Happy birthday, Nana

Nana's 80th birthday was last Saturday. Aunt Jan planned a big surprise party for her after church, and Uncle Alan and Aunt Donna came up from Florida to help celebrate. Some of Uncle Dino's family was there, too, and lots of friends from church. Here are a few pictures from the party.

 Jan made this gorgeous cake!

 Nana with her kids - Larry, Jan and Alan

 There was a lot of music. Claire sang, with Jan accompanying her.

Dino's niece, Tori with her new baby, Bella. Mia and Claire love Tori, and thought Bella was great.

Sebastian

I am so proud of my girls! Mia and I went to Wal-Mart on Sunday to get a Christmas present from her to Claire. We planned to get her a small fish tank and supplies, with a gift card to later purchase a Betta. The poor Bettas were in such bad shape! We had complained a couple of weeks ago about them not having enough water. Poor things were sitting in their little cups with less than an inch of water! Well, this week they had more water, but it was so filthy that we could hardly see the fish. Pitiful. Well, right away Mia said, "Mom, we HAVE to get one now! Their water is TOO BAD!" So we did. She picked out one that was purple, since they both like purple. We took him home and set up the tank before Claire got back from her church group activity. Mia was so excited, and happy to see the little guy swimming around in his clean water. Claire was excited to get him, and named him Sebastian. Turns out he's not really very purple, or red, just kind of blah, but we love him. He swims to the glass and looks at us as if to say, "Thank you for saving me. Even though I'm not the prettiest fish in the world, I'm so happy that somebody cares about me!"

Claire's curls

Claire got her hair straightening touched up this week, but wanted some curls for church.

Here she was after a night in sponge rollers.

Lookin' like Nellie Oleson...

Much better!

 

I wish we could get it to do this permanently. I really like it.

Pumpkin Carving

Pictures from the last few days

 Here are a few pictures from the last week or so. Mia wanted to give this puzzle away, so I asked her to work it to make sure all of the pieces were there. She had so much fun working it, she decided to keep it!

Jessi was supervising...

Today was Wacky Tacky day at school. Here are my wacky tacky girls. There was a little bit of copying going on, so Claire's smile is quite fake - she was pretty angry at Mia by the time we were ready to walk out the door.

And of course, I can't make a post without some pictures of my doggie!

 

I think Claire took this of Andy on one of their beds.

 

He had his paw on my knee as if to say, "Stop clicking that mouse, Mom, and come play with me!"

Here's my latest pet - Antonio the Betta. I couldn't get the camera to focus on him, so this is a little blurry. He's my office pet. I'm too afraid the cat might get him if I bring him home. He swims to the side of the tank where I am, and watches me. He sits and stares at me if he's hungry. He gets a little ticked off at me when I change his water, too. I didn't realize that fish could be so personable.

Some miscellaneous pictures

 I hit some big sales this weekend on some winter dresses and clothes. Why are all of the ladies' winter dresses short sleeved or sleeveless? Even a lot of the little girls' dresses are more like sundresses. Makes no sense. Here they are trying on a couple of their dresses. Claire is looking just a bit too mature for an 11-year-old!

Mia looking cute in her new dress. 

Twirling... (Ooh - look at that mis-matched plaid! One side is upside-down from the other - nobody takes any pride in their products.)

And of course, some pictures of my favorite dog! He's such a snuggler. 

Here's what he does when I ask him a question. "Do you want to play?"

"Do you want a Dingo?"

Andy and Jessi

I love these little babies so much!

More pumpkins

Here is a picture of all of the pumpkins we got from our vines. The vines were about dead, so we went ahead and cut them. The little ones were from the plants we planted, and the big ones were from the volunteer plants - amazing!

Pumpkins

 Claire planted a pumpkin plant in her little garden, and today she picked her first little pumpkin. A little early, but maybe it will ripen. She wants to make a pie. We'll see how that turns out.

Last fall we tossed out our pumpkin, and this summer we were surprised to find this volunteer pumpkin plant growing in the back yard. It has just about taken over the whole yard! The leaves are huge, and it actually has several good-sized pumpkins growing down in there.

Whoopie Pies

We had Whoopie Pies for dessert today. Yum! I've never made them before, but they were easy, fun, and cute as can be!

Our happy dog

Andy thinking about cheese. It always makes him smile!

Silly Squirrel

I snapped these photos one morning of this silly squirrel on our deck feasting on the birds' suet cake.

"Ooh! Num num num num..."

"Ick! De woof of my mouf feows gweesy!"

7-27-11 Happy 11th birthday, Claire!

Claire's 11th birthday was July 27. She and I made her cake together. The theme was tie dye and peace signs. It was our first time to try fondant, and it was really a challenge. You definitely need cutters, not paper patterns! We ended up making a really large two-layer cake, because a friend with a pool was wanting to have a little get-together, and we decided to combine that with Claire's birthday celebration, and we weren't sure how many would be coming.

Trix now has a tie dye look, and they made super-easy decorations! I haven't had Trix since I was a kid - they still taste just the same...

Claire and her friend Rayven

AJ

"Okay, Mom - enough pictures!"

A very colorful and yummy spread. We requested a pizza with black olives in the shape of a peace sign, but our pizza people didn't know how to make one. It looked more like a Mercedes logo... oh well...

Dmitri

Mia's gotten more brave about jumping off the diving board without a life jacket - just holding a noodle.

Go, Mia!

Pretty girls.

Claire's main gift was contact lenses (we'll see how THAT goes), but she needed stronger glasses, too. We were able to find frames with...

...what else? Peace signs!