Happy Birthday to our 6 year old Natalie!

our Natalie girl is growing up! one of the things she decided she wanted to do for her birthday was to cut her hair. here she is before the event

 

 

 

and after. we really didn't cut off very much hair at all, but it was a big deal to her!

 

 

I love traditions, and so our family has a lot of them and birthdays are a week long celebration! this year it was so helpful and fun to have my sister Melissa with us to join in on the action and ensure that I didn't go into labor before, or heaven forbid ON, Natalie's birthday. it worked! (a little too well actually because he didn't come during the whole two weeks she was here!)

we went shopping for a new birthday outfit and a sunday dress and shoes. she insisted on this bright green sparkly dress and we could not convince her to choose a different one. sure enough on sunday she hated wearing it because it left glitter EVERYWHERE (seriously our bench looked like the emerald city and all of us had little flecks of glitter on our faces and arms and clothes). needless to say we had a nice chat about trusting me when I say that something isn't the best choice. Melissa shared an experience about learning to choose "reverent" dresses. it was classic. live and learn girlfriend. live and learn.

we decorated for her party, which was Narnia themed, and she invited one friend from church and one friend from school using postcards which came with our dvd of voyage of the dawn treader. we looked through all her baby books, picture albums, and scrapbooks. we did a video birthday interview. she decided to bring fruit juice pops to school to share with her classmates to celebrate her special day, which was a total hit because it has been so hot here lately.

it took her a long time to decide what she wanted her cake to be (originally she was going to have a wizard of oz party and the cake for that was going to be rockin, so we had to come up with something just as cool for this theme when she changed her mind)

Melissa and I spent FOREVER on Friday making this little number:

 

 

 

 

 

(if only we had put it in the fridge that night!! but I will explain that later.) here it is safely in the fridge midmorning on Saturday.

 

 

then, per Natalie's request, we went out to dinner for our family date at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

we waited for as long as we could, but tragically kent was stuck at work and ended up not being able to make it. this was one of the countless times I was so grateful Melissa was with us both for the help with the kids and to make it a special occasion. here is the birthday girl hanging out in the reception area.  

we got to sit in the train!! this is the same table we had last year, and things like that are so cool to Natalie.

 

our yummy dinner!

 

 

 

 

and of course they gave her a candle in her spumoni and we all sang happy birthday to her =o]

when we got home she got to tell kent all about it. then we put jenna to bed and got to work on the items for the Narnia tea party for the next day. the kids "helped" until we couldn't handle it anymore ha ha

 

 

then it was off to bed for one VERY EXCITED little girl!

kent and I wrapped her presents while Melissa made her this awesome sign to hang outside her bedroom door to wake up to =o]

 

 

she was beyond thrilled! while it was still dark outside we heard her open her door, let out a surprised little happy squeal and then she ran into our room to say thank you and give us big hugs. it was a great way to start the day =o] (we took it out of her doorway for easier access to the room, and it is still on the dresser =o])

 

at a more reasonable hour (after all snuggling together in our bed talking about Natalie and her birth day and her birthdays past, because of course the other kids were woken up by the commotion) we all headed downstairs to find to our horror that our kitchen had been overrun by ants! we had never seen ants inside this house before, but there were literally thousands of ants all over and as Natalie and Caleb put it they were attacking the cake and all the edible party favors we had worked so hard to make the night before that I stupidly left out on the counter instead of cleaning everything up and putting them safely into the fridge. it was beyond tragic. I whisked the cake outside and tried to rid it of ants while kent fought the battle of our kitchen and Melissa gave all three kids a bath. two hours later we finally sat down to our special birthday breakfast of smoothies, sausage and Swedish pancakes.  

then we talked to on the phone to grandparents and cousins and aunts, and opened some presents. (we found out from the mackay grandparents that the party will get to continue at a later date because apparently Natalie's package from them is lost in the mail =o[)

caleb and jenna even got a present (some of my old barbies so that when Natalie plays they can join in without arguments =o])

the hit present of the morning was a science kit for archeologists in the making =o] she got to use tools to excavate a sandstone searching for gems. priceless!

after lunch she opened a couple more presents

including her favorite of the day- a Dorothy puppet (which is just one of a set). here is kent showing her how to use it =o]

she has played with it everyday since she got it. this face pretty much sums it up!

then she got to go out with dad on a much anticipated date to the bowling alley. (her hand-me-down-from-me-toto and new Dorothy puppet accompanied her in the car)

 

they had a blast! and picked up an ice cream cake from baskin robbins on the way home =o]

 

while they were gone we set up the tea party and got all the plan b snacks ready. we decided to still use the cake just to sing and blow out the candle with. so disappointing!

her friend from church isabelle came, but her friend from school taylor wasn't feeling well and fell asleep in the car on the way to our house poor girl so her mom took a raincheck.

here is the tea party!

 

one of Natalie's presents was a bag of Turkish delight we got at a specialty candy shop on our trip to Monterey. none of us had tried it before except kent and we all enjoyed it!

then we played Narnia games! ten pin bowling, chess, hide-and-seek, and freeze tag. Melissa was the white which with a wand and froze people and everyone else took turns being aslan and breathing on people to unfreeze them it was awesome!  

then we opened the last of Natalie's presents including the ones from her siblings. it was so cute how excited caleb was about giving Natalie her present that he picked out himself- a princess dishes set. I think he is going to be like his dad and love giving gifts.

then we went back into the dining room to sing and do the cake. she was such a trooper and had a great attitude despite the swap!

 

caleb decided that it was worth the risk to try one of the Narnia trees from the cake ha ha

 

then the kids went outside to play while we cleaned up and got the next activity and dinner ready.

Natalie wanted pizza so we had that and a veggie tray in the dining room, and then they got to make their own party favor to replace the ones that had been destroyed. it was fun! next time I think I might just do it that way anyway because they loved getting to choose what to fill their little tea cups with once they made them, and seemed proud of their work.

then after putting jenna to bed came the crowning event of getting to watch the movie! we have read almost the whole series now, and when Natalie found out their were movies for three of the stories she begged and begged to see them. we weren't sure because they are PG, and aslan getting killed is pretty scary! but finally we decided that if we just reminded them of the analogy to Christ and warn them when scary parts happened then it would be ok. they have seen a couple PG movies (like Star Wars) but we are still trying to be selective. when I asked him if he was sure he wouldn't be too scared, caleb reminded me that it's okay for him to see violence because he needs to learn how protect.

turns out they loved it! it is always so awesome to watch movies with them and experience the full range of emotion!

all in all, it was a great birthday! we love you Natalie!!