The birthday party

Kara's birthday party was at the children's museum in Tacoma. This was the first year she got to invite her own friends. I think we ended up with 10 children there, including Kara and Kiersten. And of course, the parents too. We really tried to let her pick out as many things as she could about her party.I even let her wear a necklace that didn't really go with her outfit. Kiersten getting her party hat on.

Here she is holding up 4 fingers. She is so excited to be growing up.

posing in the birthday chair. The museum had a girl there to help with the party. It was so nice to have her cleaning up after everyone, and making sure things were running smoothly and on schedule, so we could just enjoy the party. We ordered pizza, and Ben met the guy outside, and brought the pizzas down. The mom from another party saw him and thought he was her pizza guy. He told her that it wasn't her pizza, but she wouldn't believe him. Even though she ordered 6 pizzas from round table, and we ordered 4 pizzas from pizza hut. She got mad and went up to tattle to the girls at the front desk that we stole her pizza! I thought it was pretty funny when one of them actually came down to check that we had the right pizzas. Hers showed up a few minutes after that.

Kara opening her presents from her friends. She got some really nice gifts.

opening her gift from Kiersten. She gave her some play-doh and bendaroos. I was pretty surprised at her reaction to opening them. She has seen them on tv and always says she wants them, but I didn't realize how much. She didn't even have the package half open when she started saying, "bendaroos! I wanted these so much!" It was the most excited she got over any gift, to my surprise.

I wanted to take her picture in her party hat before the cake, and she kept making this face. I was confused, because it is not one of her normal "picture faces". It turns out she was practicing blowing out the candles. Ben had given her some tips on how to blow without spitting.

This is the clsoest picture I got of the cake. It's not my favorite cake I've ever made, but I wanted to let Kara help. She picked the shape, the flavor, the colors, the decorations, and I even let her help frost it and she put sprinkles on too. So I guess I should be proud of it, since she helped so much.

some of her party guests.

For the second half of the party, they got to play in the children's museum. All of the kids loved pretending to fish out of this little boat.

Kiersten crawling through a little door.

Kara selling food to the dad of one of her friends.

my girls learning to farm.

Kara is the best toy sharer. She got this new barbie, and brought out all of the others so Kiersten could play too. She did get upset when Kiersten made 2 of the princesses dance together. She said, "girls don't dance together!" After that she decided she wants to use her birthday money from Great Grandma Howard to get some boy barbies.

She made this cute mouse with her bendaroos. She played with them most of last night and a lot today too. I just can't get over how much she loves those things. It's such a simple thing, just wire covered in wax. But I guess sometimes those types of things are the most fun.