Lisa: friendship is magic

Thank goodness Dawn, Ian, Jillian, and Andrea answered my call for photos from Nora’s My Little Pony birthday party, since I didn’t get my camera out even once. I do wish we had a photo of the great pony cake Jen made, topped with clouds of cotton candy and silver-sprayed horses. The biggest hit was the real, live pony, Annie–a surprise for Nora. Pony Haven dropped her off for three hours, and we got to lead her around, give all the kids rides, and feed her anything we wanted. She was great. We also let all the kids paint Nora’s tattoo parlor, Valori did some amazing pony-themed face-painting, and my mom and Dawn brought some delicious food. Maureen and Jennilyn helped me put up all the decorations, and everyone brought Nora such fun gifts. Thank you, everybody!!

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Here are two of my favorite photos, which show the Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack costumes a little bit better. Nora’s birthday wish was that she and Alex could have homemade pony costumes to wear at the party, so I put those together (and now she has some awesome pony dress-ups to play with any time). I wish you could see the cutie marks and other details better.

Zoe leads Annie for Alex

Apple Jack rides a pony

at the chalet

Jillian and I took the girls up to her parents’ house in Midway, and let Lori and Rod play grandparents. Nora got to ride a horse for the first time!

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friends with benefits

You know what’s super handy? Being friends with someone else’s nanny. Jillian picked up Nora and fed her and Rylee lunch before taking them to the park and Maggie Moo’s. AWESOME.

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Alphabet Birthday Party

Since Nora has been getting so great at her ABCs, we decided her birthday party this year would have an alphabet theme, and we’re going to get great play areas from www.softplaymanufacturers.co.uk just for the party as well. While I was running around getting the last few things ready and putting the food out, Blake grabbed my camera and took a few photos of the decorations. Things maybe aren’t as staged as I would like, but thank goodness he took matters in hand or we wouldn’t have any documentation at all.

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You can see in the photos that there are homemade flag garlands everywhere, some stamped with all the letters of the alphabet, and some spelling out ‘happy birthday.’ We had paper letters dangling from the light over the dining table, and alphabet blocks in piles and on cake stands. The cake (although unfortunately not super delicious) was an ‘N’ surrounded by Alphabits cereal and a few letter-shaped fruit snacks, and the refreshments were more fruit snacks, letter-shaped toasts broiled with olive oil, letter-shaped chicken nuggets, and as many other foods that are served with dips as we could think of. Nora is big on dipping.
More importantly, where are the photos of Nora? Again, I’m glad someone picked up the camera and took pictures of the party action, but I have no idea who it was. Thank you, mystery guest!

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I did use the camera myself to take individual photos of all the guests (kind of like we did last year for her pillowcase), but I am exercising restraint and not posting all of those. You’re welcome, everybody! This year, each person chose a letter and drew their own flashcard for Nora to practice with, and we’re putting the photos on the backs. The cards all turned out so different and so adorable, and maybe at some point if I get my act together I’ll share them with you here.

water balloons

More pictures from throwing water balloons with Jillian and Rylee.

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I love the one of the three of them together. I don’t remember what Nora was saying at that moment, but it is provoking the exact same “say WHAT?” expression from both Rylee and Jillian.

T-ball

Jillian and Rylee came over for a splash in the wading pool and a little backyard T-ball. Luckily, Jillian didn’t post the photo capturing the moment when Nora accidentally whacked Rylee in the face with the bat, so I can just continue pretending it never happened. (Sorry, Rylee!)

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When Blake saw that last photo on Facebook, he said, “We need to save this somewhere, so when Nora gets married it can be on display somehow.” Done.

Wednesday

Jillian and Rylee joined us for our weekly walk around the block with Alex.

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