Ava's list of birthday ridiculousness

Apparently my nearly five year old has too much time on her hands as she has constructed a very extensive birthday list for herself. Here are the highlights:

Pink sparkly shoes

Tinkerbell costume

Tiana costume

Sleeping beauty shoes and fake earrings

Tinkerbell shoes

Rapunzel costume

Tinkerbell figurines that comes with her friends too

Fake computer

Mini-Van

Real Pet Unicorn, please, please, please!

Fifty Dollars

Tinkerbell books

Pinkalicious Book

All of Tinkerbell’s friends costumes

Toy horse

Real horse

Horse Pillow Pet

Swingset

Ok, so I am slightly embarrassed to admit that early on in her young life I discovered a way to avoid tantrums at any and every store that carries toys, candy, and sparkly things that catch her eye. I simply tell her that she can put it on her birthday list. Luckily, she's always been so thankful to receive anything that she forgets Mama didn't wrap up 'the entire Disney store' and deliver it to her in her new mini-van. I'm banking on the fact that by the time she realizes 'put it on your birthday list' means she's not getting it, she'll be past the phase where she screams, "I hate you," runs into the Sears store and hides in the optical center until found and spanked and then caged in the car like a wild animal until Mama regains her composure enough to drive home. You know, just hypothetically speaking.

It's my party and I'll...have an under the sea theme in the middle of October...if I want to!

We are in full party planning mode around these parts and after careful deliberation Ava has decided on a sea themed birthday. Well, I thought, it's better than unicorns (her choice two months ago), or sparkly flairy (her idea last week....as a side note, a flairy is a fairy that cannot fly because it has had a spell placed on it by an evil queen.) I'm sure the seven boys coming to her party will appreciate not having to come dressed in a tutu or wearing a prosthetic headpiece. I thought that surely Party City would have something under the sea themed on their shelves. I was wrong. That is something they only carry in the summer. So it looks like Mama is going to have to get creative and paper mache her own octopus pinata this year.

I will say that I did have a tiny bit of fun making her invitations.

Now with 12 kids and all their families coming it's time to work on the menu.

Early fall fun

Last weekend we headed into Canby for our annual trip on the pumpkin train. Ava wanted to wear her bird costume, so we put Ian in his owl costume and headed out. We ate caramel corn, went to the petting zoo, climbed the maze, and took pictures. I don't even think it rained, so all in all it was a great day. Although after the ticket lady told me that my daughter (Ian) made a beautiful Indian Princess, I might have to rethink his costume.

We love library day!

Nurturing his sensitive side with a quick Pinkalicious read through

There's nothing quite like finding the book AND the movie

Mama makes sure we only check out classic literature

Yay for new books!

Interpretations

This little foam Jesus has seen many adventures in our house. Between captaining the bathtub pirate ship, playing hide and seek, and saving Ariel from the undersea dragons, he is very busy. Here Ian demonstrates Jesus' servant leadership style by letting Moses drive the truck while He mans the stinky garbage. It looks like its time to enroll him in some online Seminary courses.

Bubble faces

Buddies

Ava's getting used to being constantly asked, "Do you like school?" I don't have much luck getting info out of her each afternoon so I have to get really specific with my questions. "What did you have for snack?" "Did you play outside?" "Did anyone get a time-out?" That's my personal favorite as it changes each time and usually elicits the most hilarious answers. But there's one question that always gets the same answer. "Who did you play with?"

Landon,

Landon.

Landon.

She informed me after day two, "Mommy, I told Landon that he was going to be my school friend." And after being assured that she did not make this announcement to the rest of the class, I decided it was time to have him over for a play date. Oh, how I wish I could have videotaped the entire hour. I mean he's a great kid but he didn't say a single word while he was here. Here's a little peek into their conversations:

Ava: Landon let's go climb the tree!

Landon: (Blank stare as he follows her outside and watches her climb the tree)

Ava: Landon let's play pirate saves the princess from Esmerelda the wicked witch who has the secret potion we need to save the island!

Landon: (Blank stare as Ava changes into her Cinderella costume and inserts a foam sword into his hand)

And on and on and on. All I could think of was that first scene in the Disney movie Up. Remember this little girl?

Poor Landon, he was so shy that I probably traumatized him by taking this picture, but I couldn't resist documenting the moment.

Here's to an interesting year!