Birthday Blasts

We've had a couple birthdays around our house the last couple weeks, but before I tell you about those, I wanted to show you this pic. In October, we attended an event that offered henna tattoos to the kids. They REALLY wanted one, so I gave my approval to choose from the page of small tatoos. Mikayla choose a butterfly, the boys choose spiders (not a whole lot of choices on that page). Ben really wanted to put his on his cheek, but I insisted on putting them on legs or feet. SOOO thankful I insisted on that because Ben had some kind of allergic reaction to the henna ink. Henna tattoos are just drawn on the surface of the skin and are only supposed to last a couple weeks. However, Ben had some kind of reaction so he now has a permanent scar on his leg in the shape of a spider. I did some research on it, and this means that he also now is allergic to chemical hair dyes, etc. It also means they used an illegal type of "henna" ink (not henna at all but a chemical mix). So BEWARE of "henna" tatoos, especially in 3rd world countries where the use of the illegal dye is prevalent.

Ok, on to other things. Our Mikayla turned 11 years old a couple weeks ago. ELEVEN! O my. The kids and I were actually in Thailand for her actual birthday, so we celebrated with Dad and Papa (my dad was in Manila that wkend!) at a waterpark in Manila before we left.
Our beautiful daughter

Fun family time after some wonderful but stressful/exhausting months camping in the village.

Beautiful - but also more than a little silly :)

After the water park, we went to Chili's to celebrate at her request. Beautiful, silly, with excellent taste! :)

They brought her out some ice cream and sang to her. One happy girl.

Ben's bday is only 2 wks after Mikayla's. He turned 7 this year. Time goes by so fast!

Ben asked to go to a local diner - Biggs - for dinner. Aunt Megan joined us, and we opened his presents. He got a couple new movies, a science experiment kit, and...

2 hermit crabs!

He loves his new little buddies. Except he is more careful with them now that one of them latched on to Zach's thumb until he was able to fling it off (crab landed safely on a cushion across the room, Zach only bled for about an hour. No joke - who knew those little guys could pinch that badly???)

We ordered a couple little cakes there at Biggs, and Ben deemed it the "best birthday cake ever".

Then this past weekend, we went with our neighbors to celebrate their birthdays since they had not been able to join us on the actual days. They had just discovered this amazing place called Stonehouse. Beautiful and peaceful.

They have a brick oven, and they make the BEST pizza I have EVER tasted. Literally. It was absolutely amazing. If only our budget would allow frequent trips there.... but it is probably just as well for our waistlines that it won't!

Fun day with friends and pizza and chocolate cake and swimming. What could be better?

We did another cake for each of them since neither one had gotten a "real" one at the first celebration. This is the birthday party that just kept going and going and... :)

Happy Birthday to my 2 precious blessings from God!