Six years!

Isabelle was really cute about her birthday this year.  She sat down about a month before- hand and planned it all out- every activity, meal and how the cake would be.  I thought she might want a friends party, and told her that she could make a list of everyone or anyone at all that she thought she would like to have come to her party. She seemed very excited about this and ran off, but came back about five minutes later and showed me her list.  It said:  Shawn, Amy, Kami, Caden, Maddie, Nolan, Abram.  I asked her if she wanted any friends, and she said no.  I must admit that I was relieved, because that is so much more work!

For the next four weeks she reminded us that her birthday was almost here and said how excited she was several times a day.  How could we not get just as excited?  So.... that night after the kids went to bed, Shawn and  I sat downstairs blowing up several bags worth of balloons.  We scattered them in her room before we went to bed.

Later the kids filled up her canopy with a bunch of them.  (Maddie would like me to point out that her bed is sheetless not because she wet it, but because we went on a hike the night before, and she was too tired to shower her mosquito repellant off that night, and therefore had to wash her sheets the next morning.)

The big event she had planned for the day was to go swimming.  Shawn took the afternoon off work, and my in-laws were kind enough to watch Abram, who is scared to death of his own bathtub.  We had a wonderful time!

Maddie and Kami - I made them stop while they were going down the "river"

Maddie and Caden

Shawn and Maddie at the top of the slide

And Kami, Maddie and Caden

Isabelle and Nolan

Now, you'd think that I'd be taking more pictures of the birthday girl, it being HER big day and all, but this was her place of preference.  I would take her out for a swim, but she would always come back to this.  Lying in the sun trying to "get warm".  I said, don't you want to go have some fun?  She smiled contentedly and said, "I am having fun.  The sun feels sooo good!"  Nolan was generally in the water, though.

Caden worked for the last four days on a pinata for Belle, as that was one of the things on her list and it sounded fun to him.  I'm so glad it did.  I was so diligent in doing things like that for my older kids, and have just kind-of run out of steam for those "extras".  I'm so glad the older kids like to take over now.  Cade gave Belle some choices that he thought he could handle creating and she picked an ice cream cone- and wanted the ice cream part to be blue. 

Isabelle trying to give it a good "licking"

Nolan

Maddie

Caden took off the cone and just about spilled it open - not a real good action shot of him, though.

 Kami did the trick

Then it was on to cake and ice cream.  Isabelle and I had a great time making the cake together (she chose tie dye) but with all the excitement we left the cakes in the pans for too long and when we finally got them out they were a pretty sorry sight indeed.

This was Isabelle's favorite present that she received. A Ken Barbie doll - something I never would have considered wanting or getting for my kids.  She asked me for weeks if I would get her a Ken barbie.  Then when she unwrapped it she acted embarrassed and set it aside really quickly.  But  I notice that she has played with it a great deal today.  I guess she just wanted a family.;)

The last thing on her list was to have the family sit down with her and watch High School Musical, which had the older kids and (let's be honest) Shawn and I groaning.  Isabelle loves this show.  She confided to me recently that she just loves all of the "loving parts" in it. I must admit that I ended up enjoying watching the show, but the real reason was that I watched Isabelle's face the whole time.  She was so into it! Boy do we all love this girl!!

Isabelle's big day finished up with her grandparent's Gee bringing over her birthday present. They always bring a card with the amount of money (in one dollar bills) that the kid is old, and also a certificate to go out to lunch with them.

We had fun celebrating Isabelle's birthday.  A lot of the fun about it was that she remained enthusiastic the whole day.  I heard her exclaim at one point, "This is the BEST day of my life!!!"  And "This is SOOOO fun!!"