Charlotte's 7th birthday, etc.

Today I'm just going to highlight the main things that have been happening the last couple of weeks. Curtis finally got his PE (Professional Engineer) exam taken last Thursday after 6 months of studying. Thankfully I was babysitting that day also so it helped keep my mind off of it and not be so anxious. The test took all day. He feels like he did well enough to pass although the 2nd half of the test was more difficult than the 1st half.  Unfortunately we have to wait about a month to get the results back but at least now Curtis can do other things now besides studying! And he'll actually be home on Saturdays!

A few weeks ago we received an unexpected call from my Aunt Cori. They had just put an offer on a house and she found out from my mother in law (they are lifelong best friends) that the house is near where we live. It's so near that I can see the house from my front door and it's the same street! She said not to say anything yet until they knew for sure. Well, I got another call from her on Thursday the 15th saying that they got the house and was asking for help from the Elder's quorum for unloading the moving truck that would have stuff from their storage unit. Her kids and friends helped bring everything else over throughout the day on Wednesday and Thursday. My kids (minus Nikki) and I walked down and helped unload the truck Wednesday night along with my cousin Sally and her husband, a few men from the Elder's quorum and even Nikki's friend Logan. Uncle Ken was working out of town during the week while everything was being moved but came home on the weekend.  I am excited to have them living on our street and in our ward. Charlotte and Alice have already been asking if they can go over to Aunt Cori's. Our whole family went over yesterday to take them cookies and visit. Ken, Cori, Brad and Courtney were there. Alisha showed up later. I was visiting with Cori while Curtis visited with Ken. Cori whispered to me while they were talking that this is the happiest Ken has been in awhile and the most he's let anyone in for a long time (assuming from my dad's family). Maybe this is a step in the right direction for mending extended family relationships with my dad's family and Ken's family. We hadn't seen any of them since Grandpa Norton's funeral in 2018. It's made me sad that we've been distanced for so long.

Charlotte turns 7 today and we had two parties for her over the weekend. One with her friends and one with family. She had been talking about her birthday ever since Christmas. It was fun but I'm glad it's done now. It was raining on Saturday for the friends party so we had to do all of it inside and the pinata in the garage. They played Twister, freeze dance and did a treasure hunt....where the treasure was the pinata. They also ate pizza, chocolate cupcakes with cherry frosting and either ice cream sandwiches or popsicles. Then they watched her open the gifts they brought for her. The party went from 1-3pm but of course the 3 neighbor kids ended up staying about 1 1/2 hrs longer. I finally had to tell them that I was ready for some quiet time and they needed to go home. Only her friend from school didn't make it to the party. She invited 6 friends.

She loves horses so I was happy when I found this pinata at Zurchers. She loved it!

All ready for her friends party. Alice loves being with her big sister.

They played a few rounds of Twister.

Pizza time!

Alice picked out a sparkly pink hat after Charlotte had picked out a sparkly purple birthday hat. Charlotte also picked out sparkly white candles for her cupcake.

The two taller girls are friends from church. The other 3 kids are neighbor friends. Bryson (or Bryston...not sure lol), Alice, Tessley, Eli, Charlotte, Elie, and Brooklyn.

They found the treasure! Pinata time in the garage since it's raining. They did about 5 or 6 rounds of hitting before it finally got knocked open and we did not even blind fold them.

Yesterday after our visit with Uncle Ken and Aunt Cori we had Curtis's parents come over early so that we could play some games with them before Charlotte's family birthday party. We taught them how to play a card game called Slide, which I think they gave to Garrett for his birthday last year. Then we played Blurt! until my parents and grandma showed up. We sang happy birthday again and then she finally got to open her gifts. I wrapped most of her gifts on Wednesday so she's been looking at them the rest of the week just dying to open them. I only let her open one gift from mom and dad at her friends party, which was her toy cell phone.

This time she wanted the #7 which I had previously bought for Nikki's birthday but didn't use.

One of the things she saw at the store and asked for her birthday. It's nice that there's two bows and two sets of arrows so she can play with a friend.

The traditional birthday snack and Jack picked out a purple ball for her. Purple is her favorite color.

This was also something she asked for when she saw it at the store.

G&G Butterfield gave her the horse and doll she's holding.

G&G Norton gave her this big squishmallow. I think she loves it more than the horse! GG gave her some money which she's excited about.

So today on her actual birthday I woke Charlotte up to different birthday music I found on YouTube and played it on my phone. She asked for pancakes for breakfast so I whipped up a small batch. Thank goodness for pancake mix! She enjoyed playing with some of her toys before going to school and she wore a new shirt she got from her friend Brooklyn. She wanted to share donuts with her class so Alice and I had to make a special trip to the store to get some donuts and other grocery items and then dropped the donuts off with some napkins to the school. I didn't get to ask Charlotte what she would like for dinner tonight but Alice was sure she would like hot dogs, so we picked some up at the store while there and some buns. It's been a fun birthday for her I think. So glad she was able to have her friends party since Covid ruined it last year. Happy 7th birthday Char Char!