Inlaw Birthday Week

I just love this picture of Heidi's eyes. She was cuddling with me as I lay suffocating from congestion on the couch last week when Tyler took this picture. We just adore her.

So This week we get to celebrate 3 birthdays!!! First was Susan's. We decided to try and make things exciting by planning a surprise party!!!! Tyler and I were on the cake committee and so I decided to try something new and.... odd.

This was the strawberry cake. REALLY yummy with delicious strawberry cream cheese frosting and white chocolate on top.

Then because that didn't seem like enough for 10 people, I made a chocolate one to go with it! Then I experimented a bit and stacked them on each other. It looked weird, but it was fun.

We all showed up and decorated like crazy while Susan and Pat were out shopping. We actually pulled off the surprise! The party was a lot of fun thanks to Devin and Kara (decorations) and Ben and Kate (games)!

You wouldn't believe it, but the girls actually dominated in the shooting contest. And not because we all stood 4 inches away like Alex.

We were all so exhausted and full that we only played the one game, but it was a winner.

The kids LOVED the hats. Especially Heidi.

We learned a few important things.

1. If you eat the cake first and then the pizza, then the cake actually gets eaten and enjoyed and you get leftover pizza for breakfast.

2. After indulging in cake and pizza, you don't really feel like running around and playing games.

Sunday after church we continued the celebration with family dinner and lots of balloon fun.

I just can't get enough of Heidi. In that hate she reminds me of that old cartoon "The world of David the Gnome".

I'm suddenly a fan of party hats. I don't know that I could say that before seeing Heidi in one.

Of the time she isn't sleeping, Heidi probably spends 80% of her day pulling herself up and standing. She is growing up too fast.

They both are.

Monday we celebrated Susan's actual birthday with a yummy dinner and FANTASTIC cake ordered from Tennessee by the missing family members in Sam and Natalie's group. It was Cold stone, and it was wonderful. I'm drooling thinking about it.

So now we try and save the decorations until Thursday when we get to celebrate Kate and Kara's combined birthday!

So here is the last picture taken of my hair before the chop. Not a real great example of length, but you get the idea.

And here is the only picture taken so far post hair cut. I was teaching Alex how to use my camera, she did a fairly good job although neither Heidi or I were ready.

And as long as we are talking about hair. I've been trying to convince Alex she looks and feels so much better when she lets me do her hair. So we decided to try and see how many bands we could get in her hair as a game. It looked great, but only lasted about 20 minutes until Heidi was finding them on the floor and choking on them.

Yesterday she told Kara she wanted her hair cut short like Uncle Devin. I have since hidden all the scissors in the house.