Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Birthday Festivities!

 We did some more celebrating for our Missy Girl's birthday this weekend! I'll give you one guess as to the theme:) (hint: every single girl in America!!!)


This was the night of her actual birthday. We saved her presents for when Daddy got home and after dinner and blueberry cupcakes! (which were really good, by the way!)

 
Opening a present from her Aunt C. What could it be?


Dora!

Proud big brother:) He and Zakkai work really hard to make any family member's birthday really special! They made Eliana very sweet cards.


Z-man! Growing up so much these days!


Oooh, an Elsa crown and shoes from her brothers!! The perfected compliments to her Elsa dress:)


And her very first Lego Friends set! She got Rapunzel and loves it! The boys loved helping her put it together!


This past Sunday we threw a little family party for our sweet girl! Frozen-themed, of course! I was intimidated by all the crazy Frozen cakes out there on pinterest so I just decided to go with the colors and some snowflakes and I really love how it turned out!


It was a strawberry cake with buttercream frosting! Mmm...



She loved it!

Speaking of the birthday girl.....Ready for celebrating!

She LOVED all the attention from our families:) Her first real birthday party!



Smiling for Grandma:) She requested that I make her hair just like Elsa's. I asked how that was and she said with a braid and over to the side around her shoulder. So cute!


She finally agreed to put the cape on and ended up loving it! Silly girl...Her happiness is such a joy to us. She is sweet!


Always ready with a big "cheese" for every picture:)


I put on a little "Jim Gill" music for a little while and Z, Eliana and their cousin Little E, sat right down like it was a movie or something;)


We shamelessly pulled out the boys' fundraiser booklets for family to look through:) They didn't seem to mind!


Papa and Grandma!

Uncle T!

The table decorated with shades of aqua and blue.


Frozen napkins, of course!

These are special Frozen flowers that Ben gave Eliana on her birthday:) She absolutely loved her special flowers! He's going to raise the bar awfully high for any future suitors....:)


Ooh, present time!

The boys are always ready to help with opening presents!

Happy girl!

My sweet niece!

This Elsa doll from Ben's mom was the piece de resistance! Eliana ADORES it! She sings "Let It Go" and we were hearing that by 7:30am the next morning, haha! She came with a little Olaf and Eliana loves him, too.


Showing Grandpa-Great her doll!

E had such a good time and felt like such a special girl. Love how she is easy to love and bring joy, too! Happy Birthday, Eliana! (again!)

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Mustachioed!

 Life has been SO busy lately and I am having a hard time adjusting to it! I got used to "quieter" days at home with as much social interaction. Now I feel like all of my days are so full and I fall into bed at night exhausted! The past few nights, I have been in bed reading by 8:30pm! Is that a sign that I am getting old??

Eliana went through a really long phase where she would only let me do anything for her and was selective with her affection to others. Now in the past month or two, she is crazy about Ben, too! She is super affectionate and loves to spend time with us, constantly turning to us and saying, "I like you" or "I really love you!" It is very sweet. Ben is just soaking up all the love from his princess!!

  I recently got a book from the library about little girl hairstyles and attempted my very first ever French braid! It is not even close to text-book perfect but I was proud of it! And this is after the whole day:)


I loved it so much I attempted another one the next day. My mom used to French braid my hair a lot so it was a happy memory for me!

There are different themes on Awana nights and last week was Mustaches! As you can see here, Ben was looking debonair in his Charlie Chaplin mustache:)

  And Zakkai with his classic handlebar mustache....a fine future look, I think!

 
And Samuel looking dashing! It was funny because you couldn't smile with the mustache on or it would unstick. Of course, that made you want to smile at everything even more!


Ah, my handsome trio of men!!


They talked me into joining the fun! I was going for a snobby, cultured look but then realized my mustache was crooked! Oops:P

So I fixed it. Hmmmm....definitely not a keeper!

 Eliana held on tightly to her mustache and refused to try it out on until after Awana! Very handsome, er, beautiful, Eliana!

So there you have it, the Thomas family Mustachioed!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Eliana's Special Day!

