November 14, 2013

Happy 6th birthday!


We celebrated Madeleine's sixth birthday earlier this month.  Lately she is into pretending to be a spy, or a detective, and so she asked for a detective birthday party.  When the party guests arrived they had to create a detective ID badge with two randomly assigned words (Quacking Duck, Blue Lizard, Silent Pickle, etc), and their fingerprint.  Once all of the ID badges were in place they started the "mystery" part of the party by popping balloons to reveal the secret clue.  This led them to various places inside and outside of the house with clues that revealed the next location.  We were hoping this would take them awhile, but they really flew through the clues.


One of the clues was hidden in the bathtub.


This was the "laser" hallway they had to go through to get to one of the clue locations.  It was a little too easy!

After all the clues they found their goody bags - more detective gear!



Blue Lizard was a reluctant model spy.



My little Laurel



More spy friends!



Present opening (brag:  I built all of the furniture in this picture! The patio table and the bench and chair in the background).



Cake time!  The cake is supposed to be a magnifying glass.

The highlight of Madeleine's birthday was the fabulous gift from The Children's Cancer Fund of New Mexico.  They asked her what she wanted, probably expecting to hear about a My Little Pony, or Barbie or something...nope!  She asked for, and received, a zip line!

 The kids (and friends), have been using the zip line every day after school.  It's a big hit!




I just had to throw this in here because it's cute.  This was Laurel's first time on roller skates and she did very well.  She did get tired towards the end and opted to be pushed around on the cart.  They can't wait to go back!


We return to San Francisco on Tuesday of next week.  Dr. Matthay (the San Francisco doctor) was very pleased with the results of the scans and thinks that Madeleine will benefit from another MIBG therapy.  Hopefully she will be out of the hospital by Thanksgiving so that we can spend the holiday with my family.  We will be split up, Nana and Pop pop are coming to watch Laurel and Claire at our house, and then take them to Tucson for Thanksgiving.  We will fly back home the day after Thanksgiving (hopefully), and then Mad and I will fly back to San Francisco a week later for the stem cell infusion.  A lot of travel, but this way I won't be separated from the little ones for three weeks.

That's the latest!






5 comments:

Bree said...

You are so creative, Amber! And, you are a talented woodworker. I love seeing Laurel keeping up with Mad and her friends. Im excited to watch Nora and Isla's relationship blossom.

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful party! The girls are so cute in their roller skates. P.S. tell Laurel that I get tired after skating for awhile and would like Madeleine to push me in a cart.

Kyle

Anonymous said...

Rub a dub dub 7 girls in a tub

Adelaide and Harleigh Morris said...

This is such an awesome birthday party!! I have never been good at the "activity" part of parties. I think you should get a side job as a party planner :) The girls look like they LOVED it!

JT said...

Party planner with a side of woodworking! Great stuff!! FUN party!!!