Nora's 4th Birthday Party

Dearest Castillo Children,

I realized I forgot to document the awesomeness that was Nora's 4th birthday. As you know, I am pregnant with our third child and have been horrible ill. I wanted to make sure we had a birthday party for Miss Nora, but I also wanted to make sure I wasn't too ill to enjoy all the craziness of the kids. I thought about a circus theme for Nora's party but that seemed liked more work than I really had the ability to do. (Although I still think that would be a cute theme)  I wanted something that they could play on for about an hour without me doing much in the running of things. I figured an hour of play, and then time for food, cake and presents. That sounded like a pretty good party to me. I figured an obstacle course, complete with plenty of water, would be perfect for an August birthday party. I saw some things on pinterest about using pool noodles for different obstacles and I was sold! Todd went out the day before an bought a ton of pool noodles and I bought another slip 'n' slide on an after summer clearance deal.

 

Girls "helping" the night before the party.

 

I think we could have just let all the kids play with noodles and the would have been pretty happy.

 

 

We invited Alicia and Geneva to Nora's party but figured it was too much of a drive but they were able to come to Tucson to spend the day with Nora. It was nice to have some extra adults hands around during the party since I wasn't really up to physically doing much. We stayed up talking way too late the night before though - but it was worth it!

 

The party set up

 

We had a balance beam (Isabel in front, Reese, Carter and then Nora)

 

 

Nora crawling thru some obstacles

 

We had a little kiddie pool set up

 

Some of Nora's presents

 

Todd explaining how a Slip 'n' Slide works. (3 and 4 years just didn't get the proper way to do it)

 

Meeting in the middle - they didn't always go the way they were suppose to

 

Baby Miles trying to do the course

 

Nora's Preschool friends Isabel and Skylar playing

 

Morgan, Reese and Carter waiting for a turn

 

Nora and Skylar on the Slip 'n' Slide

 

Todd made each kid a balloon sword, which some of them popped by letting them fall into the grass. It was sad/funny to see how sad they would get about it.

 

Starting the war

 

Todd always makes things fun

 

They got corndogs, grapes and juices

 

Nora's 4th birthday cake (decorated by her talented Daddy)

 

Blowing out the candle

 

Nora got a ton of presents - time to clean out the play room!

 

My Fabulous Little Four Year Old!

 

Over all the party was a great success. I was a lot of work, but most kid parties are because the parents have to do everything! I actually like planning kid birthday parties - I love watching the idea come to life. Mostly because my husband makes my abstract concepts into reality. :)

 

 

I hope Nora can remember a little bit about her birthday party. If not, I took pictures! See, Nora! We loved you and threw you a birthday party. I have proof. :)

 

 

Love you my Little ones.

 

 

With All My Love,

 

 

Your Mother

Nora's Birthday Week

Dear Castillo Children,

Don't get jealous rest of the Castillo Children (born and unborn), the focus of this blog will be Nora turning 4! I still can't believe I have a 4 year old! Next  year Nora will start Kindergarten. I hate to admit that I am totally worried about where she'll go to school next year. I'm not thrilled with my choices down here in Sahuarita, mostly the use of busing everyone because they build all the schools on the same stupid street. (can you tell I'm frustrated with it?) I figure I can send my little girl on a bus, where someone told me that their kid told them how they saw a boy pull of a girl's pants and the bus driver had to pull over to stop the whole thing. That kid doesn't ride the bus anymore. But if I'm going to drive her shouldn't I take her to a school I actually like, which is technically closer also? But none of her church friends will be there, but at the same time there is no guarantee that she's have church friends in her class at her assigned school either. I have a lot of prayer a head of me as to where it would be best to send her. I miss the idea of just sending them to the elementary school down the block. Geesh!

ANYWAY! Nora turned 4! It was on a Thursday and I asked her what she would like to do that day. I was actually feeling horribly sick (as per norm) and decided that she only turns 4 once and I needed to have fun and not feel sorry for myself. After Daddy made a special birthday breakfast I gave Nora options like the zoo, a museum and swimming. She picked swimming, which was awesome because it was close and free. We spent a few hours playing the pool and then picked up a pizza for her for lunch. We played and watched a movie until daddy came home. Todd got a gift certificate to Texas Roadhouse and we figured a birthday date there sounded like a perfect plan.

 

Special birthday breakfast

 

Annalise and Daddy at Texas Roadhouse

 

 

Mommy and Nora at Texas Roadhouse

 

 

Nora got to sit on the saddle and have people sing happy birthday to her - she loved it!

 

 

We decorated for her birthday

 

 

After dinner we opened presents

 

 

She got a Brave doll

 

 

A Barbie car

 

 

A Prince Charming and Cinderella set that had to ride in the Barbie car - she was pretty pleased.

 

 

 

It was too late for birthday cake so we had it the next night. (ignore my horrible frosting job...)

 

 

 

Every year I ask Nora what kid of cake she wants and she has always says pink (meaning strawberry)

 

 

About to cut the birthday cake

 

 

Nora's birthday lasted for a full week thanks to packages and her birthday party being the following weekend.

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa sent a singing broom.

