We went with a Moana theme, which was made easier with the Dollar Tree supplying oodles of luau decorations.
And Pinterest.
We had pizza and fruit and did some crafts.
We enjoyed a piñata.
And we had a giant Moana-themed cake. And jello that I somehow didn’t take a photo of??
She has so many nice friends. She made some new friends this year at co-op, and has a rich group of girls she hangs out with at CBS and church. We are so blessed.
While she had requested a Mommy-date “in lieu of a birthday gift” she later asked Daddy for flowers and face paint. So – in her economics she’d figured the Mommy-date was just from Mommy.
We had a normal day at home (it was Memorial Day so Daddy was off from work) we had Nan, Nene, Ba, and Poppy over for tacos and cake.
She wore the crown she’d made at the Strong Museum of Play yesterday.
This year Hanny requested a Mommy-date in lieu of a birthday gift.
Unlike the older kids who want to be surprised, she requested a trip to the Strong Museum of Play.
While I had envisioned a lunch at Bill Gray’s and had told her about eating in the diner, she asked, “What do I smell?” as we walked into the museum. I had forgotten that they also have a food court. I showed her the Bill Gray’s diner, but that wasn’t about to sway her. She smelled pizza and her taste buds had committed.
Our first stop was Berenstain bears. That’s my favorite too, so I was happy to head back.
Without any siblings in tow, I got to be her playmate. We had a fun time.
Stewart handed his cross-of-nails necklace down to her and she wore it proudly.
“Happy I am and it’s my birthday.”
She told everyone and anyone that tomorrow she was going to be seven. Most people were sweet about it.
After hours and hours and hours of play we got back into the car to head to the park to feed the ducks.
With our bread in hand we headed out to find some. There were none visible at first, so we headed along the path to an area further away where we could see them. That was when we saw the “don’t feed the water fowl” signage. So we went to the playground instead.
Finally we headed over to Menchie’s where Johanna introduced me to the concept. It wasn’t cheap, but it was delicious.
75% of us were available to celebrate Daddy’s birthday on his actual birthday.
I left Flower City Work Camp cold and wet, and met John, the girls, Nan and Nene at Golden Corral.
Dinner was really good… so to speak.
Katriel’s-
This was Marie’s response to fudge, “I don’t know what this is, but it’s amazing!”
Tab had more dessert than food.
I was as tired as I looked.
The next day, we picked up the boys from FCWC and celebrated Daddy’s birthday properly. I made a fine dinner and wonderful dessert.
Johanna worked SO HARD making him wrapping baby and finished just in time for him to tear it apart.
We sang Happy Birthday to this swell guy, and all fell into bed – exhausted!
On Easter Sunday, April 16th, 2006, Tabitha was born.
Today, 11 years later, her birthday fell on Easter once again.
And it was a VERY full day!
She’d already had a Daddy date for her birthday, but we had a little something for her in the hall when she got up.
Per tradition, we woke Tab in her bed.
The boys had to be at church at 8:15 A.M. They missed the morning activities.
Nigel and Nene were part of a brief introduction for the service.
Tab was tickled to find out that one of the plants on the table at the front of the church was in honor of her Easter birth DAY
After church we had an egg hunt and some family photos. It was warm, but very windy.
Our late lunch was… KFC. Because the birthday girls requested it.
We had some gifts and CAKE!
Around 3:30 P.M. Tab’s friend Hal came over to celebrate her birthday and Tab enjoyed her first sleep over.
And we finished the night with Thor 2.
It was a VERY full day.
Having gotten ill on the day that we had first planned for her party, we finally had the opportunity to celebrate with many of her friends on April 1st.
These sweet little ones played a few games, dined on chicken nuggets & fruit, and opened gifts.
As she opened gifts she “read” the cards. They mostly said the pretty close to the same thing: “Happy birthday Katriel. We are friends. I love you, and you love me, and Jesus loves us.”
But my favorite photo:
We started Katriel’s birthday with our tradition of waking up the birthday child with a song. She really was happy to see us, despite what this photo suggest.
Nan came over after breakfast with a gift for her. The box was almost as big as she was.
I think we set records regionally for the warm temps for the day, which was perfect. Nigel put Katriel’s new motor scooter together and she took it for a spin.
Later in the evening, we had her grandparents for supper, and our friends, the Hoyts joined us, as well.
And what four year old doesn’t love a Yoda cake?
The last time the youngest child in our home turned four, I was 8 months pregnant. Katriel is officially the oldest “baby Butler” ever.
She is such a treasure.
My birthday started with my boys giving me chocolate gifts…
And then after the boys’ class at Co-Op we all went to see Moana.
We were home for piano lessons, and then headed to CEC for dinner and fun.
As the rest of the family loaded in the big van to head to church, Marie and I got into the little van to head out for adventure.
She didn’t know where we were going, but Stewart tried to psych her out saying we were going sky-diving. No. No we were not going sky-diving, thank-you-very-much.
We drove for about 90 minutes and found ourselves on the Rainbow Bridge with a good amount of other travelers. It was in line for customs that I shared that we would be visiting Niagara Falls and doing a number of the tourist attractions in the area. Marie admitted a little while later she was a bit dubious that it was going to be all that much fun.
It took about a half-hour to go over the border. Driving was easy and I headed to a parking lot slightly out of the way that was part of the WE-GO bus system and a good deal cheaper than the lots closest to the Falls. We were in the back-yard of Marineland (sigh – everyone loves Marineland). We redeemed our internet-purchased vouchers and were given spiffy lanyards and a map. We then took our first of many bus rides.
We disembarked initially at Table Rock to get our refillable soda bottle filled, and to give Marie a good look at the Falls from the Canadian side. I hadn’t seen it, either, in almost two decades, despite spending innumerable days in this area in my teen/college years visiting my aunt who lived in Chippawa.
We rode green line north until we got to White Water Walk. We took an elevator down to be on the level of the rapids.
We walked through the tunnels til we emerged on the river.
photos don’t do these rapids justice. The water is 20 feet deep in places as the water from the falls rushes through. The waves JUMPED so high at times. We read lots of interesting facts and took gobs of photos.
We took the green line south after this, back toward Clifton Hill. We enjoyed the gardens a little,
and I walked her up Clifton Hill a ways. We were both getting pretty hungry and she chose
Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. As we were shown to our table she noticed a Christian band she likes on the video screen across from us.
The portions were ginormous; we should have shared a plate.
After that we headed to the Hornblower Cruise. (Mommy took Marie to a foreign country for a cruise.)
That would be us in a few minutes!
Here we donned our first plastic bags of the day.
It loaded incredibly quickly, despite throngs and throngs of people, and we were on our way. It was a wet and wild experience. I enjoyed it tremendously.
We made it off and moseyed through some shops, and I got to meet Elvis. Marie was not interested.
We headed to our next adventure, to walk behind the falls. Here we put on our second plastic bag of the day. See how small they are when they are handed out to you?
It was fun, if not creepy. And my phone camera doesn’t do the effects justice.
The photo above was taken just behind the water on the right.
We emerged from this experience and headed up to the last activity, and our last plastic bag of the day.
This was a mixed bag. The storyline was an evolutionary nightmare, and the storyline was poor to boot; but the technology of the 4D experience was so cool. I can’t believe Disney hasn’t made an attraction like this. We went in to this room (after the lousy movie) and it had 360-degree screens above as we stood on a moving platform. It rained, snowed, got windy, etc., all around us. We moved, etc. It was really cool.
Last, but not least, we grabbed some ice cream. We were both getting tired and had a good ride home in front of us, still.
Dayspring Disciples 