And one more celebration

Today Athena's class celebrated our birthday girl. She got a card signed by all her classmates, a present from her teacher, got to stand on a chair while holding the "Birthday Bunny" and being sung to and had the honor of bringing a homemade snack (hence my presence). I brought my big fancy camera, but the battery was totally dead from all the weekend activities, so my phone camera had to make do.

We made her favorite, chocolate covered strawberries, which she actually dipped herself the day before. All but one kid declared them "yummy!"

Here's my big girl preparing her treats the day before, doesn't she look heart-breakingly six here? So concludes our Athena birthday celebration extravaganza (until next year - seven, gasp!)

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!!!!!!

Sound Familiar?

Mornings with the Dude

"Do you want some cheese with those cheerios?"

A couple of mornings a week, Chris takes the girls to school and the Dude and I can hang back in our jammies and linger over strawberry and banana smoothie (for him) and coffee (for me). We discuss our plans for the day ("cah" "ball" "outsiiide!!!"). All too soon the moment is gone and we must get dressed and get going ourselves, but it's a nice way to start the day.

Princess Palooza

It may seem that all we ever do is dress up like princesses and take pictures, but I can assure that is not the case. Its just the only time I take out my camera lately - which is something that needs to change - until I get back to regular blogging again you just have to trust me that there is plenty of car racing and superhero action as well.

Last weekend I took a ton of pictures at the ultimate of princess tea parties for Athena's best best friend, Amelia's 6th birthday.

We got there early to get ready with the birthday girl. Amelia's Mom and Grandma, did the girls' hair (with tons of glitter hairspray) then make up and I helped paint the nails (pink with glitter was the most popular choice)

...and then they were bejeweled and bedecked in dollar store rings, fluffy boas and sparkly tiaras.

I think my minis look so much alike in their matching hair and crowns.

Athena was regal

and Zoe lovely.

And then we did what all bedecked and bejeweled princesses do, we painted figurines.

Then, the main event, the tea party, and the little princesses were all given loads of sugar and little bells to ring.

The pinkalicious spread.

It was both over the top and darling at the same time.

And the birthday girl just loved it.

A Princess Palooza!!
Now, what the heck are we going to do for Athena's birthday!!

Doctors and Horses

This was the plan for our Saturday- wake up early, pile Athena and Zoe into the car, leave Chris with the Dude and head over the mountains to L.A. Athena would be dropped off with Mimi for a fun day of special almost-birthday activities and Zoe and I would spend the day at the Children's Hospital discussing her treatment plan with the cranio-facial team there. The last time we went to CHLA we took a total of four and a half hours to be seen by all the specialists, so we were preparing for a day.

As luck would have it, we were only scheduled to see her plastic surgeon. We waited 30 minutes in the waiting room and 15 in the treatment room. He performed his evaluation, we went over our options with him in just a few minutes (he recommends lip reconstruction surgery either next month or this summer - more on that later) and we were outta there in less than an hour.

It was 70 degrees, the day was young and we had all of L.A. to explore, so we texted Mimi and tagged along on their day of fun, meeting them at the Disney store for some prebrithday presents and then lunch.

Next on the agenda, horseback riding in Griffith Park. And not the ponies that go around in a circle tethered together. Mimi, who is a true horsewoman at heart, knew about a real equestrian club that had 25 minute trainer led rides for little ones on real horses.

At first it looked like we were going to have to give back the riding fee we paid for Zoe. She was wide-eyed and nervous at the sheer size of the beasts and fearful of the strangers who wanted to help her mount them. I actually had to walk away from her at the critical moment she was decided to push ahead or run - she is usually much braver when I am not in sight. But she really manned up and had a blast.

Athena got that "floating on clouds" look in her eye that she gets when she is living a dream. She absolutely loved it.

I think we may have another cowgirl wannabe in the family

...but a cowgirl that wears pearls.

Princesses and horses do go together quite well.

Superbowl Sunday

For Superbowl Sunday, Chris organized a Superbowl party at our church. David drove up for the event, Mimi was there and Athena was bored, so she took my new phone and entertained herself by documenting the event. This is not for the faint of heart, wobbly and in need of serious editing, but I think she captured the day pretty well.

Princess For a Day Too

You may remember this day, which next to her trip to Disneyland is probably Athena's favorite day ever. It was the day Athena's best friend had the pinkest girlyest party at the Fantasy Tea Party place in town.

Well, today was Zoe's turn. Zoe's best friend Aubrie turned four and had her party there. We've been counting the days. The party starts with the girls choosing a "princess" dress from a massive walk in closet, we quickly scanned the inventory for the purplest dress we could find, then the girls choose jewlry, a tiara and wait patiently to have their hair, nails and makeup done.

I just want to point out that Zoe never sits this still when I do her hair.

The finishing touch is glitter everywhere!

Zoe and her two best buddies Aubrie and Kendall all dolled up.

When everyone was done, they got a few pointers for the Fashion Show
(seriously, how girly can you get)

And then sat down to have tea. Real tea with sugar cubes (I think Zoe ate one) and tiny tea sandwiches.

All lady-like demeanor left when the pink birthday cake came out. Then they just shoveled it in.

Finally, the princesses "helped" the #1 princess open all her gifts.

Maybe I'm partial, but I thought that my little princess was the belle of the ball.
(Both Uncle David and Aunt Mimi thinks she looks like the elfin princess, Arwen (aka Liv Tyler) from Lord of the Rings)
Yea?