My girl likes to party all the time

On the Saturday before we went to Tennessee, we had the great pleasure of attending birthday parties for two of our favorite girls.  Adelaide Woltil turned 2, and Jessica Castillo turned 14. 

We trekked to Apple Valley on Saturday morning for Addie's party.  Rebecca was so excited to give Addie a Zhu Zhu pet that she told her what we'd gotten her three times before she opened her gift!  Zhu Zhus are definitely Rebecca's go-to gift for all gift-giving occasions, much as a Target gift card is Ramy's!  It was HOT in Apple Valley!  Luckily, it was a water party, so the kids really enjoyed playing in the pool and sprinkler. 

There were a lot of cute little ones there to help Addie celebrate her day! Unfortunately, it was difficult to get them all in one shot!

The birthday girl had no problem helping herself to some birthday cupcake! Baby Lucas wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, but he was happy to be part of the celebration.

We had to go before Addie was to open her gifts, but upon tears because Rebecca was sad she wouldn't get to see if Addie loved her Zhu Zhu hamster, Julie was nice enough to let Addie go ahead and open her gifts from us.

It seems as though the Woltils will be back in SoCal soon and that we'll be lucky enough to get back to a little more time to hang out and talk while the girls play, reminiscent of our lovely outings pre-internship.  I think these two will be almost as happy about that as Julie and I are!

So then we jetted down the mountain to pick up all the food for our niece's surprise party.  No thanks to the not-so-speedy folks at El Pollo Loco who certainly took their own sweet time gathering our chicken, despite having agreed to have it ready to go 25 minutes before I was finally able to depart with it, we got all the food inside Grandma's house before the birthday girl walked in.  i think she was surprised and maybe only a smidge mortified.

The birthday girl and her parents.

Jessica welcomed some candle-blowing-out help from Rebecca.

Rebecca declared that the cupcakes were good.  Later, she and her girlfriends also had popsicles.  Rebecca's cousin Hannah is allergic to milk, so she couldn't have regular ice cream.  The other girls decided they preferred the popsicles to ice cream also!

Lots of cousins!  They ranged in age from 3 to 17.

Uncle Ramy and his niece and nephew.