HaPpY BiRtHdAy JaYnA!!!!!

TODAY, Jayna turned 7!!!!! Happy Birthday to our middle girl, our little turtle. Jayna's theme for her 1st room was 'happy turtles' and she realized (about 1 year ago!) that she NEVER had her animal themed birthday. SO....the planning started, many months ago. What a perfect year to have "turtle" as a birthday theme--we found such cute girly turtle items that just made her day. The above picture was taken in October of 2004 right before Andy Kilz'd the walls to create what is now known as "the pink room". The picture above is Jayna waving 'bye' to her beloved turtles...oh, what memories we have of creating the turtle room!

But back to the planning of the turtle party....2 days ago, Jayna asked us all if she could pick out what we wore for clothing today. It was so cute as she chose much green for all of us to wear. And as we were in the drive thru at McDonald's today, even the money taker commented about how Andy and I "matched" in our green! :) LOL!

Here is a snippet of the beginning of our fun day, with those beloved "hair unfixed" photos! We hurried to get dressed to get the girls to their last piano lesson of the summer and then we returned home to....

open gifts while Colin took a short nap. Turtles galore were the gifts, lots of crafts, and even some new American Girl books. The above left photo shows the scene before opening gifts--we have a tradition that whoever is opening gifts gets to sit in the pink 'throne'. Hmmm...what will we do about Colin and that tradition?!?!?!

After we enjoyed Jayna's gifts, we went to Noodles for lunch (a first, taking Ellie into that cheesy place...but it was a HUGE success and she enjoyed a homemade lunch and the 2 safe items there: fountain pop and a chocolate chunk cookie!) and then took the girls/Colin on their surprise outing--to The Fire, a local paint your own pottery type store. As you can tell, the girls were VERY into the pieces they chose to paint...they loved every minute of the afternoon.

Colin actually tolerated the time at The Fire very well....what a blessing. After almost 2 hours of painting, we zoomed home to enjoy...

Jayna's cake....I mean PIE. Many of you know she's not a cake person, but rather a pie lover. We recently found the invitation to her 1st birthday party and on it, it indicated that we'd be serving Jayna's favorite--strawberry pie! Amazing that 7 years later, it is STILL her favorite!

And when we got home, we were delighted to see "something" in our yard! Yes, for those of you who don't know this, our house is for sale!!!!!! We gave ourselves 2 weeks to get it ready (and we are exhausted right now!) and as of today, it is REALLY official. We are praying that our home sells quickly as we have our eye on a home in Neenah, closer to everything that occupies our free time. This is part of the answer to "when 1 door shuts, another door opens...". We're hopeful to finish off that story in the coming weeks!

And if the birthday and the FOR SALE sign weren't enough excitement/happiness for the day....we have more news. Great things happen in 3s right? Colin will be 15 months on the 19th and he has been stubborn about learning to walk. But today, he was the reason for much cheering and screaming as he walked from 1 person to another...and even learned how to stand up independently in the middle of the room!

To see a funny video clip of Colin trying to stand on his own, click HERE. To see him walking, click HERE . Enjoy!