Alexandria turned 5 on Sunday! It's crazy to think it's been 5 years since she was born! She woke up and crawled into bed with me. The night before, Tyler and I had decorated the upstairs to surprise her and I expected her to notice right away. But I cherished the minutes in bed while she was so content to cuddle in bed with me. Finally we got up and she noticed the stack of gifts on the floor. I told her to find a basket to carry them upstairs and she immediately ran to wake Heidi and enlist her help.
She had chosen Trix as her special birthday cereal and we were joined at the table by some animal friends in party hats.
Tyler's family's tradition is to open all the gifts after breakfast, so that's what we did this year. Heidi was pretty good at standing back and observing, but you could tell she was frustrated that everything good was happening to Alex.
I asked Alex a few weeks ago what she wanted for her birthday and she gave me a very specific list. So a few days later I asked again and she told me the exact same things. In the past we had gotten her what we thought she would like, but this year we just got her what she wanted. Overall I think it worked out, but you could tell there wasn't a lot of surprise and excitement as she opened each gift which made me a little sad.
One of the things she had asked for that really surprised me was a camera. I did TONS of research and decided it was better to buy and kidproof a real camera than to buy a junky kid one that was almost as expensive. We attempted this last year with a used camera, but it never worked very well and ended up breaking within a few months. So far this one has been 1000 times better! She walked around the house taking pictures of everything and loves sitting and scrolling through the images and laughing.
The best part of her day was when I let the girls decorate some scrap pieces of cake with the leftover frosting. They had a blast working on their cakes while I finished ours.
There is this cake in the old Wilton cake magazine from the 80's that I've always wanted to make. So this year since we were sort of clumping all our March birthday's together into one party, I thought I'd try it. Oh man- It took FOREVER and didn't even turn out! Alex was happy which I suppose is all that matters, but I was sorely disappointed. As someone at the party said "It looks......well you can tell what it is!!!!"
After opening gifts and decorating cakes, we went to church. Alex was so excited to have the Primary kids sing to her and told me all about it all day. After church we played house a bit, she had gotten a baby cinderella doll from Grandma Brady and some Rapunzle shoes from us to match her dress up dress. She had also asked for some play food which Heidi got her and we bought another St. Patricks day shirt like we do every year.
That evening all the family that was in town came over for dinner and cake which was a lot of fun.
We sat and chatted and ate. It took awhile to blow out the candles because the cake was so big and they were so far away!
Heidi latched onto Alyson as usual and completely monopolized her the rest of the evening.
I think Bridger fondly remembered the cake from his own birthday not long ago.
Kate and Ben had sent Heidi's birthday gift early so she would have something to open while everyone else was getting spoiled. It worked so well! It was a little pack of books that she made Alyson read to her over and over for an HOUR! You can see she spent the day as Tinkerbell.
Alex got a little purse with chapstick, tissues and some money- which she has carried around constantly ever since. She also got some flipflops, a couple pairs of pants and a play-doh Cinderella dress thing she adores. That night we had one more gift for her, a nightgown she was over the moon about and got to sleep in that night. By the time bedtime hit I was completely exhausted. 2 days of birthday and party prep had worn me out and everyone slept well that night!
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