Happy 5th Birthday, Ellie!

I started the day before Ellie's party making the cake. Caleb was helping me and we had just made the bottom layer and set it on the dining room table to cool. I should have known better. In fact, when I was setting it there, I had a little check in my gut that made me rethink putting it on the table, but then I thought, "Nathan isn't that tall and won't even know it's up here." Duh. Not more than 10 minutes later, he was on the table grabbing big chunks out of the barely cooled cake and shoving them into his mouth as fast as he could... Thanks to Grandma Connie for taking him home for the rest of the day, we got the entire cake (re)cooked, frosted and hidden before he got home.

That night, I rag-curled the girls hair. I have a whole stash of curlers in my dresser, but it's a pain to sleep with them in your hair (literally). A friend told me about rag-curls. You just cut up strips of cloth (we used old t-shirts), curl the damp hair around them, tie them in, and go to bed. By morning they are dry, you unroll them, and voila!! They had gorgeous curls. In fact, Ellie still has curls in her hair 3 days later!

Here's the finished cake project... Ellie bounced around from a castle cake, to a princess cake, then finally settled on a horse cake (her latest passion). I used a 2 quart pyrex bowl for the head and 2 10-oz pyrex bowls for the muzzle and neck. Add ears out of the scraps, a chocolate chip for the eye, and lots of frosting, and there you have it...I think it turned out super cute!

We always love having family over for parties!! It's a good excuse to visit, which we don't do often enough even though most of us live within 30 minutes of eachother. Ellie revelled in the on-slaught of gifts and attention.

One thing that we've prepared for this birthday is for her to stop sucking her thumb. It was a habit that she's been hanging onto and we made an agreement about 6 months ago that she'd stop sucking it on her 5th birthday and in exchange, she could take ballet lessons. I continually reminded her of her agreement and as of her birthday... no more thumb-sucking!! That girl has some will-power! I have yet to put her in lessons, though. I'm still looking into it...