Sophia and Isabella: Early Birthday Party!

These girls are growing up. With all of our travels we decided to do a joint birthday party on June 9th, quite early for both their bdays, but we really wanted them to have fun with their local friends. 

They each still had their own home made cake, and both wanted to go to the new water park. Each invited 2-3 friends to join and then three of our teammates kids also joined.  

Of course we started with 'morning-of party' chocolate chip pancakes. 

And their gifts from us. Ballet clothes and a ballet bar, to go right along with their gymnastics beam. They are in a real ballet class now so they have gotten into it. 

I have to say, these cakes were hilarious. Sophia wanted CC's chocolate chip pound cake (YUM).

And Isabella wanted vanilla cake. I used some Ikea crackers for the letters, because of the humidity my icing was melting fast, even the writing icing.

We sang separately. 

Chowed down on cake....

And piled in the car! We had fifteen total folks, including our family.

Sophia and Isabella had three local friends each...none of whom were strong swimmers. This meant David and I needed to be on our game. Though it was rainy, the kids had a blast. They had no idea that David and I were stressed most of the time trying to keep up, especially in the wave pool.

After we packed it up we went outside for local snacks and then drove everyone home. This was a 2:30-8:30 event.

Happy 9th Birthday Isabella!

Happy 11th Birthday Sophia!

These are precious little ladies that are growing in godliness and are a joy to parent. 

Less than a week later these two and I headed to Thailand for Camp Buddy.