Birthday Celebrations

My brother and sister-in-law graciously opened their home to allow Grandma and Z a more comfortable visiting environment :) Mr. M loves having this company to greet him in the morning, and (when they get back in time) at night before he goes to bed. With his mama and dad off on an overnight adventure, he was delighted to have his cousin Gabby stay two nights at his house, too! Talk about extra fun! In fact, when Monday rolled around, he got to skip (pre) school to go on a field trip to the zoo. It also happened to be Auntie Z's birthday. While the weather was hot, and Auntie J is a little out of practice taking a four-year-old on a field trip, we slathered on the sunblock, filled up the water bottle, loaded a bag with snacks, and we hit the cement for a few hours :)

Baby elephants are just THE cutest! We probably need a couple for our backyard ;) They were all the way at the back of the enclosure, but when we walked in, they came rushing to the front of the room to greet us! They must have known a birthday girl was in the house :)

Last week, just before they arrived, it was Grandma J's birthday, too--so we surprised her by adding her to the party list :) She'd never seen the hummingbird feeder ring idea before, which surprised me! I figured she knew all the things :) I guess it was a jewelry type of day, because we also gave her a pretty pair of fused-glass earrings from the art show on Gabby's birthday. I love the way they catch the light and change colors from greens to blues and back again. When Buck and I were looking for ideas, we both turned around from different sections and said, "How about these?" Wouldn't you know we were holding basically the same pair in our hands; I guess that was an easy winner :)

We gave Z a Pikachu puzzle (the first Pokémon item I've ever purchased!) it turned out to be a lot trickier than we expected, but Gabby was a good helper and got Z through the twists and turns of Pikachu puzzling. We also gave her the second Mark and Mattis book--it's fun to read about someone you know!

We picked out this lemon pound cake from Trader Joe's as a back-up plan for Gabby's birthday if the complicated Sally recipe went awry. It worked out great that Z wanted lemon cake for her special day, too! Grandma J mixed up the cake and the icing, and we all enjoyed the moist, lemony treat. Thankfully it didn't blow off the plate with Z's enthusiastic candle extinguishing, lol!