Little Surfer Girl

Our little Lexie is six years old today! (She would correct me and say she is big, not little.) I can't believe we're parents to a six year old. I guess this is the year for me to "grow up" and "feel old." (My big 30 is in May.)
As I woke up this morning at 7 am, I was remembering that six years ago at that exact time, my labor contractions began. And the crazy labor that turned dramatic and ended in an emergency c-section brought our bright, beautiful girl into the world. It has been such fun to have my little girl to be a mom to, from dressing her cute and doing hair, to playing girly games and dance lessons and so much more. Sometimes I see such fire and determination in her that it's a little scary how much she is like me. And then other times she does things in her own way and is definitely her own person. Lexie definitely has a flair for the dramatic, and has a stage presence and loves to put on a story. I think she would really enjoy drama one day. She learns quickly as soon as she decides she is interested in something, and she loves the arts. (Can't say I feel bad about that!) She has a lot of friends and, while she is more dramatic to me, is pretty even-tempered around other people. She wants to be a mom when she grows up, and a grandma when she gets old. Some days are a challenge, but we certainly love our Lexie!
It's great that Lexie has plenty of fun, awesome birthdays ahead, and now a whole year to enjoy being six. Since Lexie's birthday today was a Sunday, we held her party yesterday afternoon. And it was so fun! The invitations I designed for the party turned out way cute, so I wanted to share. The hula dancer is a separate piece with a coiled wire on the back to make her wiggle-dance. I think my favorite part of doing a party is designing and making the invitations! The decorating is also pretty fun, we need serious mood recreating to make a tropical paradise out of our house! We borrowed a few things and found a few others and it turned out pretty well. Here's Lexie in the living room with surfboards, leis, and birthday banner accented with hibiscus flowers.
And of course we needed to decorate Lexie, too! Here's the hula girl herself, showing her skills. One of our party activities was learning to hula dance.
Lexie wanted me to make a special luau cake for her birthday, so here is the hibiscus-shaped cake I made. She thought it was pretty, but since I put a layer of pineapple in it, she didn't like the flavor of it. (I was going for tropical flair, and I thought it was yummy!)

Here's the closeup of the cake. The licorice is supposed to be the pistil and stamen of the flower, but looks a bit off. Oh, well, for the most part it turned out.The kids had fun posing as surfers when they arrived, and then we LiMbOeD! (Gavin loved the surfboards.)
This is Lexie's friend Alex getting ready to limbo...

And here's Lexie seeing how low she could go. The kids definitely liked this game.

Here the group. Front row: Taggart, Gavin, Lincoln, Back: Zoe, Hazel, Alex, Annie, Lexie, Whitney. It was a bit of a cold day outside, so it was nice to pretend we were all on a sunny beach in Hawaii.
We had a tropical relay race where the teams had to put on all the beach attire in the beach bag and then go tag another teammate to go put all the stuff on. The things were adult sized, so it was funny. (You see my partially painted mural behind them, a work in progress!)

Cake time! Lexie made a big wish and got all the candles out in one blow.

Singing Happy Birthday...see the festive table?! Even the pineapple is wearing a lei.

Lexie had very nice gifts from her friends. They were all such cute kids and we had a blast.

Mother-daughter hula girls. I told the kids at the party that my name for the day was "Hula Lula."
Today was the actual birthday, although yesterday was probably a lot more fun. Lexie got to have her favorite breakfast of french toast (and see her cool hibiscus balloon!)
And she was up early in anticipation of opening her presents. She and Gavin both got scooters so they can play outside together on them.
And Lexie got some other fun toys, clothes, books, and movies. (She's into Littlest Pet Shop these days. That's probably because she loves animals, and wants to be a zoo veterinarian. So she got a Zoo Doctor Barbie, too.)

After a pizza party in her class at church (how nice that ended up being on her birthday!) she chose Velveeta shells and cheese for dinner. Really, that is her favorite meal! And that just about does it. Whew! I think we are all tired! Happy Birthday, Lexie Boo!