July 1: Our early-morning flight to Omaha allowed us to see a lovely sunrise at Dulles.

July 2: Aurora approved of the plate I painted for her; cousins chilling together.

Photo taken by Joe Sands

July 3: Painting pottery (and drinking Starbucks, and talking nonstop) with Kassie and Katrina has become a tradition when we’re all in Omaha at the same time, long may it continue.

July 4: Happy Independence Day! Grandma Carol & Annalie; sparklers galore.

July 5: Annalie and Grandma Val laughing; Old Man Annalie; Aurora making a face at the water we were giving her from the end of a straw, even though she apparently liked it.

July 7: Annalie monkeying around, Aurora watching and wondering how much longer till she can monkey around with her.

July 8: We took Angie out to lunch and introduced her to pottery-painting as an early birthday present, and did some handprints with Aurora and Annalie.

July 9: Lunch with Rachel; an impromptu visit with T and her kids.

July 10: A triple-the-fun birthday party for Zach, Josh and Alex; playing at the sprayground.

July 11: Lunch at Godfather’s with the Kay family (including Mike, who took the group photo); Krista cleverly disguised with a gumball-machine mustache.

July 12: Annalie hanging out with the mariachi band at the Mexican restaurant where we met Nancy and Ben, Angie & Aurora for lunch; shooting off some leftover fireworks at Ed & Leslie’s farm.

July 13: Katrina and I got pedicures and then went to dinner at an unexpectly busy Olive Garden all by ourselves and it was awesome. I think a new tradition has been born.

July 14: Starbucks for the moms, Slip’N'Slide for the kids—perfect on a day when the high temperature was near 100F and humidity was 91%.

July 15: We’re heading home.

I hope to write more detailed posts about our time in Omaha eventually, but for now you can enjoy many photos in my Flickr photoset Omaha July 2010.

The last weekend of June, we packed a lot of fun into a few short days. In addition to teaching the dottery class, we attended two birthday parties in one day and then drove four hours to the beach to hang out with Anna and her family, before driving three hours back home the next night. Whew! It was crazy but totally worth it.

First, we went to Karalyn’s 6th birthday party. It was a puppies-and-kittens party! The kids did puppy- and kitten-themed crafts and played games. The parents who hung out either helped as they were needed, pretended they were paparazzi, or hung out chatting, eating snacks, and passing around baby Kate.

Jill decorated Karalyn’s cake with an assortment of Littlest Pet Shop toys and candy bones, and there were also cupcakes with puppy and kitten toppers.

The weather was HOT that day, so the classic fill-the-buckets water relay game was especially welcome.

The party officially ended after a couple of hours, but we stuck around, eating Jill and Andy’s food and visiting with friends. It was particularly nice to see Angela and her girls, who had come from Indiana for a long visit just in time for the party. It was so nice to see them, in fact, that Angela and I lost track of time as we blathered away and we were late leaving for the next birthday party…

…for Jack! It’s hard to believe our adorable godson is already four years old, but it’s true.

We celebrated by climbing all over the PlayPlace and eating Happy Meals and Ronald McDonald cake and sundaes, because that’s the kind of birthday party smart parents plan when they have a tiny newborn daughter to take care of!

Did I mention the sundaes? They came with mini M&M’s and Oreo bits for topping. Those sundaes were a big hit.

Can you tell these two goofballs are related? They both posed like that, without prompting, when I pointed my camera at them.

Basically, a great time was had by all—what kid doesn’t love a McD’s PlayPlace?—and no one had to clean up their house or clean up after the party. Win! And with that, we said our good-byes and headed out to our minivan to make the long drive to the beach.

I was gonna write about the beach too, but this post is long enough and our trip to the beach deserves its own post. Standby…

Annalie’s 6th birthday party ended up being a bit of a flashback. Her 3rd birthday happened to fall on a 10%-off-day at our local pottery-painting place, so I let a few friends know that we were planning to go paint that morning and then have lunch at a nearby Mexican place.

Photo taken May 9, 2007

As it turned out, a few of our friends decided to join us, so the whole thing ended up feeling like a party. It was much more fun for me than her actual 3rd-birthday party, because I was sick that day. I powered through the playgroup party and then crashed hard when everyone went home. I don’t even remember it very well, honestly. But I have good memories of the painting day.

We debated several options for Annalie’s birthday party this year. But since we’d just moved, the only friends we wanted to invite were our old friends from when we lived in Maryland. That means all the guests live an hour and a half away from us, and it would have been hard on them to make a 3-hour round-trip drive for a birthday party. So we decided to meet halfway…for pottery-painting and Mexican food.

Most of the kids in this group are experienced pottery-painters, so they quickly chose their pieces and settled down to paint. Annalie finished so quickly that she was bored and begging to open her presents. I wanted her to hold off just a few more minutes, till most of the kids were done painting, so I handed her my camera and told her to take pictures.

I especially like the last two. They’re self-portraits she took with the timer.

Finally, it was time to open presents!

Annalie even had a present from Gabby and Annie to open, despite the fact that they live in Indiana and weren’t at the party. They gave her a cupcake-making kit, proving that they know both Annalie and me well. We have the best friends!

At the Mexican restaurant down the road, we all ate our fill of chips and salsa and cheese dip and whatever else we ordered, and then it was cupcake time! And history repeated itself just a little bit.

Originally we were going to have butterfly cupcakes, but Annalie decided at the last minute that she wanted daisy cupcakes instead. She even came up with the frosting design on her own, and it was much cuter than my idea. The ‘Feliz Cumpleaños’ plates were on clearance at Target for 58 cents, and Annalie thought it was cool to have birthday plates with Spanish on them. Works for me!

Old friends, painting, and good food were a great way to celebrate Annalie’s birthday. Thanks, everyone!