Isabelle's 9th birthday

she made root beer cupcakes that she read about in a boxcar children book. 

She used chocolate to draw dogs and cats to put on top of it

and we baked them into ice cream cones (warning!  The get gooey and droop if kept on the counter overnight!)

In the morning she woke up to a balloon avalanche on her door

This in her bathroom

And this on the car.  She was super giggly driving around town when people would honk for her.  We left it on an extra day or so, which was fun too

Candle in everything she ate today, including a breakfast poptart

Went to pump it up with the kids and her good friend Adhira

They gave out popcorn and drinks too so it was VERY convenient that the summer reading program day for this happened to be on her birthday!

Volley ball

Isabelle's first year of volleyball is going well.  they only play 4 saturdays, but play 3 games each time.

As you can see here, she is literally the shortest girl on the team of 4th through 6th graders.  A nice surprise was that when we showed up a girl who is in her class at school is on her team as well.  So isa has now started sitting with her at lunch and bringing her ball to school to practice with at recess

 

She did score a few points in each game by serving, so that was super exciting!  The name of her team is Orange Crush =)

 

when we showed up we realized she forgot her knee pads and WORE FLIP FLOPS!  So daddy took pity on her and drove home to get the things she needed.  Hopefully she was embarassed enough that won't happen again b/c I doubt if he will do it a second time!

First day of school

Sorry, I know I have not posted anything for a long time.  I'm hoping to get caught up this weekend, or at least get a few scheduled.  I will probably have to work my way backwards to cover everything! 

First days of school

This was her lovely fashion sense and it was so cute I let her go to school like this.  Earlier she had on leopard print shoes too!

magic kindgom

 Ariel was the one Sydney kept asking about all week, so we knew we needed to get her autograph as soon as possible so that she could quit asking!

 We went on the haunted mansion ride.  Thankfully I rembered part of it so I  could warn the kids what was coming up.  Poor Syd and Gid were not quite as brave as Isabelle who was giggling and excited the whole time at how creepy everything was

Thunder Mountain Railroad!This is an old favorite for sure!

We took a raft across to Tom Sawyer's island

And waiting for the raft to take us back Ryan played checkers with Gideon

Park #3 Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom was so huge that we did it for 2 days, with Hollywood Studios in between.  I hope you expect MANY posts worth of pictures from here =)  Everything is so well sculptured that parking lots are like amazing gardens with all of the flowers and greenery cut into neat shapes

 You have to park, then go get in line to take a tram (AAAAH!) or a ferry across to the actual park.  We went on the tram a few times to get back and forth for our nap time in the middle of the day.  We picked this day to stay late for the parade and fireworks, so the last night we'd be able to sleep before the travel home.

The castle

The hallway walking through the castle to get into the main ride area was decorated with cinderella's story in mosaics, floor to ceiling

 

The carousel in the middle of the park, which we avoided for a while, but of course went on later in the day

Rapunzel's castle

The ever famous Peter Pan ride.  when we got off we happened to go around the corner for shelter because it began to rain, and it so happened that Wendy and Peter were there signing autographs!  We were the last ones before they took a break, so we were able to stand under an overhang while waiting for the rain to slow down.  It didn't though, so out came the ponchos!