Jamie's Special Day!

As you probably already know, it was Jamie's birthday this past weekend. It was birthday number 4. The first one she was really excited about. She kept coming up with guest lists of all the people she was going to invite, but we've made it a bit of a tradition around here that birthday number 5 is the big, big, one. By the time kids are 5 their parents are usually ready to let them go off by themselves to a party. I don't think too many kids, or parents, are ready at the age of 4. Plus, when I turned 5 my parents let me invite my entire kindergarten class to my birthday and I always remembered that one. So, that kind of started the tradition.

Not to mention, Jamie wanted to have her birthday at "Build a Bear" this year. I think buying stuffed toys and outfits for a classroom full of kiddies may have ended up costing us the equivalent of one month's mortgage payment. So, "Build a Bear" it was...with Jamie and her big sister.

I think it took Jamie about 0.003 seconds to pick out her toy: the giraffe. She has had another stuffed giraffe (that she calls "Melman", of course) since she was just a little, little, baby. We got it for her on her first Christmas. It was actually from Maddie. We asked Maddie what kind of animal she thought Jamie would like and she said, without hesitation, "Giraffe". A bit of an unusual choice, we thought, but we found a giraffe at Toys R Us and, sure enough, Jamie has loved him ever since. This giraffe she decided to name, "Jamie". What a great name!

As expected it took Maddie, the perfectionist, much longer to decide. And, once she did...she changed her mind. Then she changed her mind again. Finally she settled upon the pink poodle.

They got their bears all stuffed up and had wishes put inside (I wonder what they wished for?) and, then, they picked out their outfits. Jamie picked out a purple princess-fairy outfit, and Maddie picked out a little soccer player outfit (I think she wants to start playing soccer next year, because her favourite boy plays...yeah, the one she has had a crush on since Junior Kindergarten).

After "Build a Bear" we headed off to Jamie's choice for the perfect "date": McDonalds. They had a little snack and then headed into the play area to have a blast for about an hour or so. They sure had fun in there. Pretty good deal, really, and it doesn't have any of those scary "germ ball bins" like they have at Ikea. Yuck.

Once we were done with the exercise portion of the day, we headed back home to finish making the birthday cake that Jamie picked out from one of my many cake decorating books. I thought for sure she'd pick a princess, or maybe even the rockin' guitar (she wants to learn how to play...maybe Christmas...) but, nope, she picked out the rabbit...just like her little "Bun Bun" who she likes so much.

I baked the cakes the night before to give them time to cool, then carved them out, pieced them together, and put on the crumb coat. When we got home Jamie picked out the frosting color and helped me to decorate her rabbit. Maddie helped, too. They put on the eyes and whiskers and toes and nose. I had forgotten to save some icing to color orange for the carrot, so I resorted to covering the blue carrot with orange sparkles. Would Martha Stewart have done that? I don't think so. But, that's alright, it tasted great.

Jamie opened up her presents and sure was excited to get

every

single

one.

So cute.

Then her Aunt and Uncle popped in for a visit (with more gifts!) and we all shared the cake together.

It may not have been the big, big, birthday,

but it was still a great one.

LOVE YOU BIRTHDAY GIRLIE!