 This Cutie,

is feeling mighty fine today on her 4th birthday! Can you tell? :) She has been bouncing around all weekend just waiting for this special day! We had just enough to give her one gift and make her some pancakes before Daddy had to leave for work. We brought her downstairs and led her into the kitchen....


Where she found her very own Elsa dress!! Our sweet girl is Frozen-obbbbbssessed! Pretty much like every other girl in the country:) She decided weeks ago she would love to be Queen Elsa for her birthday and after doing a lot of research on the dozens of Elsa dresses out there, I decided to make my own! I didn't like most of them and a lot of them are really expensive, especially if you try to get homemade ones on Etsy. I am mostly really happy with how it turned out:)


This is her face after seeing her dress! Funny girl.


Feeling so good! I think she looks just beautiful in this picture.
 

Even though she claimed to love the dress, she refused to try it on! I had to beg her to try it on and after a few tears, she finally acquiesced. I had to shorten the straps after trying it on her and was disappointed a little with the back. It ties with ribbon and is almost an inch too small. It will look fine with a shirt underneath but oh well. Not bad for not having a pattern! There are some cute little details on the dress that you can't see like little snowflakes that I stitched on the skirt and around the top of the bodice:)


Eliana and I ran a few errands and I took her to the mall to get some chicken nuggets at Chick-Fil-A as a treat:) We walked around for a little bit and then headed home for a little rest.

Tonight we celebrate as a little family with some blueberry cupcakes, as she requested, and this weekend we will have a bigger celebration with extended family!

Eliana, we adore you. You are such a gift to us. A joy, a delight and such a treasure! It's so hard to believe that our teeny tiny dark-haired birdie baby is now a sweet, dimpled four year old. You have a silly giggle, love to make us all laugh, soak up attention from your brothers and are SO affectionate with Daddy and I. You come up to us several times a day and say things like, "I really like you, Mommy/Daddy!" You adore anything Frozen, coloring and having fights with me over clothes. We can't wait to see how God uses your sunshiny personality to touch others around you. You are precious to us all!

Love,
Mommy

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Special Saturday Fun!

 We had a really fun day yesterday! Ben had to work all day (boo) so he took us all out to breakfast before he had to leave so we could spend some time together. He's had an unusually busy week so we treasure our moments as a family!

After he left, my mom and stepdad stopped by and we did a table swap. They took our old dining room table and we got a really nice wooden card table to use in the basement. We are both happy with our trade! Since the garage was open, the kiddos took advantage of that to pull out their bikes. They have been wanting to ride them but during the week, it's too busy traffic wise around here for them to ride safely. We found out that an early Saturday morning is perfect for riding!



Such a happy pink girl:)



Mr Z!


Samuel's tires had gotten low through the summer or storage but one of the best investments we've made is a bicycle pump so we used it and he was a happy camper! We used to have kids lined up at our door asking to have balls and bicycle tires pumped up:)


I finally had to call it quits because it was really chilly out!! We hung out for awhile in the morning before Grandma (B's mom) came to pick us up for a really fun afternoon at the farm!


First we got to jump on hay bales. And by we, I totally mean the kids, not the adults! Eliana climbed a little bit but she was too excited to go ride the Banana Bus so she waited patiently.


The boys cousins were there, too! They are all very close in age so they have a lot of fun together. This is B., the oldest of the bunch. He slid into the picture just in time!


We rode on the Banana Bus (pictures coming later), petted animals, slid down slides, rode peddle carts and finally took a hay ride! Eliana gave us this big smile every
time we took a picture:)


I kept begging Samuel to go sit next to them so I could get a good picture of the three of them. This was the best of the bunch. He wouldn't cooperate very well so I was disappointed not to have more great shots out of the 9 I took....Ah, kids!

We had such a good time! Eliana fell sound asleep on the way home and we all washed off our farm dust with warm showers, got in our pjs, had dinner and I tucked the crew in bed early. It was definitely a happy day for the Trio!

And thanks so much for taking a minute to leave me a comment earlier this week! I really enjoy hearing from you and it always makes my day!

Followers