Princess Hannah Turns 5!

We celebrated as princes and princesses on Hannah's 5th birthday!

Princess Hannah had a wonderful time with her family and friends - playing games, eating her favorite foods, and opening her presents.

It was a happy day for her!





I decorated our patio with pink, pink and more pink.
We played princess games --
they made jewelry out of candy (licorice, life savers and peach and watermelon rings)
Sophia couldn't make candy necklaces -- but she enjoyed eating them!They played "Pass the Present"- when the music stopped whoever had the package in their hands got to unwrap one layer of paper. There were several layers on each prize. We couldn't get the CD player I bought to work before the party so we had live music by Pat...

Stormy loved her bubble prize!
They made tiarras and crowns
They played pin the kiss on the frog (Pat and Jacob made the frog for the game!)
and I read the story "The Princess and the Pea" to the guests and everyone took a turn guessing how many dried peas were in the jar (it took forever to count the dried peas -- I started out with a small jelly jar and ended up moving them to a smaller spice jar -- It took me 20 minutes to count out 777 dried peas!) No one came close to guessing the right amount. The closest guess was in the 200s. ;-)
We had some of Hannah's favorite foods -- hotdogs, canned pineapple, pickles, marachino cherries, kiwis and chips

And finished with a castle cake
and presents!
It was a lovely afternoon and evening! The kids enjoyed one another and Pat and I enjoyed visiting with our friends Valerie and Tracy.
Happy 5th Birthday Hannah!
We love you!

Wild Horse Sanctuary Field Trip

At the beginning of May, I chaperoned Hannah and Jacob's school field trip to the Wild Horse Sanctuary. We rode in a school bus through the fields and on gravel roads to see the horses and several other points of interest. It was an exciting and memorable tour. I'm glad I volunteered to chaperon! It was also fun to get to know their classmates and share this adventure with Jacob and Hannah.

Our first stop was to see a group of fillies. At the beginning of the tour, I never imagined we were going to get out of the bus and actually be able to pet the horses.

We got pretty close to a herd of horses (fillies that were about 2 years old)

We were even able to pet them!

More pictures of the first herd we saw - they were sweet and quite docile

Jacob and Hannah at one of the points of interest -- overlooking the canyonPetra glyphs
Cliff Swallow Nests

A view of the Cheyenne River (flows through the property)
We saw several of these Star Lillies
A view from the bus window (not too bad...)

Beautiful Terrain

Sweat Lodge (Sundance Festival held here annually)

This land is very sacred to the Native Americans and so they have made an agreement with the owner to use the land for some of their ceremonies.
Sundance Pole

Happy Birthday Sophia!

Sophia turned one on the 24th of April.

As a mother of four it takes a little longer for news to get reported :-)

Here are the highlights of our celebration:
a ladybug for our little lady
opening presents
help from big sister
looking at her cake
the first grab....
digging in...
All done!