Birthday Week

The Hopper Family's tradition of ever-changing traditions continued in 2011. As birthday parties have a tendency to wear me out (can't imagine why) and blast a huge hole in our budget, our children get a "friends" party every other year. The year of no party, they get to choose a family activity or outing for their birthday. This is the year of the boys' birthday parties (see how the gender split gives me a six month reprieve between parties!). The first birthday of the year is Katharine's. My little girl turned 7 on March 20. She absolutely loves "sea animals" and one of her goals is to be a marine biologist (as well as baker, author, and teacher.) She chose to go to the Aquarium. We were lucky enough to take the trip to San Francisco when so many of her cousins could join us. Here are just a few pictures from her day out:

On her actual birthday, we had cake (made by the birthday girl) at home and she opened presents. She's such an amazing, thoughtful, and fun little girl!

She really loved it when her class sang "Happy Birthday" to her while she got to wear the birthday hat. First Grade rocks!

March 20th was a milestone for little Jacob, too. He turned 8 months old!

Just four days later, our sweetJameson celebrated his 3rd birthday on March 24th. He is the funniest, craziest, most active and "all boy" little guy and we adore watching him grow. His "dinosaur" party was a blast and we are so grateful to the many family and friends who were able to join us for his special day, especially my sisters and their families who drove in bad weather to be here. Good thing they made it since Aunt Sara made the awesome dinosaur cake! Jameson's favorite part was the volcano. He shared it with his buddy (and cousin) Cooper and somehow, Grandma got several bites in as well.

The munchkins marched like dinosaurs... roared like dinosaurs... played like dinosaurs... dug for dinosaurs in the sand...

and fell into an exhausted sleep like dinosaurs.

** Stay tuned for a big surprise in our next post!