Mya & Stella's Candy Land Birthday Party

Mya & Stella are turning FOUR!!

We celebrated with them on the day before their birthday with a Candy Land themed party at the Rethman house.  Case & Wes did a spectacular job with the uber-cute decorations.

Balloons that looked like candy suckers lining the sidewalk:

The board game-esque path throughout their house:

Delicious cupcakes with gum drops on top: 

A very extravagant candy bar labeled "Mya & Stella's Sweet Shop" with small favor bags for guests to fill with their choice of TONS of sugary treats:

You might imagine this was a BIG HIT... for children and adults alike. 

In addition to all that, there were party favors for each of the kids!  Mini gumball machines filled with chewy sweet tarts and a mini travel toothbrush attached to brush away all that sugar!  

In one of their back rooms, Casey had a couple of photo op set ups for people to take pictures if they wanted.  The gingerbread man was from one of my mom's previous music programs at preschool.

And Casey made this back drop for more cute pictures.  Love it! 

Probably my current favorite picture of Sophie.  Love that sweet charm.  :) 

Goofy pics with my girl.  

Well, she was making a silly face in this one, but I think the camera snapped a little too late. 

Enjoying some sweets from the candy bar. 

Chow time. 

Waiting for cupcakes and singing. 

"Happy Birthday, to you!!"

Make a wish! 

"Lisa's kids."  All except for Kinley (the little girl with the pink bow in her hair), these kids all go to the same babysitter and play together almost daily.  We're missing Will and the Magnone family as members of the "Lisa's kids" gang.

Walking the path in Candy Land! 

Gift opening time. 

Grandma & Taylor - haha! 

Mom & Zach. 

So cute - even if he was in time out??  

Our budding photographer, Will, was a little unfocused for this pic.  He always says "1,2,3... I gotcha!" 

Will with his Godmother. 

A bunch of these seem so dark to me.  :(   

Moving on to goofy pictures.  I look like a goof in this one but I LOVE Casey's face and pose.  Hahahaha!! 

Attempting sassy??  I don't really even know what we were going for... 

Case!  You're killin' me!! 

Adding hats and props... and Lindsay! 

Happy 4th Birthday, girlies!!

Homecoming Parade

We hit up the streets of downtown G-town tonight to watch the homecoming parade with our pals, the Baldufs, and some of their family.  We also bumped into some of Will's classmates from school and he enjoyed that.  Oh! I forgot to mention:  the other night while we were at the Dipper getting ice cream, Will saw a girl from his class and went over to say hello to her.  Then he brought her over to us and introduced her to each of us so sweetly.  I'm not at all trying to imply he has a crush, because it seemed completely friendly and nothing more, but I just could not get over his polite and sweet introductions that he made with such pride.  He's so confident and polite and he seemed so excited for us to meet her, and her us.  It was a nice point of reassurance that our big, grown boy is still young enough to want to show off his family and confidently introduce us to his peers.  I wonder how long that will last?

 

Anyway, back to tonight.  We always get curb-side seats with our friends in front of one of their in-law's houses on Main Street.  It was sprinkling on and off but just very lightly, and it was still warm.

Will's down with the boys.  Sophie is sitting between a little girl named Lily and her mom, Holly.

I love Angie's side braid that she's got going on.  :)

Will's wearing his new hat there in the middle.

So funny.  Sophie had never met Holly before but she was quite taken with her.  Probably because Holly was very attentive to Sophie's excited announcements of various things.  And you can barely see little Lily covering her ears from the noise.  :)

Angie's daughter Addison was in the parade tonight.  I CANNOT BELIEVE how tall and grown up she's gotten.  Addison will be in the 3rd grade this fall!  She made sure to give candy to all her cousins and Will & Sophie.  We also looked for our cousin, Cora, who was in the parade as well, but didn't see her.  We saw our pal Katelyn, though!

Another big announcement to Holly:  "look, I got a sucker!"

Our kids got an insane amount of candy at this parade!  Good thing we brought big bags!  It'll all go into their individual candy buckets at home that are kept out of reach and dispensed for dessert when we don't have something homemade at the ready.  :)  Just like Halloween and Easter candy.

It's the simple pleasures in life that are the sweetest.