 

 

And an ABC puzzle that both the girls adored.

 

 

Nora trying out her new broom

 

 

Nora even got a package from Spain from Grammy and PopPop!

 

They sent her a Dora shirt, a fan and lots of Spanish candy to try

 

 

And a little Cinderella book in Spanish that Nora likes to pretend to read

 

 

Annalise liked to play with the fan, too

 

 

I'll have to blog about Nora's 4th birthday party with her friends later, but I am so happy to have this sweet little girl in my home for the last 4 years. We are truly blessed as a family and I can't wait for baby to come join our family - plus it'll be nice not feeling so sick all the time too! ;)

 

 

I hope you know we have a lot of fun, we're so blessed.

 

 

 

With All My Love,

 

 

Your Mom



Our Trip to Utah

Dearest Castillo Family,

Let me tell you a tell of a trip to Utah - not a vacation exactly, more like a long work week. Todd had offered my parents his services as handy man up in Utah. They have been working on getting trailers fixed up to rent out at the trailer park my Aunt Joanne owns. They are hoping to use the rent money for these trailers as part of the their retirement plan. The last few summers have been spent up in Utah acquiring and fixing trailers for their business venture. However, this summer they had high hopes of finalizing the repairs and having all of their trailers rented out. My sweet husband offered to take time off to drive up to Utah to help out for a week. Thus began our adventure.

I wanted to go the last week of July since I was starting with voice lessons the following week and didn't want to have to cancel any of my new students. We drove up on a Saturday with the express hope that we would be there on Sunday - which was my birthday. The drive up was actually really fun. I got to chat with my love, the girls watched movies and we got to eat lunch and dinner together as a family. I can see now why people like doing road trips as a family. However, without that little DVD player it might have not been so pleasant. :)

On Sunday we went to my Aunt Jo's ward. My auntie just had surgery so she didn't attend by we took her granddaughter Lilly with us. During sacrament Todd leans over to me as asks me if the man on the stand looked like Neil L. Anderson, from the 12 apostles. I'm not great with faces so I wasn't sure. We got there late and missed who was presiding over the meeting. Towards the end of the meeting they mentioned that YEP! he was visiting since his grandson was passing the sacrament for the first time. It was just weird to go to church and there was a general authority hanging out there, too. Utah is so weird.

That night Todd made me dinner and a birthday cake. My parents still hadn't made it up to Utah yet so it was just our family celebrating.

 

Me with my 32nd birthday cake

 

My family on my 32nd birthday (baby in tummy)

That week Todd fixed a ton of stuff around my parent's little apartment attached to my Aunt Jo's house. He fixed the garbage disposal - which was horrible broken and smelt of fermented cabbage that had been further fermenting because some dumped a bunch of it down the sink not realizing the disposal was out. He fixed, rewired, put in an air vent for my parents washer and dryer. He helped my dad figure out that his truck wasn't running because it needed a new fuel pump. He fixed a horribly leaky bathtub in my aunt's house, a few of her stairs that were getting really lose and even hauled a new swamp cooler up to the roof of her house. PLUS, he went to Price (the trailer park) and helped out there for the day. By the end of his visit he has put in a lot of hours of service to my family.

I, on the other hand, wasn't doing well with the pregnancy and just hung out with my beautiful girls. I took my mom and my cousin Brittany to Thanksgiving Point for a day. We went to their dinosaur museum and it was awesome.

 

The girls loved having Grandma explain things to them.

 

 

There were a ton of cool displays, Nora's favorite was walking through a dark tunnel with only little lights surrounding you - like you're walking through stars.

 

 

Anything you can touch - you know they did!

 

 

There was a huge room full of dinosaur bones.

 

It was so kid friendly, toys all over to play with as you went.

 

 

Annalise, me and Nora in front of some bones.

 

You could build your own dinosaur

 

 

The best was they had a huge sand table to play in with a ton of little dinosaurs.

 

 

My favorite part of the trip was getting to have a date night with my husband. On Monday night we went out to dinner to a place called Station 22 that was fabulous and a lot of fun. They have specialty root-beers and Todd got one called Brigham's Brew, that had vanilla in it that was actually really good. Only in Utah. We went to a place called Sammy's that had *famous pie shakes* and we split one as we walked over to where the new temple was being built out of the old tabernacle that burned on the inside. It's going to be beautiful once they are all done with all of the repairs. We then went to look at minivans to see what we liked and really like the Honda Odyssey. Went to Ross and then everything was closed. We called a friend to see what we could do since it was only 8:30 for us and not the 9:30 for Utah. We headed over to a dollar movie theatre (only showing movies PG-13 and under of course!) and we watched The Great Gatsby - which I LOVED. It was such a nice night to be able to stay out a long as we wanted and do whatever sounded fun. I love date night.

 

 

The drive back from Utah was really rough. I was pretty ill feeling the whole car ride back. But we made it and I didn't die! Hooray!

 

 

I loved spending time as a family out and I hope we get to do it again really soon - Daddy keeps talking about how he wants to take us all to the beach...let's hope so!

 

 

With all my love,

 

 

Your Mother