Happy Birthday Ady!

 Ady is now 5 years old!  I can't believe my baby is now 5!  She is such a great help to me and so sweet.  I love having her with me all day and spending so much time together.  I cannot imagine life without a daughter.  My relationship with her is very fulfilling and enriching.  

 For her actual Birthday we kept things simple.  She opened presents from the family and instead of cake we had Cupcakes. 

Ady was really excited for her presents, especially the Swim to Me Puppy.

 

 

 On Friday Night Ady had her Princess Party with her two best friends.  I love that Ady's birthday is close to Halloween.  It makes it really easy to find Princess dress up clothes!  Last year for her Fairy party I made tutus for everyone, but this year I realized that I would spend about the same amount on fabric as I would just buying Princess Halloween Dresses and I found some really cute ones that were pretty nice. 

 

I went for the easy route with the cake this year too and bought a cute Princess cake.  

Ady, Macie and Morgan love dressing up and play really well together, so I didn't really have to do much for this party other than provide the costumes and the food.  They played together all night and then stayed up late giggling and reading stories to each other. Everyone had a great time and it was a simple one for me.  As the kids are getting older the parties are less work.  I don't have to provide every minute of their entertainment.  They are just excited to play together and be silly.  It is nice to see them having so much fun with great friends.

Happy Birthday Ady!  I love you so much and I am so lucky to have such a loving, kind, smart, considerate and responsible girl for my daughter!

Best Friends

 

Ady is very lucky to have these two girls for her best friends.  Macie (in the middle)  is fun and spunky and very outgoing.  Ady can be a bit shy, so having Macie as a friend helps her to come out of her shell.  Morgan is very thoughtful and bold.  She helps Ady to be more creative and is always thinking of fun imaginative things for the girls to do.  

These girls have been friends since they were babies and I am so glad Ady has such sweet girls to learn from and to be her best friends!

I love NY!

Some friends and I were all talking one day about how great it would be to go to NYC.  None of us had ever been.  A couple of us started looking into it and decided we really should just do it!  The group ended up dwindling down to just 3 of us, but we sure had a great time!  

Kate, Me and Kim

On our first day there we went to the Today show taping.  We decided to dress in Colts attire to get noticed.  Unfortunately there was also a big group of nurses there that day with matching shirts and they got a lot of attention.  We did end up on TV a few times though.

It was fun to be there and see them filming.  It is definitely worth getting up early to be there and experience it.  

NYC is pretty calm and quiet early in the morning too.  

 The hotel we stayed in was only a few blocks from Times Square, so we were able to walk to a lot of places that we wanted to go.  Our room was small, but very nice. 

 We went ahead and did a bus tour of the city. It was really nice and it was a good way to see lots of different sights fairly quickly.  It was dark out by the time we were finished, so we couldn't get a lot of good pictures.

 

We had fun getting dressed up and going to see Wicked on Broadway.  The show was amazing and it was the highlight of the trip!  I definitely want to go back someday and see something on Broadway.  The stage was gigantic and it was just an incredible experience!

We ended up taking taxi's quite a bit because it was just easier.  Next time I will be brave and try the subway, but we were so short on time that we just didn't want to take the time to figure it out.  

We did a lot of shopping and ate at some great restaurants.  There is so much more that we wanted to do, but 3 days was just not enough time. 

Our hotel was really close to a firehouse, so we stopped in to get a picture with a NYC firefighter.   He was pretty excited to hang out with three beautiful ladies. ;)

On our last day there we took some time on our way to the airport to stop by the Manhatten Temple.  It was really cool to see it right there in the middle of the city!  It was a Monday, so the Temple was not open, but it was fun just to see it.

 

 

Here we are on the flight home.  Exhausted, but happy to have had such an amazing and memorable trip!

 Thanks for a great trip ladies!

Tomatoes!

This summer we had a garden and ended up with tons of tomatoes. In the past I have mostly either used everything fresh, chopped it up and put it in the freezer, or let it go to waste. I was intimidated at the idea of canning. I decided that this year we would give it a try.

My friend Rachael grows a huge garden every year and is a pro and canning so I asked her if I could come over and watch her can tomatoes a few times so I could get the hang of it. I tend to learn best by watching someone else do it rather than just reading about it.

She did a great job helping me feel like I could do it, so we bought a Pressure canner and all the necessary supplies and gave it a try!

Here is some of our bounty. It feels good to put away some of our own home grown goodness to use throughout the year!

Thanks for the help, Rachael!