SIX!

Someone celebrated a birthday over the weekend in our house.

Avery turned 6! I can't believe I have a 6 year old! Mind.blown.

What's my 6 year old like?  She's fun, energetic (I wish I had a fraction of her energy), independent, sassy and loving (most of the time).

She's still in gymnastics, although taking a break for the summer. She loves school (yay!) and was sad to see it end last week. She loves coloring and drawing. She loves having us read to her too. And since she's learning to read, she does well finding words in the books too. This year she has really enjoyed riding her bike a lot. She also got some roller skates for her birthday and can't wait to test them out. Favorite foods these days include waffles, pancakes, any and all fruit, spaghetti, chicken, yogurt. She's been more "daring" with trying new foods lately which is good. Her and Cassie get along pretty well for the most part. We of course have our days and moments, but they really do love each other and play together quite a bit.

So how did we celebrate turning 6 (besides some parties?)?

Well, the day started with breakfast in bed because that's what the birthday girl requested.

They both ended up having breakfast in the spare room bed so they could watch a TV show (special birthday treat).

Then she opened some gifts from us....some clothes,

and a plasma car!

At her friend party last weekend, she had kids bring in donations for the animals at a local shelter. So, we decided to go and drop them off. The staff took her picture to put on their website and of course we checked out all of the animals while we were there.

After that, we stopped at our favorite local diner for lunch. Except that we all ordered breakfast food-including the usual huge birthday pancake!

The rest of the day we just hung around and played. The weather was terrible-it rained literally all day long. Her family party was the next day, so we spent a lot of time getting the cake ready and cleaning the house too. Our dinner that night was going to a frozen yogurt place since we had such a late (and huge!) lunch. Overall, it was a great day!

Happy 6th Birthday Avery! We love you so much!!

Turning 6-Party #1!

Avery's 6th Birthday is next weekend. She wanted a party with some of her classmates so we gave her a few options of where to have it.

Surprisingly, she chose a pool party at a local Rec center. We had never been there, but the place was pretty darn cool!

Lazy River

As you can see from the photos, there was a splash park, water slide and lazy river area. There was a larger pool as well (looked like for lap swimming) but we never went in it.

Avery ended up with 9 kids coming, which was the perfect amount! About half of the parents stayed too, which was helpful.

Avery and Cassie

We had the first hour as swim time and the kids really loved it.

Then it was up to the party room for food, cake and gifts. We did the party at an "off" time of day so all we did was snacks, which made it super easy!

Avery We decided this year that instead of gifts, we would have each kid bring a donation to a local animal shelter instead. She really doesn't need anymore toys and since she wanted a cat themed party, I thought this was a good idea. We had a lot of good feedback on it as well-the kids loved shopping for the animals!

After she opened gifts, we did cake!

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Make a wish!

Before they all left, we got a quick group photo!

And I found a woman locally who makes amazing cookies! She made us these for favors to give each kid! So freakin' adorable!

After we got home, I took a picture of Avery with all of the donations she collected! We'll be taking them to the animal shelter very soon! I'm so proud of her!

One party down, one to go next weekend!

Long Overdue

Over the weekend, we took a long overdue trip to Buffalo.  We haven't been there in at least 2 months I'm guessing...which is a long time for us!

Megan and Renee and their kids stopped by for some fun!

Puzzles:

Celebrating Noah's birthday a month late!

Cassandra loving up a "baby" (Sabrina-who's just as big as her!)!

Sabrina

As you can see, my friends have very tall kids....Sabrina is 20months old and Cassie is 3!

Leigha is only about 11wks older than Cassie!

Cassie and Leigha, Noah and Avery!

We had a nice, relaxing day! And at the end, my girls showed that they do love each other-well, at least Cassie loves her big sister! Haha!

No plans to go back yet, but hopefully now with summer vacation coming, we can go sooner rather than later. Although we do have a special birthday coming up which is interfering with our weekends!