Mara's Birthday

Last week the kids and I, and my sister Kim, flew to WA to celebrate Mara's birthday with Heather and her family. We woke up to balloons and butterflies someone had put in the lawn that morning. Kim and I then decorated the house in pink and purple balloons and streamers. We got everyone together that morning and wrote birthday notes to Mara to send up to heaven.

We then headed to the cemetery to put things at her grave and to release our balloons

We got these butterflies for everyone to write on and leave at her grave.

Lexi and Natalie

Happy Birthday Mara!

Jace was kind of having a rough morning

But then grandpa distracted him with worms

They had an assembly at the school and made March 26 an official "Mara day." Her class sang happy birthday to her, they had a slide show for her, and a tree was donated to plant at the school in her honor.

Heather and Bryan also had this plaque made to put in the entrance of the school

After the assembly we came home and had an "angel dinner" (thanks for the idea Scoob). We had angel hair pasta, angle biscuits, and angel food cake.

Other things we did while we were there:

Ate A LOT of cake. Heather's friend Mindy made this beautiful cake...just to be nice...who does that??? Isn't it gorgeous? It was delectable too! thanks Mindy! Back to the gym for me :-)

We went to Ikea one afternoon. Jace and Katrina are sitting on some stuffed hippos that they loved.

One afternoon Heather's awesome friends watched ALL of our kids so we (mom, Heather, Kim , Necia and I) could go to lunch and do some shopping! Aren't they so nice? Thanks Kim, Erin, and Jen...you guys are awesome!

Most all it was just nice to be together as a family. The cousins had a ball playing together and I'm so glad we were there to honor Mara's birthday. We miss you Mara!