enjoying the snow

What's a person to do when that's all there is... snow.  I want to have these snow play pictures in our blog books for the record.  Soon enough we will be living FAR away from anything snowy.  (I'll post our "where, when, why, how philippines" soon!)  And these snowy memories will be all we are left with.  In my opinion that is fine, but my kids are truly Minnesotan and they LOVE the stuff.  

winter fun in our back yard

Let's pretend it's March 26 instead of May 26

and let's pretend that I uploaded pictures and posted about my precious daughter on the day of her birth and not actually 2 months later.  I've always had a very active imagination...

Ella turned 7 on March 26.  We had fun planning her birthday party together.  She was very involved and had some specific ideas and opinions.  Some of those ideas I went with and others I steered into different concepts. :) 

Since her actual birthday was a school day we had our birthday morning [pan] cakes topped with whip cream, sprinkles, and a candle.  Ella wore her number 7 shirt to school and took cupcakes to her class that she and a friend decorated together.  Ella's birthday dinner request consisted of her 2 favorites:  1. Famous Dave's cornbread muffins and  2. coffee.  That was easy.  She was very surprised when I said yes to the coffee.  We ordered a pan of muffins from the restraunt 5 minutes away and made frappaccinos in our blender! 

The next part of this birthday post will be a lot of pictures from Ella's "sweet treats" shop.  Ella had a friend sleepover on a Friday night and she and the rest of the kids decorated about 3 dozen cupcakes together.  They had a blast!  This was a very fun birthday party.  I still cannot believe how much sugar exploded in my kitchen that night.  There were sprinkles and colored sugar crystals and blobs of frosting everywhere!  The cupcakes were masterpieces though and they were very proud of their creations. 

Ella's craft idea for the party:

And here's the workshop:

The "favors" for Ella and her friend were mixing bowls and spatulas and measuring cups and spoons from the dollar store.  We also purchased 2 corrdinating kitchen towels from the dollar store and made them into aprons.

Did I mention there was sugar everywhere? :

On their way to make cupcake deliveries to various neighbors: