Brooke's 5th Birthday

Actual Date: Thursday, May 28, 2011

This day was Brooke's 5th Birthday.  And from the moment she climbed out of bed, BrookeLand was in full effect.  Soon after Ava woke and came stumbling into the kitchen to get something to eat, Brooke looked at her and said "Don't you have something to tell me?"

Before we could get into full party mode we had to get one thing out of the way first.

The girls had their last swim lesson session.

They are doing so well.  Ava is learning how to hold her breath and blow bubbles underwater.

She even floated on her back on her own for a few seconds!

And swam a foot or two to Daddy. 

Good job Ava Baby!

Next it was time for the Birthday girl to show off her moves.

Good job Princess!

After their lessons were over we headed to the outdoor pool because they were having a "Pool-a-paloza" party to kick off Summer.  They had bounce houses, slip n' slides, a DJ and some fun other games.  We all had a lot of fun but we only spent about an hour there because we had to head home and get ready for the activity that Brooke chose for her Birthday.

Build-A-Bear.  Well Build-A-Bunny to be more accurate.  She got a gift card for her Birthday from one of her friends and it was burning a hole in her pocket.

It was actually pretty perfect because her special Bunny, Booni the Boonester had had a little innocent at school the week before where his tail had fallen off.  Brooke was devastated and said that she didn't want to take him to school anymore because he was getting too old and fragile.  

I was so relieved because we have been wondering how to break her of the habit of having to take him with her to school because I'm pretty sure she won't be able to this fall when she's a ...Kindergartner... Gulp.  I still am not doing good with reality.

So I let her pick out any animal that she wanted and she chose the Pink Daisy Bunny.  She even got to help stuff it.

Then she took it over to the bath to scrub her up and make sure she was nice and cleaned and fluffed.

Then she picked out some cute little hair bows and shoes for her new friend.

The next step was to give the bunny a name so they could print her out a birth certificate.  Brooke chose to name her Lily which really is no big surprise.  She has about 5 other favorite stuffed animals, baby dolls and Barbies and they are all named Lily.

The great thing about creating her special new animal on her actual real Birthday is that they have the Birthday.  Brooke was so excited when she read that on Lily's birth certificate.  

Using her gift card to pay.

Oh and she got a free beach bag with her purchase. It worked out good as a Bunny carrier.  

After we were done there we went home to have dinner.  All of Brooke's favorites: Orange Chicken, watermelon, noodles.

Well, not all of us ate dinner.  Poor little Parker was not feeling too good.  When we got home Brian went to get him out of his car seat because he had fallen asleep and he noticed Parker had thrown up all over the back seat.  I mean he spewed.  It was all over him and all over the floor.  Poor little guy.  He never even fussed or made a peep about it.

We tried to get him to eat some rice cereal at least but he wasn't having any of it.  He wouldn't even sit down in his chair.  He just crossed his arms and gave us the evil eye.

Bless his heart. I don't blame him.  He tossed his cookies at least 5 more times later that evening.  Two of those times it was all over my kitchen.  Oh the joys of being a Mom.  After that Brian just stripped him down to his diaper and took him outside to play.  Genius!  He played and puked outside until about 11:30.  Then we tried to put him to bed because he was so tired.  We only had to change his sheets one time before he finally got some relief and his tummy calmed down.  I felt so bad for him because he was so tired.

Ok enough about that, it's making me nauseous just thinking about it.  The last fun thing we did to celebrate Brooke's Birthday was our nails.  Have you seen those Sally Hansen Polish Strips?  They are really cool.  And surprisingly easy.

Brooke really wanted the Cheetah one's because she's obsessed with Cheetah print but I couldn't find it anywhere.  They sell out quick.

There was even enough left for me to do my own nails.  You could probably do 3 peoples nails with it if you used all the middle left over scraps because we had about 4 pieces left over that we never even touched when the whole thing was all said and done.

After nails it was time for presents.

And cake!

She requested a chocolate cake with pink frosting.  When I went to buy the stuff I found a Cherry frosting!  It was so yummy.  And we had some maraschino cherries so I added those to the top to make it a little more cherrylicious.  

Aww they're so sweet when they're not clawing each others eyes out.

Happy Birthday Brooke!

We love you!

Some Brooke Highlights from the past year:

- She attended and finished Pre K where she learned a lot of: Spanish, math, writing, spelling, reading, science and tons of other things

- She finished a whole year of Ballet and Tap and preformed in her very first recital (and she rocked it!)

- Developed asthma and now has to carry an inhaler around along with her Benadryl and Epi Pen.

- Rode her bike without training wheels.  Once.  Made Daddy put them back right away.

- She asked me if I could get tickets for her and I to go watch the Martha Stewart show live.  Proof that she's my child.

-  She's been an amazing big sister and daughter and we just love her to pieces.

I know that there's more so I'm sure I'll be back later to add on as I think of them.