but first she had to have an indian headband just like big brother made in preschool.
she cracks me up how she always has that tongue stuck out when she is concentrating. i guess her great great grandma used to do the same thing.
her & ben worked super hard to get it just right. i didn't get a picture of them in the finished products, but they were cute! he named her running earth & his name was soaring eagle.
we headed to papaw's house for lunch. aunt peggy, cousins luke & kristen, damaw & papaw were all there.
papaw was sporting his sunglasses after his cataract surgery. he can see once again- yea!
lots of food & we had round 1 of ben's birthday celebrations. the kiddos are blessed with so many that love them, so we end up having 2 or 3 birthday parties. it's pretty much a celebration from thanksgiving to the new year!
here is his dinosaur/monster truck cake. the kiddos helped decorate it by putting about 2 pounds of sprinkles on it.
after our bellies were full & ben had tackled everyone till they couldn't take it anymore (sorry again, aunt peggy for that horrible wake up from ben), we headed to cousin monica's for another feast. some more wonderful food & family time was had.
on to namaw & poppy's for the weekend to play some tiddlywinks, pool, cards, pinball and skip rocks in the creek. big ben ended up catching gracie's illness, but he was still tough enough for his birthday party there.
he had a great time decorating for the party (spent forever on his birthday chair)& greeting all his "guestes", as he called them.
i didn't get a good picture of his cake, but it was a racetrack with cars on it. he said it was "sorta cool" at first, until he realized he could actually race the cars. then it was "awesome!"
as if the weekend wasn't fun filled enough, we had a sunday of church & the circus. ben's preschool performed at the church there. he really got into the song "i'm in the lord's army". he about hit poor amarah in the head every time he'd salute or pretend to shoot. he was definitely fired up. he enthusiastically answered all of pastor janet's questions during the children's sermon. i was cracking up at him. that kid.
after church, we ate some lunch, started to pick up our messy house & got ready for the circus.
at the circus, gracie got to ride a pony!
& ben got his cotton candy! (we were going to ride an elephant, but he saw the cotton candy guy & begged for that instead)
after that though, she was quite a grumblegort.
even through all the noise, she somehow fell asleep
she woke up happy to see a big tub of popcorn.
the circus was a bit too loud for the kiddos. 
my favorite part of the circus is the motorcycle riders in the ball. this time it didn't go as planned, they crashed. but thank goodness, they were all able to get up & walk away from it. we asked the kiddos what their favorite parts were & ben's was playing with daddy & momma, trying to scare us. gracie's favorite part was the fireworks at the end - not the pony; go figure.
today, me & the kiddos slept in - hallelujah!
