Birthday Festivities

With Alta's and Ellie's birthdays being 10 days apart, I'm never sure how to celebrate. This year we ended up with five different birthday celebrations!

We kicked it off with a friend party for Alta a few days before her birthday. We kept it small and invited four friends (and Ellie got to tag along!) to a cake-decorating party. As the girls arrived they colored their own aprons: 

Brooklyn, Emmy, Ruby, Ellie, Mikayla, and Alta

 They had fun playing inside, running around outside, eating snacks, opening presents, and just being cute giggly girls.

The main event was decorating their own mini-cakes. It was hilarious (and incredibly messy) to watch them try to use icing bags. We had frosting and sprinkles ALL over the house! I was too busy helping the girls to get any pictures. I snapped this after everyone left:

On Alta's actual birthday (6 years old!) I dropped off treats for her class during school (something she has been talking about for months). Dan came home from work early so she could open her presents before dinner. The big one was her new bike!

Alta got to choose the restaurant for her birthday dinner and she wanted Indian food (she loves naan bread) so we met Kevin, Malorie, Beck, Lorna, and Mark there. I forgot to take a picture.

A week later it was Ellie's turn. Two days before her birthday she got to have her first friend party! It was really just a glorified playdate but all the girls had fun. We had a teddy bear picnic and everyone brought a stuffed animal.

Ally, Naomi, and Ellie (other Ellie was playing somewhere else)

Teddy bear cupcakes.

They got to eat lunch under the tramp. We invited Ruby to stay so Alta had someone to play with, and they ended up being such great helpers.

That afternoon we went to Snogression for Ellie's family party. She had been asking to go to Snogression for her birthday for months! We met Lorna, Kevin, Malorie and Beck.

Jumping, jumping:

 Apparently it was a stripes kind of day:

 Olive would only tolerate being bounced very, very gently:

 Alta jumps into the foam pits at gymnastics all the time so she was a little braver since last time we'd been to Snogression. She jumped off the ski ramp:

Ellie opening her presents with Beck:

 And Ellie's big present was also a bike! Yes, it Alta's old one, but we put new grips and a new bell on it and Ellie was happy:

 We had cupcakes and the girls rode their bikes all over the parking lot.

Ellie showing me on the drive home what Alta got her:

Ellie's real birthday (4 years old!) was on Sunday. I planned on cooking and also made a chocolate cheesecake for dessert. (On a side note, it was my first home-made cheesecake and it was delicious! When I told Ellie we were having cheesecake she said: "I don't want cheese on my cake!".) When I found out Bekah and her boys were going to be in town, I invited the whole family over and had yet another party! My parents, Bekah, Sawyer, Wyatt, and Brian and Colleen all came to celebrate. No pictures again.

Whew! What a busy couple of weeks! It was so fun to celebrate with our families and the girls loved having their own special days.