Catch up: 5 + 7!

Well gosh be-darnit, the kids' birthday's have come and gone! We are now mind-blowingly the parents of a 7 year old man beast and 5 year old sass-princess. It's incredible! What in the heck?! Since for 4 + 6 we had a big ol' party at our house last year, we decided to let them each pick one friend to go with them on a day of adventuring on their actual birthdays. We also decided to go small(er)-scale because when planning it all out, I was super pregnant with Grace and we just had no idea how we would be doing with a new baby - party planning seemed out of the question. Anyway, it was honestly such a blast!

For Carter, him and his buddy Ethan (who's our neighbor and his classmate - got to love elementary school where your friends live right around every corner!) took off for a good 8-9 hours with Chad on my big man's birthday. The plans for the day were to go to Nickel Nickel - this awesome arcade that has been revamped from when Chad and I were kids! How cool is that? Anyway, apart from the general coolness of the day, this particular arcade only accepts nickels for the games - NICKELS! I meeeeeeeeeeeean... 5 cent games are okay by me! Hahaha. So the two of them Nickel Nickeled it up for hours and hours and hours, then went to an elaborate lunch of Carter's choosing: SUBWAY! My first born angel wanted Subway above all else for lunch - again, OKAY BY MAMA OVER HERE! After lunch they returned to the arcade for more fun and then headed home where the girls and I had slaved away making Carter a 4 tiered chocolate cake.

I do have to say though, it was SOOOOOOOO STRANGE to just be at home NOT with the birthday boy this year. When we have parties, they're always way before his actual birthday given it's proximity to Christmas and even when we don't have parties, of course our entire family is together. This year was just so different in that regard! Like the whole day when the boys were gone it's like I had this pent up energy like "OKAY! THIS IS CARTER'S BIRTHDAY! IT'S A FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN DAY!" but Carter wasn't there to hug and squeeze! I called my parents to ask if they could come over for dinner that night just to make it even more birthday-ee for our big guy once his friend went home. So once Chad and the boys got to our house, we sang happy birthday, opened gifts and then his bud left with his parents. Next we all ate dinner with my parents and had a jolly good time.

HOW IS HE SEVEN?!!!!!!!!

For Miss Dakota, we had this amazing day planned out at Downtown Disney where her and her little friend Riley from preschool were going to get princess make overs at the Elsa and Anna Boutique followed by Sprinkles cupcakes and Starbucks! I mean, how could you go wrong with that combination? It was SO FUN.

The way the whole day went was Kota and I left the boys and Grace at home, then headed down the street to pick up Riley and her fun mama. Then the four of us headed to DTD, all while it was raining just a bit. The girls looked soooooooo sweet in their little princess dresses while walking up to get their hair, make up and nails done! OH MY GOSH it was darling. As they got made-up, Jessica and I took 40,000 pictures because it was the cutest thing ever.

Next we headed over to Sprinkles to get the "IT'S YOUR BDAY" set of twelve cupcakes, then went right on over to Starbucks where we ordered up a storm. When we sat down, we lit up 5 candles for Miss Riley because it had actually been her birthday just days earlier, and then we did the same for Kota - it was SO FUN! Jessica and I enjoyed warm coffees and it was so merry!

As we were heading out of DTD, the girls asked if we could do a quick run through of Build-A-Bear where unexpectedly, Jessica treated the girls to adorable reindeers! HOW SPECIAL AND FUN WAS THAT?! It was truly the cherry on top to a wonderful day out. As we headed back to Corona, we said good bye to our birthday buddies and headed home to our boys and babe. We then relaxed while Chad and I chowed down on more of the Sprinkles cupcakes, trying to chill out before New Year's Eve celebrations began down in Ladera at the sister's house.

It was soooooo much fun with Kota! Again, it was super weird for all of us Cisneros's not to be together on her birthday, just like it was odd for Carter's, but ya know, it was all awesome!

HOW IN HEAVEN'S NAME IS SHE 5?!!!!

We are so proud of these old kids. It will be fun to see what Grace wants to do on her 5th and 7th birthdays! So insane that she seems so far away from those ages, but I just KNOW it will whoosh by and before we all know it we'll be hanging out with HER friends. Insane!