Celebrating with friends at school on Thursday.

Nathaniel brought a cupcake snack to share with friends.

The snowmen soldiers lined up ready for duty at Nathaniel's party on Saturday.

Nathaniel's cake also got baked Friday night.  He requested a loader dumping m&m's into a dump truck.  I added the m&m's later.

Saturday...ready for the guests to arrive.

Annabelle greeted each guest with a snowman tatoo!

Next we made marshmallow snowman pictures.  You had to lick the marshmallows to stick them to the paper!  

Mixing up our snow toss ice cream.

The kids tossed the creamy mixture around in  a bag of ice - and voila...ice cream!

My senior helper troop! (Annabelle's friends Megan and Rachel were there to help as their sister Emma celebrated with Nathaniel.)

Snowy storytime!

The kids decorated mittens after we read the story "The Mitten".  Here they are drying by their take home bags.

Mixing up hot cocoa mix to take home.

Nathaniel taking a turn stirring.

Opening gifts - with friend Chad.

...and Emma.

...and Claire.

Time for cake!

Sunday...we celebrated by sharing cupcakes with Sunday School friends.  

We ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday.

Nathaniel with his birthday sundae.

Next - we rode the light rail downtown Minneapolis.  One of Nathaniel's favorite things!

We stopped by the Mill City Museum...here Nathaniel is playing with a large wooden train layout.

Nathaniel with a boxcar at the museum.

Playing with a model dam system at the museum.

Annabelle joined in the fun.

The view from the observation deck at the museum.  The arched bridge crosses the Mississippi River.

Exiting the light rail.

Back home, we made a fire and opened gifts from family.

ready for our family party...

Nathaniel was pleased with his cake...he dictated the design.

It was a Happy Birthday!