Ella's Birthday- Part 1

Well, Ella is 5!  It's hard to believe.  She's finishing up her Pre-K year and will be headed to Kindergarten at Lexi's school in the fall.  She has begun to read.  And she has two wiggly teeth already! She's such a sweet little girl. 

We had a garden party for her birthday.  There is a little garden a couple of blocks from our apartment building, so we took over and invited her friends from church.  The biggest concern was the weather.  It was a gray day and I was so nervous we would get rained out, which was not good as our apartment could most certainly not hold all the little people that would be attending.  We did have a couple of passing sprinkles, but in the end, it was totally tolerable and did not really rain.  The kids had a great time and Ella was as happy as could be.  Alexis was a big help during the party- running some of the games and playing with the younger kids.

First, we had to transport all the party stuff to the garden.  We used our "granny cart" and the stroller and squeezed it all into the elevator.  

Then we decorated the garden

We made clothespin caterpillars and planted some flowers in pots

We played with ladybug bean bags (that I made-everyone took one home) and a big parachute and some duck-duck-goose and "pin the butterfly on the flower" (Lexi made the flower and all the butterflies) and we blew some bubbles, too.

Of course we had cupcakes! The strawberries are supposed to look like butterflies.  And we had some other snacks, like green grape caterpillars on a stick, yogurt, crackers and juice.

And all the while, Caleb sat happily on a blanket on the grass.  He's kind of scared of the grass.  I guess he doesn't like the way it feels or something, but he will not crawl on it.  At all.  It's pretty hilarious.  And pretty great.  It's the one area of the world that can contain him!

Many many thanks to my two photographers: Aprille and Abbie.  I would never have had the great photos without their contributions!