it's a work in progress: The Weeklong Birthday Celebration -- That's Normal, Right??

After the preschool graduation in May, the Princess turned 5 in June!! Ack! To celebrate the day that she was emancipated from my uterus (too much?) we gave her some presents!

Not my dog, but it is my shoe.

Oh yay! The 'Tangled' tower!

Opening a present from Gavin the Cat. To add authenticity to it, he also gave her a can of cat food.

That night we went to Chuck-e-Cheese, where a kid can be a kid, and parents can get a headache.

Parent tip: If you ever find yourself headed to CEC, do your wallet a favor and go online first! They have great coupons that will save you a considerable amount of money, AND they have reward charts for your kids that you can turn in for extra tokens! Yippee!!!

Bonding with a soda and a roller-coaster simulator.

As a result of all the coupons and an excitable grandmother that hadn't played skeeball in YEARS, Brynn raked in about 700 tickets...

Apparently it takes THREE to insert a token.

After getting 1 of everything at the reward counter, we headed for home! We had some tasty cupcakes that I forgot to put vanilla flavoring in, and Brynn opened even MORE presents.

And then this happened...

yeah, that might be my dad.

The following weekend, Brynn had a birthday party with her friends! She'd requested a water party and thank our lucky stars, we were able to! It was the one nice day that week. It rained before and it rained after...

Since it was her birthday, she was requesting her skeeball loving grandma to pull her around the backyard to her requested destinations.... "And now -- THE POOL!"

I was pleased that the backyard ended up looking cute and festive!