The monkey says Happy Birthday Maria!!!

 

Maria turned 8 on Sunday! She wanted to bake a cake herself, so she did. It was nice and sugary. We enjoyed her favorite, lemon pasta and called it a day! Sometimes Sundays can be looooooong.

 

A while ago I got a Living Social deal for the Sacramento Zoo. It was a good deal! For $20 it got 4 of us in with 6 rides on the carousel and/or train. They didn't put and/or on the paper. They only put and. So it was a little misleading, but whatever. It was still a lovely time together!

 

Eli was so excited for the zoo. He couldn't believe there was a train there too! I love seeing the wonder and excitement on his face.

 

Ella and I were attacked by this crazy bird. He rushed us multiple times. Stupid bird. And yet he was entertaining puffing up his chest and making his squawk at us.

 

 

We were so excited to see a lion cub!!! It was adorable and just sat around while it's parents napped. Ahh.... the life.

 

They also had a new exhibit with otters.

 

After watching planet of the apes... primates will never be the same to me.

One of the chimps we were looking at ate it's own... something. It was disgusting. It was really really horrible and traumatizing. Although, I am glad he didn't throw it at us? When I asked Elijah what the monkeys would tell us, he said they would sing Happy Birthday to Maria!!

 

Eli's favorite were the Zebras. Maria loved the snow leopards.

 

Armando and Sofia. True love.

 

Maria had all her hair sticking out to the side because she didn't want to look like a boy in the picture.

 

We also went to Ikea and Desert Book. It was gorgeous, sunny weather. We enjoyed a picnic lunch with salad and veggie sandwich from Big Salad in Downtown Sac. So fresh and delicious!!!

 

It's nice being so close to California.... motherland forever!

Maria's Harry Potter Birthday Party 8 Years Old

 

A magical birthday party for a magical little girl!!! We had such a lovely group of ladies come over and it was a blast!

 

The first thing I did for the party was scour pinterest. It did not fail! I loved making all the wands.

 

We had a Honeyduke's Candy Buffet! The girls got to make treat bags to take home with treats from the books: Chocolate frogs, fever fudge (one side hot with a little cayenne... it was weird because it tasted sweet but was hot after 5 seconds!! Fabulous! The other side was minty and cool), nosebleed nuggets, canary creams, ten ton tongue taffies (instead of toffees), Dumbledore's lemon drops, puking pastilles, gold from Gringotts, and Bertie Bott jelly beans!

 

We made patronus jars!! While traditionally patronuses are silver, we went with gold animals. The children wrote things that made them happy to fill in their jars.... one must keep the dementors away!

 

Surprisingly, I think these muggle magic tricks were the hit! Everyone was really excited to take a handful home. I know my girls were writing with the invisible ink for at least an hour!

 

We made quills.

 

 

Air dry clay owls.

 

Lumos/Nox light plate switch covers.

 

The wands chose the wizards.

 

The kids were very excited for their Hogwarts robes!!!

Gryffindor... although secretly, I think Maria would prefer to be Ravenclaw.

 

Golden snitches!! Eli's favorite!!

 

Eli made a candy bag that weighed more than him!!! He was so good about waiting and when the time came he went hog wild!!

 

For games we played a pensieve memory game. No one was hardcore like us, so no one really got the gist of it. We were the only ones to have read all 7 books.

 

We also did a Bertie Bott toss. We tried to see how many jelly beans we could toss in each other's mouth. The highest was 4!

 

We also played a round of quidditch!!! Modified. We had about 30 snitches for everyone to try to find. Joe was our keeper.... he'll always be my keeper. He did pretty good protecting the goals, but they did score quite a few!!

 

Ella joined the party after a while. She has had a really stuffy nose. Poor thing. She's been having a hard time breastfeeding and it's been quite traumatic for me. I'm just hoping it will clear up soon so we can get back to our normal!!

 

It was beautiful weather!!! Thank you Heavenly Father for such a lovely day with family and friends. And most importantly for such a beautiful and marvelous young lady to celebrate coming to this earth!!!

 

Happy Birthday sweet Maria!!!