Violet's fun day

I am up, showered and ready for the day and its only 7:30 am. This rarely happens, but I like it. Maybe I should make a habit of this. Calvin was up at 6:30 this morning screaming like crazy. Dave scrambled to find a pacifier and got him to go back to sleep (thank you Dave!!!). I need to buy more pacifiers. I can only find one around here. I used to have four we rotated through, but I think with all the traveling we have been doing lately, I think we lose one for every trip we take. Yesterday was a very eventful day for Violet. A couple older girls from BBC organized a fun princess party for the little girls Violet's age. They gave her an invitation and everything. It was yesterday from 10-11:30 am. She dressed up in her pink princess outfit that Aunt Rachel gave her and seemed VERY excited to go. When we got there she wanted me to stay and she gave me lots of kisses and hugs, but once I left I know she warmed up to everyone, it just takes her awhile. From what she told me, they blew bubbles, had a tea party (with juice), had a story read to them, got their nails painted, and ate gummy bears. When we came back to pick them up, Violet was excited to see me, and was playing outside on a tire swing. We made plans to go out to lunch with our friends and the girls were all giddy and crazy, I am not sure I've seen them all like that before. The girls each left the party with a pink heart shaped balloon. After lunch, Violet's friend's balloon accidentally got free from their van because the wind took over quicker than it could be grabbed. Violet was reaaaaaally concerned about Ivy and her balloon. She didn't stop talking about it the rest of the day. She said she wanted to go back to Alex's house and get her a new balloon, then she said she wanted to go to the store and get a new balloon for Ivy. She looked for it a few times out the window. And last night before she went to bed, she prayed for Ivy that she wouldn't be sad about losing her balloon. While the older girls were at their princess party, Selena and I went to the crossroads mall so she could get her youngest daughter's pictures taken, and I occupied the boys (Evan and Calvin). We carpooled in her van - Calvin sat in Ivy's car seat and Evan was very excited to see Calvin. They played around for 45 minutes in the mall's kid play area. They had a blast - running and laughing everywhere, playing peek a boo, going down the slide every which way, and oohing and aahing over the horsies going around and around on the merry go round. At one point Evan was laying on the ground (relaxing, I suppose, ha!) and Calvin ran over to him, sat right on his tummy and jumped up and landed on Evan hard. It caused Evan to burst into a ball of laughter...those two boys had me laughing. She and Calvin took a good nap that afternoon. Violet also got to go to a "summer fun" program at Heartland Vineyard Tuesday evening and last night. Its like their version of VBS - from 6-8 pm at night. A friend from MOPS told me about it, and I knew she'd have fun, so I took her. Initially she was sad (of course, and wanted me to stay) but when I picked her up both nights, she was a bundle of fun and couldn't stop telling me about all the things they did. The first night on Tuesday she came back with chocolate pudding all over her clothes and skin (they told me they could get dirty!) because they had finger painted with pudding. Wednesday night they got to throw water balloons. She won't get to go the rest of this week because we'll be out of town for Dave's grandma's 90th birthday party. Many of his family are gathering in MN for the event. We're planning on staying at Phil and Jenny Johnson's house for the weekend.