Heidi's 5th Birthday

 Finally, after everyone else birthday's, it was Heidi's turn!

 Tyler had worked a 12 hour shift the day before and promptly fell asleep when he got home after the hour commute so it was up to Alex and I to decorate.  Usually this wouldn't be a big deal but I'm not so agile anymore.  We made up for the lack of streamer mess with balloons and even got some of the long skinny ones to tie into animals and such with the aid of you tube.

 Quinn is starting to really love birthdays, she has made the connection between the birthday song and cake, presents, decorations and fun and has started to get really excited about birthdays!

 Heidi was the SWEETEST birthday girl ever.  Super generous with all her things and time- she was just a doll the whole day!

 She got lego's from Alex and Grandma, and more lego's from Daddy, and used birthday money to buy herself a beautiful fancy necklace for church and a dinosaur bone excavation kit.  That's my Heidi!

 Oh and bubbles, she got bubbles and wanted nothing more than to go out and blow them, which Quinn loved, and which gave Alex the chance to go to town on the legos.

 The best part of the day was her friends princess party!  Kori's parents had promised her a princess party when she got potty trained and we were lucky enough to be invited!  Heidi was convinced it was for her birthday and I was fine with that.

  All the little girls in the ward came dressed up in their princess dresses and pinks, Alex and Heidi decided to wear their halloween costumes, vampire princess and pirate princess.
 Lisa had gotten some of the younger ladies in the ward without kids to dress up as Elsa, Ariel and Rapunzle post hair cutting.  They were perfect for the job and I think they enjoyed the attention.  Later I overheard Heidi telling her friend "Can you believe that Alex's piano teacher is the grown up Elsa!!!!!!"

There was crown making and delicious cupcakes, the sun was shining and the yard was full of wonderful friends. It was a great morning.

 Plus there were princesses to push my children in the swings. Awesome.

 Here are Heidi with some of her very best friends.  Bri on the left is about to turn 4 and is who Heidi chose to take on her birthday date.  Next to her is the party girl Kori who is the quietest child ever and my shadow in nursery.  She follows me everywhere and helps me with jobs or reads books with me.  They just moved out of the ward to this new house with the great backyard, but I swap babysitting with her Mom so we still see them all the time.  Jack and Heidi just go nuts around each other, it's hard to even explain.  My children are ALL enamored with Jack and can't get enough of him, chasing him, wresting him, and laughing and laughing and laughing.  He is 4 like Heidi and they always say that together they are "Quackers".

 I'm not sure Quinn cared about what was going on, but i was thrilled to get to use Heidi's old halloween dress one more time.
 I stole Heidi and Bri away from the party, while Jen took Alex home and dropped Quinn off at our house with Tyler.  Heidi decided that instead of a birthday party we would do a date and we went to McDonalds for happy meals and ice-cream cones and then to the children's museum for 3 hours!  It was so fun watching Heidi and Bri together,  since Heidi is a year older she takes on a very sweet/bossy tone with Bri, she is 1/2 her equal and a great playmate and 1/2 a child that Heidi needs to protect.

 Friday we had gone to Costco for the express purpose of buying this cake.  Heidi had seen it during a previous trip months before and declared THAT was the cake for her birthday, and she kept reminding me.  So we made the journey only to find out there were none and had to talk to the bakers who happened to have one in the freezer!  They even wrote Heidi's name on it which made her shudder with joy.

Heidi had also gotten an apron, a chef hat, old fashioned egg beaters and a chocolate sucker making kit for her birthday.  She loves to help cook.  Quinn was very excited for cake time.

 Very.

 Heidi was not very happy that Quinn was trying to blow our her candles.

After cake and ice-cream the birthday goblins dropped some clues and had us all over the house and neighborhood finding goody bags.  Then Tyler took Heidi to the store to spend her birthday money and I put Quinn to bed and crashed.  I love birthdays, but being the fun mom at 8 months pregnant, is not so fun and pretty exhausting.

Sunday we played pin the tail on the donkey because there had been no time the day before.  Sunday was the actual day of Heidi's birthday but we decided to celebrate early.  That evening we had friends over to help eat cake and had 9 kids and 15 adults crammed into our tiny backyard all at once!  It was a fun weekend, the weather was great and Heidi was a wonderful and gracious birthday girl, it was such a joy to celebrate her.  I decided that the reason she just shone that day is because we all did everything she wanted all day, which is exactly what she always wants us to do.

We were able to get our Landlords to extend our contract through August thank heavens, which has completely taken the pressure off and calmed my mind a bit.  Tyler has been offered a job in the ER he is currently doing his rotation at, about an hour away, and he has 2 interview in the next week.  The first is in SLC for transplant surgery, and the second is in Columbus, Ohio for Cardio-thorasic surgery.  We don't have a lot of details on any of the jobs yet, and our preference is still to move back West, but there would be a lot of benefits to taking the ER job here.  Although I'm wondering if the pre-humidity warm sunny weather has lulled us into a state of Pittsburgh bliss.

I've got about 4 weeks to go until baby day and I'm feeling great as far as hips and back go.  When I lay down on my back I'm still stranded if i stay there for more than 30 seconds.  When the baby moves it moves my entire belly and I think I'm starting the uncomfortable ribs stage for sure.  I know I need to start getting things ready but Tyler's schedule/ my immobility is creating problems.  On his work days when we don't see him from 6 am until 8 pm, I'm just trying to survive.  Quinn usually choses these days to be extra whiny or sick and needy so we are in complete survival mode.  Then when Tyler is here we all just want to be with him and nothing gets accomplished that needs to.  he has become the master of laundry, Alex is great at sweeping and mopping, and Quinn loves unloading the dishwasher.  Heidi is great at cleaning up the living room if she comes up with the idea on her own, and she likes wiping things with a wet cloth and babysitting Quinn, otherwise most things are torture.  I am a great delegator.