More Bday pics

Thanks to my friend Valerie who stepped in as the birthday photographer after my camera battery died, here are some more photos of Cupcake's 5th bday party with friends...







Thanks, Val, for the photos!

Cupcake is five!

Our baby is five! Fun at the gymnastics party and then the next day on the real day at home with presents & ice cream.

Ready for presents!

Cute new boots!

gymnast & bday girl

Big day at the gymnastics meet yesterday. The Spark was so nervous for her first real meet, and when it was all over, she is just purely excited for the next one. There might have been one girl there younger than The Spark, but she might have been the very youngest. She placed 1st on bars, her favorite event, so she brought home a blue ribbon. The vault didn't go so well, her least favorite event. She scratched on her second vault, and the score is from both runs. Even with her tanked vault score, she got a third place ribbon for her overall score in all four events. (There were four girls in her age group.) :)

And today is Cupcake's birthday party with ten of her friends at the gymnastics gym. They'll play in the gym for an hour and then have lunch (Cupcake requested chicken noodle soup) & chocolate cupcakes. She is very excited for her party and to turn five tomorrow.

Boys at Breck & holiday prep at home

My boys with my BFF & her little guy. No Fair!

Zippy & J fought their way into "First Chair" status this morning in Breckenridge, Colorado after being elbowed out of the way for the same honor yesterday morning by some aggressive, old guy. So J had to get a pic of the two of them on the very first chair up the mountain at Peak 8 today. The same guy showed up and tried to cut in front of them again, but J held firm this time. I aske dthem to take their time tomorrow a.m. and maybe spend some of the morning at a local diner instead b/c getting the first chair was too intense for me.

Since the boys' coach from the last few years is now the US Olympic Snowboarding (Slopestyle) coach, and he is in Breck with some hopefuls for Russia 2014, the boys are meeting all the riders they read about in their snowboarding magazines. They have posters of these guys on their bedroom walls. And now Coach Bill is calling the big guys over to meet his little ripper friends from NH! Very cool.

#1 has been staying in a house with his current Academy coaches and all the other riders from his school who are in CO right now. He's getting to be so responsible on this trial run with J just down the street. He even did his own grocery shopping for the week all by himself (with the other students/athletes running around with thier own shopping carts too), and after J ran into him outside and checked the goods, he found that a Vitamin Water looked like the least healthy choice he'd made. And he's been getting all of his schoolwork done since after riding all day, they have a two hour study hall staffed by the traveling teacher who seems great. Tomorrow the guys' last day of riding, so they can head to the airport for a Saturday a.m. flight and hopefully catch the tail end of The Spark's gymnastics meet in southern NH by that evening.

Meanwhile back at home... we've been busy getting ready for Christmas since I have to/get to work at the mountain next week and having only two kids is usually more than twice as easy as having four. Cupcake still manages to throw a wrench in things, but I've been cranking away while the girls are at school.

Teacher gifts, round one:

Now that #1 is in "big kid" school with a different teacher for every subject AND we have two teachers subbing for one on maternity leave at The Spark & Zippy's school, we have 17 teachers to give a little something to for the holidays! Goody bags of homemade treats it is.

Stay tuned for pics from The Spark's first real gymnastics meet and Cupcake's hippo birthday party this weekend...