Birthday girl
Mariel is officially 5!  We celebrated with two parties this week. 

On Sunday- with Aunt Kate, Uncle John, Grandma and Papa, and many miniature princesses, we had a princess tea party:

We decorated crowns for "pin the crown on the princess"

Played princess bingo

And of course, had princess presents

And a pink princess castle cake

She may be five going on 16...

On Thursday (the actual big day) we had a pizza dinner party with more friends.

This time we had princess cupcakes.  Mariel was very practiced at blowing out all five candles!

And of course, Noella has been cooking away all week to get ready for the parties!

Household updates...

From around the house: new bookshelves from downstairs (trim has now been added).  They are gorgeous and have tons of storage.

If anyone wonders why I don't want more "stuff"- this is what newly created storage space looks like in my  house.

We also have a new closet, which is sort of hard to take pictures of.  We now have multiple hanging levels, built in storage, shelves and drawers for clothes and odds and ends...

And shelves for shoes!  Hooray for shoes!