Emma's fifth birthday

Emma turned five years old on March 10th! As most people are aware, my Grandmother O'Brien passed away and so I flew out on Emma's actual birthday to Michigan for the funeral services. But before I skipped town leaving Michael to care for the four kids, I picked up cupcakes for her preschool class, made a lasagna for the birthday dinner and found a yummy looking cake at Publix for the group to enjoy that evening. Michael snapped a few pictures for me so I could see what went on that evening.

We don't celebrate with large parties for each of our kids' birthdays, but turning five is a big one so we let each kid decide what they would like to do in honor of their birthday.

Emma chose to invite her preschool class and a few good friends to play at Monkey Joes. So the Saturday after I got back to town, we made our way to Monkey Joes for the big party.


Emma got a special seat reserved especially for the birthday kid...

I saw this cake at Publix and had to order it. It is ridiculous how much we paid for it, but the princess castle was too perfect and I wasn't about to try and build a castle cake on my own. As a bonus, Publix cakes are sooo good.

After sending Michael out to scour all of Columbia for the remaining bags of Silly Bandz - I finally was able to assemble the goody bags in order Friday night. And, yes, the Silly Bandz were worth it - the kids love those things!

A group shot of everyone enjoying refreshments. We had pizza, cake, ice cream and Sprite. Jamie Oliver would be so proud of our lunch nutritional content - ha!

Monkey Joe himself made a special visit to give Emma a hug and a birthday gift. She now wears her Monkey Joe t-shirt with pride. We call it "the walking advertisement." The number for the play park is even printed on the back of the shirt in big black numbers!

Emma had a good birthday party and the best part - no clean up for Mom and Dad! We packed our stuff up in our car and off we went.