5

 

she is 5. which is weird.. because she was just born like last week. crazy.
we celebrated with some 'bizarre celebration' of our own. (how awesome and perfect is this song? 'let's pretend we don't exist.. let's pretend we're in antartica' yes.. yes i will. :))

my arianna.. she is a one of a kind girl. birthdays are big deals around these parts. our goal is to grant the desire of your heart and celebrate the fact that God made you and that we get to know you. so you get to decide the kind of party, the kind of food, the recipe for the cake.. you get to pick the color the family wears and basically just be
the guest of honor of life.
it's fantastic.

so ari.. being ari.. mixed it up. princess party? no thanks.. that was so turning 3. pumpkin patch? that was the go to celebration for turning 1, 2 and 4 but nope, not this year. it was the year of the

vegetarian potluck dinner followed by an outdoor movie showing of 'UP' preceded by a theatrical interpretation of said movie.

oh man.. she kills me. she couldn't actually remember the word 'potluck'. she said ' you know mom.. the kind of party where everyone brings a covered dish.' it doesn't get better than that. :) so we rocked it. and it was fun. like-- reeeally fun. :)

a party always starts with the prep work... and in our world that usually means painting something or building something the night before ..or both. :) and how about 1oo chocolate cupcakes with homemade strawberry butter cream frosting. i was just thankful i had convinced her to switch to cupcakes from the 5 layer cake that she had originally picked out. 5 layers? times atleast 5 cakes? that is 25 cake rounds and that is me going crazy quickly. :)

we began our festivities with our wonderful friends bringing 'covered dishes'... sitting in beanbags and blanketing every bare spot in our yard with their paper plates,  strawberry lemonade and hearts of love for my girl. how do you say thank you for love like that?  i am not sure where arianna came up with a potluck as a birthday party but

i think she's onto something....

 

 

brace yourselves. it is about to get hilarious up in here. ari has been planning and scheming 'the play' for almost a year. it kept getting put off.. losing it's place in the line up of life. me organizing children and parents to do an interpretive play of the movie 'up' in full costume directed by my 4 year old... well you might be able to see why i dragged my feet. but i was wrong. maybe the funniest thing i have seen. like ever. how she got all these kids to dress up and be part of a theatrical production that clearly was lacking some er.. cohesiveness... i will never know. but she did. and it was amazing.. in a chaos with costumes kind of way.

"now when you throw up the tennis balls babies, really make a loud sound." i'm not making this stuff up. :)

a sweet friend brought helium balloons for the play. helium balloons. that is when you know you have hit the friend jackpot.. they think of helium balloons and catapult a girl with a house on her head into most awesome costume of the night award.

"you are the angry dogs!! i need to see you get really angry!!!"

i can't even really describe how it felt watching this amazingly random, ridiculous dream of hers come to life before my eyes... she lives close to my heart this girl. her imagination would be my vacation home if i could make it so.

 most of these pictures were taken by the talented   mrs.hershberger.  what a gift... because i was busy doing this.. 

 and this...

and trying not to do too much of this... you know the wide eyed crazy i'm in charge of pulling this huge crazy party off and i can't remember where i put the birthday candles kind of look... ;)

after a wildly well received performance to which pixar would be proud we got out the cupcakes. confession: 100 cupcakes? yep.. i went for the cake box mix. that's a big deal because my usual protocol is to get all stubborn and 'whatever i can do anything i need to' mode and do it and then get overwhelmed, crabby and unbearable to be around. not this time mam. i went for the cake mix... and just made the frosting-- because canned strawberry frosting? it shouldn't even really be able to call itself that with it's dyes, artificial flavorings and partially hydrogenated whatevers...

i take mine straight up. butter, sugar and strawberries. yum.

p.s. if you don't want to buy a bunch of cupcake stands  like me.... you can make your own like this one. all i did was hot glue my platter, dinner plate and desert plate to a large and small turquoise canning jars. easy peasy. they peel right off... make sure to check your plates first though... and i wouldn't trust these guys to survive an earthquake/ grayson unsupervised but they did the trick for the day. :) 

presents. :) i was starting to feel a little claustrophobic in that gaggle of eager hands and bodies that just kept inching closer and closer. :)

the night was capped off with the outdoor movie showing of 'up'... which arianna has had an ocd obsession with since the moment she saw it. we have already agreed that if and when we get a dog.. his name should be doug. and we might have to get a bird just so we can name him kevin. it was a perfect evening to snuggle into your own personal beanbag chair with a blanket (or towel if you were towards the end of the line for blankets:)).

we somehow did not get one family picture that evening.. so i improvised. :) notice ari had us all wear pink and she wore 'violet'.. her current favorite color. :)

i know the number of parties left where i can see the magic of childhood in her eyes is numbered.

i know that it won't be forever that she is so willing to put herself out there to bring her imagination into reality.

i know these things... and that is why i bask in her smile as she brainstormed, planned, and now retells the details of this party.

she celebrates life everyday... and the days that life celebrates her back?

those are good days.