My Five Year Old

One of the many things that has happened since our return from Disney World -- Katelyn turned five! We told her that the Disney World trip was her birthday present and that there wouldn't be a big party this year and she did pretty good remembering that. She only commented once that she wished a few of her friends could be here when we were celebrating her birthday. Don't feel too sorry for the girl though, she got several mini - celebrations.

Mike was in San Diego last week so he wasn't here on Katelyn's birthday. I baked her a small layer cake -- she got to pick out the cake and the frosting (both Strawberry and PINK!) We went to swim lessons as usual (a topic for another blog post) and then home for some simple pink cake and a few presents from Grandma. Mike (and a whole group of people he was with) sang Happy Birthday to Katelyn over the phone while she blew out her candles. Plus Daddy's guilt for being gone on her birthday was quite lucrative for Katelyn -- she scored a few rings, a bracelet, a necklace and a stuffed panda bear -- not to shabby.

Mike got back on Friday, so we decided to have a small family BBQ for Katelyn. At first I wasn't going to make her another cake, just have ice cream sandwiches for dessert BUT I have been wanting to make a barbie cake for her and I happened to find the Barbie topper so I couldn't resist attempting to make the cake. I started decorating it and Mike wasn't happy with my amateur cake decorating skills so he took over (did I mention Mike took a cake decorating class in college? There was a girl involved -- enough said!). He wasn't really thrilled with how it turned out, but Katelyn absolutely LOVED IT!!! The Barbie didn't come with a tiarra, but Katelyn quickly borrowed one from one of her princess barbies (I think this particular crown was from Aurora).

She also got to celebrate twice at school. She wanted to take in ice cream cone cupcakes for her class. Her grandpa and his girlfriend, Kris, have the molds to make these and graciously agreed to help Katelyn with the project (you can read that to say Kris had almost everything done by the time we got there so Katelyn helped with one batch and decorating -- smart woman!). But since we had to do that on the weekend and Katelyn's birthday wasn't until Thursday, we decided to take the cupcakes in on Monday before they dried out and then on her birthday we took in ice cream sandwiches. She was a big hit with her class last week!

She also got alot of presents. She opened some on her birthday. Then Grandma and Grandpa Lich's gift arrived the next day and she got to open that (we owe you guys a phone call -- sorry it hasn't happened yet), then on Sunday she got to open a bunch of gifts from Grandma Hickok, and Mom, Dad and Alyssa.

Grandma got her the princess dress up shoes -- not more then 10 minutes with them on Grandma hears Katelyn say "these shoes are killing me!" But she didn't take them off -- what we do in the name of fashion and how early it starts!

Mike and I got her the tag learning system and a bunch of books to go with it. We also got her a new game for her leapster and some bead art thing.

Needless to say -- Katelyn had a pretty good fifth birthday. She didn't get a big party where she could invite all her friends, but she still enjoyed herself.