Magic in the Mail

On Monday there was a box in the mail addressed to Arianna. Upon opening it, we discovered a little fairy, and a "happy birthday" note from Robin and Dennis. What a great birthday surprise! Isn't she pretty?
Arianna has named her Ajua or Azhua...I'm not sure how to spell it... It's pronounced with a soft J sound. I tried looking it up on the internet to see if it's an actual name and did come across the name Ajua, with Ghanaian origin, but we're not sure if the J is soft or hard. We thought it was kinda cool, though, that the meaning of the name Ajua is "born on a Monday", and we received the fairy on Monday. :) Anyway, however you spell her name, she's very sweet and Arianna loves her! Oh, and by the way, in the picture she is "eating breakfast" with us.

Arianna's Birthday Party #2!

Two birthday parties in one day? Sounds kinda crazy, I know. But that's what we did, and it actually worked out great. It wasn't our first plan to do it this way, but with Arianna being sick last week, and us already having planned the family party for this week, that's just how it worked out. I was afraid Arianna would get overwhelmed, but she didn't thankfully.

For this family party, there was us, Badda (my mom), Grandma and Grandpa Palmer, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Richy and Aunt Kyra, Jordan, Abigail, Nanny (my grandma), Joanne and Lesley (Joanne's mom). It wasn't a big production, especially after already having partied earlier in the day, but it was nice to all be together to celebrate Arianna's birthday.

As her gift, Joanne made a SUPER cute, delicious Cold Stone cake (she works at Cold Stone) with a Winnie the Pooh theme. She even let Arianna add the Winnie the Pooh characters wherever she wanted. :)

Arianna isn't crazy about sweets (as I mentioned in my earlier post), but she LOVES ice cream, so this was the ideal cake for her. She also LOVED the icing, we discovered; she wouldn't take her fingers off of it!

Isn't it cute? It was unbelievably yummy, too!

Arianna once again was very cute as we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Look at that look on her face. :)

A short clip of Arianna blowing out the candles,

and everyone at the party.

Arianna eating her piece of cake, with her new little friends by her side.

Jordan enjoying his piece.

Arianna playing with the toy guitar from Grandma and Grandpa. She loves this thing, and plays with it all the time. Did I mention it plays music? Rather loudly? Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa.


Abigail, chewing on one of Arianna's bead necklaces. It was probably her favorite part of visiting us.


Arianna wearing the cat mask from Lesley. When you press the nose, it meows. Very cute! Maybe this will be part of her Halloween costume next year...

Before our visitors had left, Arianna actually came up to me and told me she wanted to take a nap. The party was cut a little short as a result, but I was very happy that instead of having a meltdown of exhaustion, she actually asked for a nap. Especially since we would be going Trick or Treating in just a couple of hours!

Arianna's Birthday Party!

This Halloween was a very busy and fun day for our family. The first excitement began the day before when Grandma and Grandpa Palmer (Jeremy's parents), Aunt Jenny (Jeremy's sister), Uncle Richy and Aunt Kyra (Jeremy's brother and his wife), Jordan and Abigail (Richy and Kyra's kids) arrived from Indiana for a weekend visit. It is always great to get together with family! This meant they were able to be here for all of our Halloween festivities, which of course added to the fun and excitement. :)

Our first adventure this Halloween was Arianna's little friend birthday party! Our original plan was to have her friend party last week, but she ended up having the flu, so we had to postpone it. This made for a very exciting, jam-packed Halloween, which ended up going beautifully smoothly overall. Five of Arianna's favorite friends (Batman a.k.a. Alonzo, Cat a.k.a. Emma, Tinkerbell a.k.a. Kaylin, Tiger a.k.a. Tayson and Pirate Pumpkin a.k.a. Jordan) came all dressed up in their Halloween costumes for the party. Arianna was excited to dress up in her butterfly costume for everyone to see. :)

The kids went on a pumpkin hunt in our backyard. Everyone found their own small pumpkin to bring inside and decorate.

Arianna and Kaylin searching.

Ready to go inside! It was a little chilly and windy out there.

Decorating pumpkins with stickers.

Tayson.

Emma and Alonzo.

Jordan.

Kaylin.

Arianna showing her finished pumpkin.

Singing "Happy Birthday". Arianna got so excited Jeremy said he thought she might start crying from joy! :)

Blowing out the candles. (All by herself this year - she's getting to be such a big girl!)

Yummy cupcakes!

Jordan devoured 2 cupcakes

while everyone else worked on their one.

Arianna ate one bite of her cupcake, then told me she didn't like it. She's never really been into sweets, so we weren't surprised. We got out some Pringles for her (one of her favorite treats), and she ate those while everyone else ate their cupcakes.

Opening presents! All of her friends were very generous, and Arianna got a lot of great gifts.

Alonzo was very cute and helpful while she opened her gifts. :)

I love her expression in this picture.

Cute little friends.

The whole gang. Aren't they a cute bunch?

At the very end of the party, after some of the kids had already left, Jeremy got out his big djembe drum, and the remaining kids had fun making some music.

Jordan, Arianna and Abigail creating some unique beats.

Jordan and Arianna drumming.