Ayla's Birthday Celebration!

This year I really wanted to make Ayla's birthday special. It's the first year when she is really aware of what it is to have a birthday and realizes that it's a special day for her. She's been asking when November 10 is for months. Her birthday this year fell on a Thursday which isn't the best day for having a party so I decided to devote the day to having fun and letting Ayla do what she wanted. When I asked her what she wanted to do she said "Play playdoh!" So here she is building animals with play doh. I also spent the majority of my morning playing with play doh. After all it's not much fun building playdoh animals on your own and I wanted my girl to have a good time.

 She's been a real stinker lately about smiling or even looking at the camera. (Let me tell you how much fun that was when we had our family pictures taken, which I'll post in a few days.) Anyway, because she won't smile when I ask her to I kept trying to get pictures of her smiling naturally. Thus you get a picture like the one below. My camera is not the best and has a delay of a second or two before it actually takes the picture so by the time the picture is taken usually the smile is over. I need to get a better camera.

 "Mom look what I made!"

 After we were tired of playing with the play doh we played with Ayla's stickers and she put them in her "journal". (A notebook that she "writes" in and mostly puts stickers in.)

After Caiden got up from nap I tried to have a combined photo session because Ayla's third birthday was also the day Caiden turned seven months old. You can judge for yourself how the photo session turned out.

After Daddy got home from work we decided to go out to dinner. Because I belong to Friday's "Stripes" club I get really good coupons. (I highly recommend joining if you aren't a member.) Anyway I had enough points to get a free entree and I had a coupon for a free kids meal. So to Friday's we went. Ayla had her birthday dinner and then we instructed the waiter that it was her birthday so that he would make a "big deal" out of her and sing to her. I told Ayla that they were going to sing to her but I really don't think she had any idea of what that meant. Suddenly there were about 10 waiters and waitresses surrounding our table; one had a little dish of ice cream with a lit candle in it and they were all singing the Friday's version of the "Happy birthday" song. They had Ayla stand up on her chair. Normally my little girl is a sucker for attention but she got real shy real quick. She quickly sat down and shrank against Daddy's arm as all the people sang to her. When they were done she blew out her candle and then watched greatfully as they all walked away.

Again Ayla would not smile for pictures. She is having a good time despite what her face looks like in these photos.

November 11 this year was a Friday and Lucas had off in celebration of Veteran's Day. I wanted to continue Ayla's birthday celebration so we went to a bounce house place called Kids N'Motion. I had bought 10 visits awhile back and had only used two so we had free passes for the day. Ayla, Caiden, and even Daddy had a great time playing on the equipment. Mommy had a good time watching.

Caiden loved the little toy section. I stood him up next to this toy and he stood there for about thirty seconds. Hmmm, guess it's time to pull some of our toys like this out from storage.

 Ayla climbing the "wall".

 This slide is literally thirty feet high. I've got to admit I was a little nervous watching her climb the first time, but she loved it so much and was so good at it I quickly got over my fear. Another parent there had a son who was older than Ayla who wouldn't try this slide. The Dad kept urging the son to try, finally he pointed out Ayla and said if that little girl can do it I'm sure you can to. Finally the kid tried. I had to laugh that the Dad used Ayla as an example to his kid.

 Daddy had to get in on this slide action too!

The next day, Saturday, was Ayla's birthday party. She was really excited about it and had been thinking about it for days. I spent the morning preparing decorations and making the cake and cupcakes. Her party theme was ladybugs. So I made a ladybug cake and little baby bugs for cupcakes. (Use your imigination when looking at the cupcakes they didn't turn out as well as I hoped.)

I turned the balloons into colorful bugs as well and decorated the church gym. We had her party at the gym because our house is really small and I wasn't sure how many people (especially with three year olds) were coming. The gym happened to be available that night so I reserved it. It turned out really well.

We ended up having quite a good turnout for her party. Quite a few kids came. We started out by playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" which I don't have any pictures of, as I was too busy helping the kids.  After that the kids decorated their goody bags and party hats. In between of course there was a lot of playing chase, and tag, and just plain old running around the gym. My friend Megan's two boys, Granger and Richard, are used to hanging out with Ayla because we see them quite often so they tease her a lot and treat her probably the way older brothers would. At one point Ayla let out a scream and everyone turned to see what was the matter. The boys had her blocked in against a bunch of chairs and she yelled out "Mommy help they're puting me in jail!" It was pretty funny.

 "Baby Emily" as Ayla calls her just chillin by herself. Emily turned one just a few days after Ayla turned three.

 Grandma getting her snuggles in with Caiden.

Ann and Paul came to join the fun. Their kids are in college so we let them "adopt" us. We enjoy having them come to our parties and doing fun things with us. Ann is taking Ayla and I to have a special brunch with Santa in a couple weeks.

 Megan jut had baby boy number three, she's a very busy mom but still finds time to come and help me set up and clean up afterward. She's such a good friend!

 Baby Andrew, he's just two months older than Caiden.

 Baby Madsen, Caiden, and Richard. Richard loves Caiden and spends lots of time making funny faces at him and trying to get him to laugh. It's really cute!

 Happy Birthday to Ayla!

Ayla got some really good presents. I'd have to say her favorites are her piano (which she annoys me with on a regular basis) her kitchen set (which Lucas and I bought for her along with all the "food" that comes with it.) But her absolute favorite thing was her "treasure chest" full of princess clothes! Great job Ann and Paul! Ayla loves being a princess and has been one every single day since her party.

Ayla showing off her favorite gifts!

 Caiden enjoys playing with the piano too! (Oh joy!)