Birthdays and Disneyland!

We decided to go big this year and celebrate both girl's birthdays at the happiest place on earth!  

In February, we celebrated Addy's FIRST birthday!

In April, we celebrated Maya's FIFTH birthday!

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

3 Years Old!!!

Guess who had a birthday in April ?!?  How is this girl 3 Years Old already!  We are so grateful for the amazing blessing of adoption and the incredibly difficult decision her sweet birth mom made to place Maya into our family!  Maya, we love you so much!  Maya is a fun, sassy, happy, smart, grateful, helpful, strong, independent, outgoing, and thoughtful little girl! How lucky we are to be her parents!

We had a little birthday party for May with family a couple of days early, because Brandon and I made plans for a last minute surprise!

She sure loved the decorations and loved being the star of the day!

Maya was pretty specific about her cake, she wanted a Bubble Guppy Cake!
The difficult part of that was finding a bakery that made that specific cake, I couldn't
find one anywhere nearby!  So, I ordered some fun Bubble Guppy candles online and a
local bakery made a fun beachy/underwater cake, we added the candles, and it
looked great!  Maya was so excited about it!

Opening Presents!

Look who got a strider-bike!  She loved it and picked up on the idea of how to
ride it pretty quickly -- what a girl!

And on for the big surprise ... Brandon and I decided a few days before her birthday to take a last minute trip to, of course, Disneyland!  No better place to celebrate the BIG THREE than at the Happiest Place on Earth, right?

One Happy Faimly!

We always decorate the house for birthdays, and being away is certainly
no exception!  We brought decorations to keep our fun family tradition
alive at the hotel!  She loved waking up to decorations and presents!

Birthday Breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen!

Swimming at the hotel pool!

We didn't get to see the Sound-sational parade back in February so we made
sure to get a spot to enjoy it this time!

Ready to ride Winnie the Pooh!

Happy Birthday big 3 year old!

Guess Who turned 2!

Happy Birthday to our girl!  We can't believe she's 2 years old already!

I guess time flies when you're having fun!  Maya is growing fast!  She loves all things Disney, loves to be outside, seems to love the color blue (calls every color 'blue'), enjoys reading, playing in her kitchen, is a serious thinker, still is attached to her stuffed puppy Diesel (and her binky), loves to tease, has the best laugh, and she is very thoughtful.

On her birthday we took her to the Aquarium.  She loved every minute of it!  

Then that Sunday we celebrated Easter, her birthday, and her cousin's birthday with the family! Birthday cake, presents, and the best Easter Hunt from Grandma!

We hope everyone had a fun Easter weekend!

May - Hooray!

May is a pretty fun month!  Preschool ends for the summer for me and, even though I work part-time, it means I get to spend even MORE time being a mommy!

My (Rachael's) birthday also falls in May!  All I wanted for my birthday was a get-away with my cute little family!  So, Brandon got a hotel near Salt Lake City.  We shopped, slept-over, and played!  It was the best birthday ever!

Maya had her own bed!

Shopping with her daddy

This quiet night had me in heaven!  Sleeping babe next to us while we talk about our family and our future. 

Maya turns ONE!

Happy FIRST Birthday to our lovable, beautiful, fun, smart, silly, adorable, incredible Maya!

We can't believe our girl has turned ONE YEAR OLD already!  Time sure does fly when you're having fun! On her actual birthday, we decorated the house, sang to her, and let her [try to] blow out her first candle on a sweet roll for breakfast, and then we took Maya to the zoo!  She loved every minute of it and would hold her hand out beckoning the animals to come to her - it was so sweet!

After she woke up, we piled balloons in on her - she was in heaven!

Trying to figure out the candle - and a yummy breakfast!

Fun birthday at the zoo!

We had a family birthday party to celebrate the birthday's of Maya and her cousin!  It was a blast!  Maya got pretty spoiled, and she loved smashing into her own cake!

All dressed up and ready for the party!

Fun dinner - and spoiled with a lot of fun presents!

Maya dug right in to her smash cake!  With every bite she would say, "Mmmmm!"

What a wonderful ONE YEAR OLD!  We are so blessed to have our girl, and we are eternally grateful for her sweet birth mother!  Love you!

March Fun

Oh, we've had a great March!  We got to celebrate Brandon's birthday and St. Patrick's Day this month!

Happy Birthday to Daddy!  We decorated the house (favorite birthday tradition),
and that night Brandon and I went on a date: out to dinner and to see WWE.

On St. Patty's Day Eve, we made sure Maya was decked out in green
pajamas - so there was no way she could get pinched! :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
We celebrated with a fun family party for our nieces birthday!

Last Sunday we went on a fun little family adventure to feed the ducks.  Maya LOVED it and kept trying to call the ducks to her with something that sounded a lot like "Come Here", Oh, so cute!

Happy March everyone!