Now we are six

We woke her up this morning singing "Happy Birthday" and as I leaned in to get my first six-year-old hugs, I started to weep. "Really?" Chris said, laughing as me. Yes, really! Today marks the day my baby turns six, that's worth a tear or two.

The funny thing is, I don't feel weepy when I think of Zoe or Jack's next birthday. It's like I'm excited for them to get to that next great age. But Athena is my pioneer child, breaking the age barrier with each birthday and pushing me into the next level of parenthood. And the unstoppable pace at which she's rocketing us into future makes me long for our past.

All too soon, here we find ourselves at six. Six!

As is our family tradition, birthdays begin with a birthday breakfast. Zoe got up extra early to help me prepare the celebration.

Strawberries and cinnamon rolls were my little six year old's birthday breakfast request. Athena really wanted the PW cinnamon rolls that I made around Christmas, but I just didn't have time to do it, so Pillsbury had to do. They were not even close to the deliciousness of the homemade ones, but the little birthday girl was happy. She had a pile of presents from Mimi, Yiayia and PopPop, Baba and Nana, Mormor, Katie and all our family gifts. Thank you everyone for spoiling her!

The day before her birthday, she had 15 of her closest friends for a Princess party at Monster Golf - the black light indoor monster themed miniature golf place - think, Chuck E Cheese, but in the dark!

The girls wore white princess dresses so they glowed like little light bulbs.

We also had glow in the dark hair spray, nail color and tattoos for all our little guests to make it extra fun.

and monster masks.

The party room was decorated like the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, complete with creepy pictures on the wall. The snacks were pizza and gummy worms. Some little culinary artistes chose to put the gummy worms on the pizza, yum!
Athena prepared place cards for all her friends and flanked herself in her two best buddies, "her" Kevin and her BFF, Amelia.

Zoe was allowed to invite one of her best buddies, Kendall, too.

And the Dude hung with his Mimi

and got a few tips on putting from his Daddy.

The "Cupcake Bouquets" that I custom ordered were a bit of a disaster. But Mimi and I paid attention to their construction and are totally going to steal this idea and recreate it - just with a higher level of taste (pun intended).

There was a personal birthday cake for the princess.

and then gobs and gobs of presents, her favorite being the Barbie "Best Friend" dolls from Amelia and the BFF necklace that each of them will wear a half of - seriously, they are BFFs and they want everyone to know that.

My favorite picture. This is how my girls play Air Hockey.

And that was Athena's Birthday Breakfast and Princess Party at Monster Golf - a totally, super fun, high energy afternoon. I think everyone loved it, especially Athena.

Now onto the Dude's 2nd birthday!!!!!!