Anna's Fourth Birthday

For Anna's fourth birthday, she decided she wanted to have a Dora the Explorer cake. Before her birthday, I think she mostly watched Dora at Grandma's house because we didn't watch it at our house. We actually had to watch an episode so that I could familiarize myself with the characters and plan a party around that theme. This was our first friends' party, so it was an adventure for both of us.

If you ask me the night that I decorate a cake, I will tell you that it takes too much work and I'm never doing it again, but secretly, I really do enjoy it even if it always takes me so much longer than I expect. I learned my lesson after the Princess Cake disaster and now I frost all cakes the night before. I think I started working on this one around nine and finished around midnight.

Saturday, March 3

All the party books suggest a craft and it seemed like a good gathering activity. So for we started Anna's birthday party by making birds with folded paper plates and pieces of tissue for the feathers. I thought they looked like parrots or something that might be found in Dora's world. The kids mostly just enjoyed gluing tissue paper to the plates, and most of them didn't look too much like birds, but no biggie.

Then Dan lead the kids on a treasure hunt. Dan wrote the clues up and hid the treasure (chocolate coins).

the bounty

We also played "what's in the backpack?" The kids had to stick their hands in and without looking, guess what was inside. It's not a Dora party without a backpack, right? They had a hard time with the not looking, but most of them were able to guess what was in the backpack.

Then the presents! These kids were so great about giving their presents to Anna, instead of thinking that the present they brought was theirs to open. They were all so eager to hand their present over.

Seth really wanted to be in the picture with Anna. 

I had Anna practice blowing out a candle a week before her birthday. I think it was about this time that Anna liked having "Dark Vader night," which meant we would turn off all the lights in the house and eat dinner by candle light. So we had lots of opportunities to blow out candles, but for some reason, Anna forgot how to do it. I think she was blowing up instead of down. At any rate, Dad had to help Anna blow out her four candles.

We ended with my favorite game of all: Monkey Tails. The game involves tying a marker to a piece of yarn and then around a child's waist, so that it looks like a monkey's tail. Then they race to see who can put the marker in a jar or cup first without using their hands. It was really hard for the kids to avoid using their hands and a little challenging to get it in the cup. But it made for some funny moments.

Anna's friend Hazel gave her this princess floor puzzle and after the party, Anna put it together almost all by herself.

Monday, March 5

Opening family presents

Anna decided that rather than have a big family party, she wanted one-on-one time with grandmas and grandpas. So on her birthday, my parents took her out for ice cream. Then a few weeks later, we met up with Heather's parents at McDonald's.

Snow!

It snowed so rarely this winter that I think I documented every snowfall. This one came with some big snow drifts thanks to the ever present wind in our neighborhood.

 Evie throwing a fit.

Anna making a snow angel.

Cabo Trip

At the end of February, Dan and I went to Los Cabos, Mexico. It was our first time to be away from our kids for more than one night. I think they had as much fun at Grandma and Grandpa's house as we did in Mexico. Every time we called and tried to chat with them, Anna would only talk to us for a few minutes before telling us that she was "going to hand you off to Grandpa. I've got stuff to do." We left Wednesday in the middle of the day and came back on Saturday night. Since it was February, the weather was mostly in the 70s, but the sun was warm and we had a nice time exploring the area and relaxing by the pool.

A view of our hotel

This Mega superstore was only a block from our hotel, so we walked over a few times to stock up on Mexican candy and bottled water.

Thursday morning we road a bus from our hotel in San Jose del Cabo over to Cabo San Lucas. We passed several armed soldiers on our way. I suspect they were there because of the conference Hillary Clinton was attending in the region. We walked around Cabo San Lucas and checked out all the touristy places. We decided to take a picture of the Hard Rock Hotel in Cabo San Lucas.

A whale skeleton. We got to see a few whales swimming off the coast and it was pretty impressive.

The entrance to the area where all the cruise ships dock.

I gave this guy a buck and he put a gun to my head. I guess it wasn't enough money.

Thursday night we road the bus to the plaza of San Jose del Cabo. We had heard that there was an art festival every Thursday night, but we arrived to late. This Church was right on the plaza and the next day we saw worshippers doing the stations of the cross. We arrived on Ash Wednesday, so the Church seemed busy that week.

Another view of the plaza

Friday morning we went on an excursion, kayaking out to Lover's Beach, Land's End, and El Arco.

Floating in front of El Arco, which is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Gulf.

Exploring Lover's Beach and the area

Before walking over to the Pacific side, we did some snorkeling but we ran into lots of jelly fish. They looked like long orange strings. Dan got one wrapped around his wrist and ended up with some pretty big welts, but he's tough. I got a few zings, but I had very little to show for it. While snorkeling, I saw some large bubbles coming up from underneath us and wondered sort of creature was down there: scuba divers it turns out. We realized that we could have very easily taken a water taxi to all of these locations, but we had fun kayaking and our guides brought us granola bars to take the salt water taste out of our mouth. That alone was well worth what we paid (okay, I'm being a little sarcastic). Still they were great guides.

The Pacific side: The waves were huge and impressive.

Back on the Gulf side, getting into our kayaks to head back to the vans.

On our way back, we stopped at a look out point along the highway. I loved the blue water.

Enjoying lunch at the hotel.

One of the pools at our hotel.

The police station in San Jose del Cabo, or at least that's what we think because there were always police officers near the building when the doors were open.

The plaza during the day

I know I should have spent more time sleeping in on this trip, but I was having too much fun. Saturday morning we got up for the sunrise.

We saw several pelican gliding across the water.

This sign explains the different colored flags. The entire time we were there, a black flag was posted. The black flag means, "No swimming fatal conditions." Still, I had to dip my toes in the ocean at least once, but that's not to say that I took any big risks. I only waded out a few feet and had Dan take a photo of me to document it.

We had a great time, but it was also nice to get home to our kids even if they would have been happy to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's for another week.