Its so hard to believe, but my baby girl is turning 5 this weekend! Wasn't it just yesterday that she was a teeny tiny bundle of cuteness, coming home from the hospital in her fuzzy pink bear suit?
Awwww...she was so little!! Its so hard sometimes to see her getting older, and knowing that we will never be here at this moment in her life ever again. She is such a joyful little girl, so full of love and laughter that you cant do anything but smile and feel happy when you are around her. She has blessed our lives in so many ways, and I feel so lucky to be able to call her my baby. ♥
Last year, all my baby liked to play with were dinosaurs. She watched movies about them, collected figurines of them, covered her walls with pictures of them, and colored countless pictures of them. Somewhere towards the last few months of 2010, something shifted. Its one of those things you cant pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but all of a sudden, all she could talk about was tigers and lions, and big cats of all kinds. So it was no surprise when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted to have this year - her reply was a gleeful "Wild cats birthday party"!
Killian got in the wild cat spirit, and decided to make a warning sign for our incoming guests. I loved it, and thought it was so cute that he would make something like this for her:
We always do some sort of prize or goody bag for her friends, and it was fun this year hunting down things that were tiger or lion related. We did a pretty good job, and managed to find all the goody bag prizes for under a dollar each:
We also came up with a couple simple games to play. The first one was musical paws - Porter tested it out while we waited for everyone to arrive:
The kids loved it! We played the Hakuna Matata from the Lion King soundtrack, and they giggled and jostled all around the circle of paws:
Next up was a game of pin the tail on the tiger. Its not the sort of game that you can just go out and buy, unless perhaps you are looking for pin the tail on the donkey. Luckily, Matthew happens to be very skilled at drawing, and he whipped up this tail less tiger in less than 10 minutes:
Pretty amazing, especially considering I can barely draw stick figures. Hopefully the kids are blessed with Matthews artistic talent and not mine! We blindfolded them, and spun them around and sent them staggering towards the wall. Rowan got pretty close:
Killian employed some sort of measuring trick that he had visualized while waiting for his turn:
After the kids were thoroughly dizzy, we sat them down for a little tiger and lion bookmark making craft:
The finished product was super cute, and the kids were saying how excited they were to go home and read so they could use it...score!!
Next up....cake! Rowan was very specific about her cake - she wanted a big one with a lion and a tiger on it. Now, I am no artist (see above) but with Matthews help we managed to pull together a lion and tiger cake for our girl:
There are a lot of candles to blow out when you are five, and it takes a really big breath!
Next up was presents, and Killian was super helpful reading Rowan her cards and giving her presents to open. They really seem to enjoy having this role at each others parties - the bonus of having a sibling I guess!
She may be shifting into tigers and lions, but my girls still gets excited by an awesome dinosaur when she sees one:
And she knows how to give a terrible T-Rex worthy roar too. Look at all those ferocious teeth!!
All in all, she had a wonderful 5th birthday party. She was thrilled with her cake and her presents, and we had a great time with our friends. Turns out that there were no man eating tigers waiting for the kids...the kids WERE the man eating tigers...run for your lives!!!!
Awwww...she was so little!! Its so hard sometimes to see her getting older, and knowing that we will never be here at this moment in her life ever again. She is such a joyful little girl, so full of love and laughter that you cant do anything but smile and feel happy when you are around her. She has blessed our lives in so many ways, and I feel so lucky to be able to call her my baby. ♥
Last year, all my baby liked to play with were dinosaurs. She watched movies about them, collected figurines of them, covered her walls with pictures of them, and colored countless pictures of them. Somewhere towards the last few months of 2010, something shifted. Its one of those things you cant pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but all of a sudden, all she could talk about was tigers and lions, and big cats of all kinds. So it was no surprise when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted to have this year - her reply was a gleeful "Wild cats birthday party"!
Killian got in the wild cat spirit, and decided to make a warning sign for our incoming guests. I loved it, and thought it was so cute that he would make something like this for her:
We always do some sort of prize or goody bag for her friends, and it was fun this year hunting down things that were tiger or lion related. We did a pretty good job, and managed to find all the goody bag prizes for under a dollar each:
We also came up with a couple simple games to play. The first one was musical paws - Porter tested it out while we waited for everyone to arrive:
The kids loved it! We played the Hakuna Matata from the Lion King soundtrack, and they giggled and jostled all around the circle of paws:
Next up was a game of pin the tail on the tiger. Its not the sort of game that you can just go out and buy, unless perhaps you are looking for pin the tail on the donkey. Luckily, Matthew happens to be very skilled at drawing, and he whipped up this tail less tiger in less than 10 minutes:
Pretty amazing, especially considering I can barely draw stick figures. Hopefully the kids are blessed with Matthews artistic talent and not mine! We blindfolded them, and spun them around and sent them staggering towards the wall. Rowan got pretty close:
Killian employed some sort of measuring trick that he had visualized while waiting for his turn:
After the kids were thoroughly dizzy, we sat them down for a little tiger and lion bookmark making craft:
The finished product was super cute, and the kids were saying how excited they were to go home and read so they could use it...score!!
Next up....cake! Rowan was very specific about her cake - she wanted a big one with a lion and a tiger on it. Now, I am no artist (see above) but with Matthews help we managed to pull together a lion and tiger cake for our girl:
There are a lot of candles to blow out when you are five, and it takes a really big breath!
Next up was presents, and Killian was super helpful reading Rowan her cards and giving her presents to open. They really seem to enjoy having this role at each others parties - the bonus of having a sibling I guess!
She may be shifting into tigers and lions, but my girls still gets excited by an awesome dinosaur when she sees one:
And she knows how to give a terrible T-Rex worthy roar too. Look at all those ferocious teeth!!
All in all, she had a wonderful 5th birthday party. She was thrilled with her cake and her presents, and we had a great time with our friends. Turns out that there were no man eating tigers waiting for the kids...the kids WERE the man eating tigers...run for your lives!!!!
