31st Birthday Princess Party

It was my birthday yesterday, and we go big on birthdays in our house.  Jackson told me a couple months ago that he wanted me to have a princess party where I wore a princess dress and danced with Jonathan.  He wanted Jonathan to twirl me around and lift me over his head.  As not to break Jonathan's back, we skipped the dancing but had other princess-themed activities :).

At 9am, this showed up at our house:

We had it for 5 hours, and we got quite a bit of bouncing in.  The boys were so excited to have a bounce house in our backyard.

It was around 100 degrees and felt even hotter with the heat index, so we had to take a lot of heat stroke prevention breaks in the air conditioned house.

Mary came into the bounce house for a few minutes, and she thought bouncing around with me was hilarious.  She spent most of her time inside, though.

The boys helped Jonathan decorate for my little party.

Jonathan made steak with a chimichurri sauce, chips and guacamole, and salad for lunch…delicious.  For dinner we went out for pizza.  The best gift you can give someone who is responsible for making all of the food in the house is to give them a day where they don't have to cook or wash any dishes, so that alone made my day!

After pizza we came back home and had cake.  It was a chocolate cake with a chocolate cheesecake center and chocolate bavarian cream.  They (mostly Jonathan) sang me the Happy Birthday song, and I blew out my candles.

Jonathan gave me my birthday gift a few weeks ago, which is a new camera.  They also got me a new pink and teal iPhone case that Jackson picked out himself, which I opened right before having cake.  My birthday card was very appropriate considering the number of cake pops are children have consumed in their short lives:

We ended the day with some time on the slip and slide.  It stays hot into the evening, so Mary played with a fan blowing on her to keep her from getting overheated.

After the kids went to bed Jonathan and I were talking about the first time I flew out to Colorado to visit him and see if we were really interested in each other beyond our phone conversations.  I flew out to visit him the week I turned 24 and spent that birthday with him.  For my birthday we took a motorcycle ride through the Colorado National Monument (National Park) and ate Mexican food.  Birthdays are celebrated much differently now, but I appreciate how much time and effort he puts into making it special.  We still have such a good time, and he does such a great job of making me feel loved.