anna's birthday

(Yes, this happened in May)

When my mom sent some fairy party supplies in the package for Levi's birthday, Anna was very easily persuaded that a fairy theme would be perfect for her 5th birthday. I hadn't really wanted to invite so many people, but I didn't want anyone feeling left out, so we invited all the girls Anna's age at Westgate

 This was how we set up the table. I told Anna the balloons were the fairy lanterns. One of the other moms, Min, brought her son Zane over to play with Levi and helped me make the cake stands.

 This was Anna's fairy costume. For some reason she didn't want to wear a dress up, but opted for this flowery shirt with little butterflies on it that she called fairies. And she had wings, of course.

 Pin the fairy on the flower- one of the games Mom sent.

 Here is Anna leading a game of "Fairy Says." The girls did not get the point of saying Fairy Says or not saying Fairy Says, but they loved getting a chance to tell everyone what to do. Here Anna is having us fly like fairies.

 Here we are playing "Don't Eat the Fairy," which is Don't Eat Pete, but with fairy pictures. The girls loved this game. We played it twice. A couple of them were pretty concerned that we were saying "Don't Eat the Fairy!" when some of the pictures were of toadstools and fairy homes (5 seems to be a very literal age for girls) but I convinced them that for the purposes of this game it would be OK.

 I copied my friend Laurie's idea and made individual cake for each girl from pancake batter made with cake mix and sprinkles. It was lots of fun for the girls, but was so messy and needed so much help that we completely forgot to sing Happy Birthday to Anna. I'm still feeling some Mommy guilt from that one.

 But they were awfully happy with their creations.

 How old is Anna?

 We miss these silly girls!

 Anna's dolls were so excited for her birthday that they had a little party for her. Anna woke up to this on the morning of her actual birthday and was so surprised. I had a little too much fun dressing all her dolls up after she went to bed :) (And I just remembered that Sam had put the lego house together while I dressed the dolls, so we both spent our evening playing with the kids' toys.)

More sprinkle pancakes for breakfast on her real birthday.

 And on the afternoon of her birthday, we drove down to the Cape to go camping!

 It was very cold, but the kids loved it.

 We stayed at Nickerson State Park with a bunch of friends. It was gorgeous. We were near the edge of a sparkling lake with pine trees all around. We all brought stuff for dinner and had hot dogs and smores with Reeses and Texas caviar and chips and "SODA!" as our friend Asher exclaimed. It was so fun to be with such good friends and in such a beautiful place. I was also very happy not to have a baby around.

Anna taught herself how to ride a bike!

A pretty light house (I can't remember which one). But it was near the receiver for the transatlantic cable. 

We miss Massachusetts!

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