6! ALREADY?

I'm shocked to realize that my oldest baby is now 6!

I realize that there are people my age who have kids in college already, but still, my oldest is just finishing kindergarten and I'm amazed!

We didn't want to have a big shindig for Talea's birthday this year (we planned on having big "friend" parties on big birthdays, like 5 (starting school), 8 (getting baptized), 12 (starting young womens/priesthood), 16 (can date!), and 18 (finally an adult). This idea came from a Noble tradition that Angi shared with me, and I must confess, it took a lot of planning and party stress off my shoulders, so I adopted it!

The only problem is, last year, on Tilly's 5th birthday, we did it very last minute and she only had one friend to party with, aside from our family and the friend's family. And this year, since she doesn't go to traditional "brick and mortar" public school, so she doesn't see friends all day, we wanted to throw a party for her and some kids her age so she could make some friends and be "social."

Luckily for Tilly, there are 7 kids in our ward right around her age and another friend not even in our ward, so we invited them all and decided to have a "bird" theme, since Tilly is into birds.

For her birthday last year, all Tilly had asked for was a bird bath, and thinking that was a silly present for such a young kid, we didn't get her one, but then we found one later for a great deal, so we bought it and have been hanging onto it for almost a year so we could give it to her this year.

So keeping in theme with the birdbath gift, I made cupcakes with bird nest cookies on top. They ended up a little flattened, thanks to my overzealous shaping rather than thumb-printing them, but were okay still. Too bad I didn't stock up on speckled egg candies at Easter (I don't plan that far in advance), so I had to use plain ol' jelly beans for the eggs. Oh well. It was colorful I guess.

We had Tilly's party the day after her birthday since Hyrum had school and work on Tilly's actual birthday.

On her actual birthday, we celebrated by going to the park, but weren't able to stay very long because I was chilly, and Paisli was asleep in the van, and I was paranoid about being turned in again (like last fall when Kiersa was asleep in the van). Of course Tilly got to be queen and not do any work and got to pick the meals. We had waffles for dinner, naturally. Finally, I took her and Hyatt to see "Alice In Wonderland" at the cheap theater, which only cost me $6 for all three of us! Love the bargains you can get in Rexburg!

Just before the party started, Talea came out with a wardrobe change. She decided she wanted to look beautiful on her birthday and thought this was her most gorgeous outfit (red velvet...Tilly's FAVORITE color is red). Thank goodness for hand-me-downs!

We had a house full of little ones, but it was surprisingly easy to keep under control. We had a blast! They did a birdie hidden-picture game, colored tweety bird pictures, then Tilly opened presents. This is the first time she's had a party like this, so she was pretty excited.

Our present to her, aside from the bird bath (which wasn't that big of a hit afterall-I guess the novelty of one wore off over the last year) was a pair of heelies that I picked up at a thrift store last year. Gender neutral, of course, so Hyatt can use them along with all the girls. Those were more exciting to her.

With the help of a friend (who happens to be JUST like Talea), she tried out her new shoes, in roller skate form.

Then it was pizza time!

Last, we made bird feeders out of recycled materials, such as empty paper milk cartons. I got the idea from this picture.

 Here is Hyatt's. Poor guy got the blended paint so it ended up mostly purple.

They turned out fine, but we had to live off of milk for the 4 days preceding the party, and finally just empty milk into any spare container we could find in order to have 9 empty cartons. We ended up having so much fun that 3 hours flew by and we ran out of time to stamp them or decorate them, beyond an initial painting and gluing the shingles on.

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself considering this is the first birthday party I've ever planned. I even made invitations for the first time! This picture was on the front (courtesy of google, not my own creativity) and the inside had the info and Talea's handwritten name. 

Thank goodness for Hyrum and his input and assistance (photography, food-serving, store-runs, gluing, wrangling, etc). I couldn't have survived without him!