Lia's 5th Birthday!

Today we wrapped up a marathon birthday weekend for Lia after four separate events!  Overall, it was a very successful two days.  I worked extra hard to make sure that my girl's fifth birthday was a special one and I think she was quite pleased with everything.  However, I wonder if I will still be keeping this up ten years from now as I sure was exhausted by Saturday night.  :-)  Here is a play-by-play of Lia's big day (or two).

 

Fortunately, preschool fell on Lia's actually birthday--Friday, February 22nd.  As a result, she got to be line leader, snack helper, and do show-and-tell all on her special day.  We made mini cupcakes frosted in her two, favorite colors of purple and turquoise for the snack and she brought her Ariel music box and Ariel necklace for show-in-tell.  Lia was SO excited to head out the door yesterday morning.  Here she is waiting in line at the beginning of preschool.

 

It is the tradition in my family to always eat a birthday dinner of your choice in the dining room. Although Ron had the week of Lia's birthday off for midwinter break, he was in charge of a huge basketball tournament at his school from 2 til 10:30 p.m. on her actually birthday (major bummer). As are result, we bumped everything up and had a birthday lunch in the dining room. When I asked Lia what she wanted a few days earlier, she informed me that she wanted a tortilla, carrot sticks, and blueberry yogurt. Luckily, Ron was able to convince her to trade out the tortilla for pizza. So, here we are eating our pizza lunch before cake and gift opening.

 

Since Lia's main birthday cake was coming the next day at her friend's party, we decided to have cupcakes instead for her birthday lunch.  Here she is about to blow out her candle! 

 

Blowing it out!

 

 

We then moved into the next room for the opening of gifts from Ron and me.  Lia was so excited!  Here she is opening up a present that had two outfits for her American Girl doll.

 

 

Posing with her Snow White pillow doll and Barbie Mermaidia book after all of the gifts had been unwrapped. 

After the presents were opened and Ron left for work, I had to do something else to make the rest of Lia's birthday seem special.  So I did something we never do--we went out to dinner at McDonalds!  Yes, that's right, we NEVER eat at this restaurant unless we are on road trips.  Here is Lia happily enjoying her Happy Meal that conveniently came with a Barbie ballerina toy.  I couldn't have planned that better!

 

Logan, who ate dinner before we came to McDonalds, sat patiently in his stroller the entire time.  Such a good boy (except when he sticks his tongue out at me while trying to take a picture). :-)

 

On Saturday, February 23rd, we hosted Lia's first friend birthday party.  It was hand's down the biggest event of the four and it really went off without a hitch.  We had nine girls under the age of five (three from church--Kaylee, Aliza, and Ellie and five from preschool--Sienna, Taylor, Addyson, Jayd, and Mila) in our home for two hours and they were all so well behaved and polite.  Believe it or not, Ron and I really had an enjoyable time hosting these cute girls.  In fact, the only problem we had the entire time was our birthday girl who had a majorly embarrassing meltdown as her friends were leaving.  Oh well.  At least she saved it until the end. 

 

Ron helped me deck out the house in Ariel themed decorations.  Here is our kitchen all decked out with Ariel place settings, Ariel confetti, Ariel birthday cake, Ariel streamers, and turquoise, purple, and lime green balloons.

 

A close-up photo of the Ariel cake that Lia requested months ago.   She is sitting on a rock in the ocean that is covered with starfish, shells, sea flowers, and seaweed.  As cute as it turned out, I spent way too many hours on this one. 

 

I also took the Ariel doll that Lia had just received for a birthday gift from her grandparents to decorate a corner of the kitchen.  The treasure chest was full of candies that were used as prizes for some of the games we played later.

After all of these cute girls arrived, we moved into the family room to color some Ariel coloring pages. 

 

We then had the girls move into the kitchen to choose two Disney princess tattoos to have put on them.  Here is the tattoo expert himself applying one to Kaylee's arm!

 

We then played three games back in the family room.  The first one was called "Pass the Mermaid."  We had the girls pass around an Ariel Barbie doll while Ron played "Kiss the Girl" on  the CD player.  Whoever was holding the doll when the music stopped got to reach into Ariel's treasure chest and pick out a candy. 

 

 

Next, instead of playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," we played "Give Ariel her Seashell."  One at at time, the girls had to try to place a shell sticker in the palm of Ariel's hand while being blindfolded. 

 

Lastly, I took a family favorite, "Hide the Thimble," and tweaked it to "Hide the Seashell."  One at a time, the girls were able to hide a little shell in plain sight for the rest of the group to find.  Here they are looking for it during one of the many rounds we played.  It was super cute and fun to watch.

We then moved to the gift opening portion of the party.  All of the girls were so generous in the gifts they gave and so well behaved while they politely watched Lia open them.  I'm so grateful that Lia has such nice friends from church and preschool. 

 

I just love this picture of them all lined up in a row watching the birthday girl open her loot!

 

 

We finished off the party with cake and ice cream.  Here is Taylor watching Lia right before she blows out the candles on her behemoth Ariel cake!

 

 

The group pauses for a photo while eating their cake and ice cream.

 

Lia had such a fun time talking to all of her friends while eating her dessert.  It was so cute to watch her.  I got several pictures of her like this....just talking and eating!  She is such a social butterfly when it comes to being around little girls. 

 

Happy Birthday, Lia!  We love sure do love you!