EJ's Birthday!

This was a "family party" year for EJ, but we still managed to have a great birthday!  Her class sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and her bus driver, Miss Alisa, had the whole bus sing as well.  I met her at the bus stop with 4 of the last balloons in the county (seriously- there is a helium shortage!).  It was raining, but I wasn't going to let that stop me!  She also got a bunch of real roses!  Miss Alisa made a big deal and honked for her all the way down the road!

When EJ got home, she discovered the special birthday decorations and a pile of presents, just for her! She got to open one (without Daddy) and picked Bear's gift- the newest Barbie movie- the Princess and the Pop Star!  That was super-handy because they had something to do while they waited FOREVER for Daddy to come home! 

Her after-school snack of choice was a special chocolate-iced doughnut.  You can also see the pretty flowers. The yellow notebook and pen thing is the "treat" she gave to her class (yay for clearance school supplies- more fun than cupcakes!) 

I was so proud that her dinner of choice was our favorite Vietnamese place!  The birthday girl shared a noodle, pork and egg roll bowl with Birdy.  It's kind of embarrassing- check out all the food we order when we go! We can't miss out on spring rolls or their great pork Bahn Mi... Way too much food, but all of it really good.

Bear ended up just eating a ton of Pho broth from these little tiny sauce cups. Whatever. It's the first trip to the Vietnamese place that he hasn't ruined by throwing fits and whatnot, so we were happy to let him do whatever made him happy! 

Nom Nom Nom (Birdy didn't eat any pork and noodle bowl, BTW- the girl love her Pho too much!)

After dinner, we picked up a very special guest- Miss Holly!  She is my friend who was also one of Wren's preschool teachers and Lily's piano teacher. She is very special to us and was visiting all the way from Arizona!

EJ got some great gifts- lots of books!  Here she's opening up a collection of Mary Kate and Ashley books- her new favorite!

This is opening the diary with a lock and key from Aunt Kate and Uncle Matt. She's wanted one forever and she LOVES it.  She wears the keys everywhere and writes in it all the time. 

Birdy's present (a flying Tinkerbell set) was accompanied by a shower of rose petals. Sweet. 

The birthday girl with all of her presents! 

After much deliberation ("None of these cakes says 'I want to be your Birthday cake', Mom...") she picked this cute horse cake- vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.  As a surprise, I made the vanilla cake rainbow.  She thought that was pretty sweet!

It was a great, special birthday for our big girl! Now she is ready to be baptised and go to Activity Days!