The Birkeland Family Blog

Emmi's 4th birthday was a Pajama and Pancake Party!  We had a few of her friends come over in the morning dressed in their pajamas for a pancake breakfast.  The girls had fun.  They loved the blueberry pancakes, but the biggest hit was Emmi's "giant sweet roll" cake.  We stuck candles in the sweet roll and sang happy birthday.  The girls ate up every last bite.  We played some games and the biggest hit was musical pillows.  We opened gifts, the girls played a bit and then went home.  By 10:30 all the girls had gone home with their sippy cereal bowl as a party favor and for the rest of the day Emmi was begging for a friend to come over to play.  She seemed to forget that she just had a birthday party that morning.   So....word of advice to mom's planning a birthday party.  Don't do a morning birthday.  All the fun is over by mid morning and the rest of the day you will hear them whine for more!  ...

So this Easter I failed miserably!  I didn't even get a picture of Emmi and Jack together in their easter clothes. In fact Jack never stepped foot in his outfit.  We did manage to get a picture of Emmi in her adorble dress that Grammy Jill found her.  Our church is at 1:00 and by that hour Jack had completely gone ape, along with all of us.  Brian stayed home to nap Jack and Emmi and I got ready and went.  We did it and enjoyed the spiritual uplift to be reminded of our Savior and his life! We did manage to dye easter eggs the night before and to have a hunt when the kids woke up.  Before the kids went to bed Emmi put lettuce leaves down the front sidewalk to lure the easter bunny in.  When they woke up they had easter baskets filled with toys and candy hidden for a hunt.  Emmi was in heaven.  It is her favorite game to go and find hidden thing...

I can't tell you how fun the beach was.  First time for my kids and they kept busy the entire time.  Next trip to California we are going to ditch Disneyland and head to the beach.  Give my kids a pail and a shovel and they are good for hours.  It was absolutely beautiful weather.  We spent Brian's birthday on the beach, and celebrated with a shave ice and the bum handing out animal balloons!  Could life be any sweeter?

Here we are in Disneyland! Yes, we took a 10 hour car drive to sunny California. We took off early Tuesday morning and caravanned with Eric and Kelley and their kids. We did the drive in one day. Are we crazy? YES!!! The kids actually did well on the drive it was the next day that we wanted to strangle a little girl named Emmi. (and that is putting it very nicely) We all got to bed around 11:00 pm that night and Emmi woke at the butt crack of dawn asking us over and over if it was time to go to Disneyland. Right then I knew we were in for it. By noon she was a wreck. She was asking for anything and everything and if she heard no it was meltdown central. Good thing our hotel was close so we could take her back and take a nap. Emmi loved to jump from bed to bed in the Hotel. After the 5th casualty we had to separate the beds further so she couldn't jump anymore. Welcome to Disneyland. Our Hotel was just across the street from this entrance. Just a 5 minute walk and we were there. ...