let the birthday festivities begin!

Sunday we had family over for Mikayla's 5th birthday, which isn't technically until the 22nd, but with Easter being the weekend right after, we opted for the weekend before to celebrate with family. Thank goodness everyone could make it except for my mom and dad who currently live in Alaska, but hopefully they'll be around for her 6th birthday!

{Cousins!}

Mikayla and I had such a great bonding experience during her party planning. We (I) decided to keep her "family party" a little simple this year since she'll be having another party on Thursday with her friends. It was so awesome that she is at the age where she can help out with little things here and there. And, she was sooooooooooo excited about it, too! I loved it! She picked out her party favors, wrote the tags, helped set up decor, put out ice cream toppings, and more!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited she was waiting for the guests to arrive! She told us that she really wanted to be the one to answer the door and welcome everyone. The night before she had asked me (with the sweetest little look on her face), "Are they going to bring me presents?" I jokingly said, "I don't know...maybe?" Which she replied with, "That's OK if they don't...maybe on my actual birthday." So for every family member who came in with a present, she was ecstatic and would say, "Look, they brought me a present!"

{The Birthday Girl}

Mikayla loves to craft (hmmm...I have no idea where she got that from), so we decided that we would add a little craft to her birthday party. There was a table set up if the kids wanted to work on something. Cousin Hunter was really into it! He probably made 5 or 6 of them!

{Mikayla & Cousin Hannah}

We kept things simple this year with serving snacks instead of a full lunch...

...and her birthday dessert of choice was ice cream sundaes with lots of toppings!
Before Mikayla opened gifts, we asked her a few questions of things she liked as a five-year old.

What is your favorite thing to do? play with my cousins
What is your favorite color? pink, purple, red, and...black?! (not sure where that last one came from)
What is your favorite food? strawberries
What is your favorite place to eat out? Busters (her daddy got her hooked!)
What is your favorite thing about pre-school? snack!
What do you want to be when you grow up? a dancer (see picture below as she went into a full-on dancing routine)

{Present Time!}

Look how excited she was to get the movie Tangled!

{birthday sundae with loaded toppings!}
{ice cream topping line-up}

Mikayla chose her party favors for her cousins and decided on a drawing pad and bubble gum...just a couple of her favorite things! We had these leftover flowers from Valentine's Day and decided to glue a picture of Mikayla in the center. She wrote "to" and "from" on the back of each tag.

{Mikayla & Austin with Grandpa Charlie & Grandma Ruth}

Many more birthday festivities to come!