afton's birthday

afton made it to FIVE last week. it was a strange day for me and paul to realize. funny how the kids keep getting older, and we don't ;). i had very good intentions of chronicling her birthday with photos, but you know what they say about intentions... so here's a few i did manage to get (most of the highlights at least!)

first, we had ballet class (more on that later) and playing with friends at the park. it was sort of spur-of-the-moment, or we could have invited a lot more friends :). after nap time we went up to grandma's house to go swimming, the water was a little cooler than most of the summer which made it about perfect! no pics of that. afton did get to invite her best friend joshua and his family to join us, and i think we all had fun!

playing in the sandbox

 

one of the most important things of a birthday is a pinata, this was partly as a reward for figuring out how to keep dry pants through the night, and partly for her birthday... either way, it's good!!! unfortunately a homemade pinata wasn't the best idea, at least this one wasn't...



it was a one-hit wonder... :( but it had candy in it so i guess that's good!

somewhere in here i feel the need to mention that dinner was won tons, per afton's request, and they weren't necessarily very pretty to look at, but they tasted great fresh (i made them in advance), and were still pretty good re-warmed for the actual b-day :). mostly i have to mention that because i think it's funny that my 5-yr old wants won tons. i wouldn't have known what that was at 5... and if i'd known it had cabbage in it i probably wouldn't have even tried it! i love that my kids (especially afton) are willing to try new things!

there was a pretty good pile of presents too! i was impressed!




this pic reminds me of one from my childhood... i think it was my 6th b-day and i got one of the old-fashioned my little pony's, but the grin and closed eyes were similar, maybe next time we go to grandma's i'll pull it out and scan it in for comparison's sake...

 

afton wanted a raspberry-jelly roll cake with green pudding-cream 'frosting.' a little too sweet for my tastes, but it made for a GREAT pic, i love how you can see the flame flickering in the last candle, and the puffs of smoke from the others, every so often i luck into an action shot!



and just to show the other kids were there too, malachi playing in the sand
(this is his new pose, btw, he does it a LOT!)

 

rayna was really excited about afton's new barbie-belle-ballerina...



and i should mention, malachi missed most of his nap that day, and considering how much trouble he usually is when he's tired, he did a great job!!! and was asleep long before we hit the highway on our way home.