Birthday Girl #2

Our second little princess also had a birthday earlier this month. Here are a few pictures of the celebrating we did.

Since big sister had blueberry muffins on her birthday, Sarah Claire insisted on having them, too.

And this is what happens when your three-your-old tries to get her ice cream cake out of the fridge herself! We're lucky it was still edible at all!

 We salvaged enough for everyone to still get a piece.

 She loved the handmade personalized necklace that Lee Anna made for her...

And all three kids had fun playing with the new additions to SC's kitchen--wooden slice and bake cookies and a wooden birthday cake set. They even had their own bake sale!

And this was in the birthday box from Mimi! She loved being Smurfette, and walked around singing the Smurf song for a good half hour.

Happy Birthday, Little Princess! We love you lots!

Birthday Girl #1

It's high time we got some birthday pics on the blog! June is birthday month for both girls, so we had a fun week with lots of celebrating! Lee Anna chose to have her party at a local water park again this year, and we all had a great time enjoying the sun and water.

 We made some fun cookies n cream cupcakes (with Oreos on top and inside!)!

Here she is blowing out the candle on her birthday blueberry muffin (which she requested weeks in advance).

She got to open one gift before we left for the water park that morning. Daddy sent her on a little scavenger hunt around the house for it.

 One clue was even hiding in the freezer!

 She had a wonderful time with lots of sweet friends!

 And Sawyer had a pretty good time, too!

She got to open the rest of her gifts when we got back home, including this cute outfit from her cousins. We had a wonderful day celebrating our beautiful eight-year-old. We love you, Lee Anna Belle!

Eating Out

When people move from one country to another, they usually have to make major adjustments in what they eat. Usually. We have had to make some minor adjustments to our eating out fare, but overall we have it pretty good! We don't have Taco Bell, Moe's, or any other Tex-Mex fast food, but we get all the McDonald's, Burger King, Hardee's and KFC that we need.We've taken a few pics lately to demonstrate the similarities and a few subtle differences. 

Here's Sawyer holding the Hot Wheels cars he got in his kids' meal at Hardee's.That's pretty normal, but ...

Lee Anna is standing in that same Hardee's. We're the only customers at 12:45 on a Saturday afternoon! The work crew was still coming in when we got there, and there were no other customers. Not one. The locals have a little different eating schedule. They were packed out by 4:00, and probably stayed busy until the wee hours of Sunday morning, but noon:45 was too early for lunch!

Most of the fast food joints have play places like they would in the states...

And the burgers and fries are pretty similar to the American originals.

One thing we see more of on this side of the ocean is sleeping children. Like eating schedules, sleeping schedules are also very different here. Families don't typically have a set nap time or bed time, but they just assume that if their child is sleepy enough, they'll fall asleep--which they do, all over town! And this week, Sarah Claire acted just like a local. On the way to Burger King for supper yesterday (at about 5:30) she fell fast asleep in the car. She snoozed for about 20 minutes before waking up to eat with us. No one who saw us even batted an eye at the sleeping toddler, though, since we see kids sleeping like this everywhere we go.

We are so grateful to have all these places to go and eat. (When we don't feel like just having them deliver!)