prize counter for them to redeem their tickets. They each went home exhausted and happy with their little bags of trinkets. A lovely end to a lovely weekend with my sweet family.