Baby turns 5

Hard to believe our little one is 5 years old. I can still scoop her up and carry her around for a little bit. But soon she'll be too big for that and it'll look silly too. Kai still occasionally asks to be carried to bed or to the bathroom and I indulge him but he really is too big now. Soon Teia will be too :-(

But misty-eyed Mommy moments aside, it was a fabulous celebration and Teia thoroughly enjoyed her big day. We tried really hard to put all the special-ness in place that she was hoping for. She was very excited and we counted ourselves lucky that she didn't wake us up until 7 am. She was as alarming as our alarm clocks tho; we were awakened by a loud and persistent "FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE!"like machine gun fire. I'm sure there were more but I was too groggy to really register them.

We'd been up late the night before making this:

(its a horse, in case you weren't sure)

Which started out looking like this:

Then this:

Even if it looked a little funky, it was yummy. And the parents appreciated the vegetables and were asking for the recipe. It's my mom's chocolate zucchini cake made partially organic with no chemicals or food colorings :-) I'm actually getting pretty good at homemade buttercream icing. I was a bit worried about being able to make two different shades of chocolate but dark chocolate cocoa came to my rescue. We used berries to turn the bridle pink. 

Peach started off her day with diving into her presents. We'd been pacing her a bit by letting her open a few presents early which was a good choice b/c she's the kind of kid that likes to play with each one for a good hour or so before moving on. She got to enjoy each one thoroughly that way.

She was pretty excited about her paw patrol bracelets.

The unicorn pinata was also a hit. I was worried she'd have trouble actually letting it get destroyed but she was the first one getting right in there and whacking it. It ended up as a gruesome headless unicorn with body intact but no one seemed to mind. One other little girl asked to take the head home and I've since seen it showing up in Facebook photos. 

More paw patrol gifts and more big smiles. 

And the piece de resistance, doggy day care. Teia spotted this in a magazine awhile back, circled it and has been reminding me daily how important it was that she receive this for her birthday. The satisfied grin says it all...."my tenacity and persistence clearly paid off." 

Later in the day she received her birthday balloons and pink roses from her Dad. I still have the petals from the 5 red roses I rec'd from my Dad on my 5th birthday so we thought it would be nice if Teia had some too. 

Kai was pretty into Teia's birthday too. So into it in fact that he refused to be separated from her all day, lest he miss some important part of the transformation. His Saturday appointment had to be cancelled so he could hang out with little sis. He even willingly posed for a birthday photo with her, although I should have made sure he'd wiped the mac and cheese sauce off his face first :-/

When did they get so tall?????

Teia's horse party did not include any real live horses but we did our best to give it a horsey theme. And the kids had a trampoline and a pool to play in so I think they were well entertained. Lucky for them, this is the first year we've still been able to use the pool on Teia's birthday. Guess all that hot weather has been good for something. 

Greg was the life of the party, and seemed to have kid-barnacles attached to him the entire time he was in the pool, many of them - all at the same time. Originally, I tasked him b/c of his face painting skills but we ran out of time to do any face painting. I'm not sure that he liked his alternate job any better but he was a good sport about it. Such a great Daddy. 

Back to our horse theme: we had "horse food" aka carrots and apples (and of course stinky cheese for the grown ups). We did a horse scavenger hunt that the kids really enjoyed and pin the tail on the horse. 

I was pretty excited about these real horse show ribbons that I was able to get as prizes. I just had to fake a little horse show and a little farm to order them. It was worth the effort b/c the kids thought they were really cool. 

Here's a pic of the pinata whacking. My kids lead such exotic lives (from a Canadian perspective). I had never even seen an avocado picker until my 30's and T gets to whack a pinata hung from one on her 5th birthday! Luckily the avo tree seems to finally have run dry so we could safely whack away below it w/o fear of anyone getting a concussion. Although I am going to miss those avocados. 

Post-pinata T got to open her gifts. I am usually not in favor of gift opening at the party, although it is fun for the guests to see their gift opened and enjoyed. It is just a bit overwhelming for the party kid and I worry about feelings getting hurt given that kids don't really have an edit button. But we talked about it before hand and T promised she would take care of her friends' feelings, no matter what when it came to the present opening. She delivered. She hugged each friend and posed for some of the cutest pictures ever. I'd love to post them but haven't asked the parents. (yes, I am old school when it comes to online kid photo etiquette). I was really proud of her. She's growing up :-( :-)