Alora's Birthday Weekend

Last Friday was Alora's Birthday! My baby is six years old. After many years of celebrating with what I call "The Big To Do", we were very low key this year and just spent time with family. Now I say "just spent time with the family" because, as a parent, i often feel the "keeping up with the Jones'" pressure and want to have a party that is, in my mind, huge and proper for my kids, as if the size of the party is somehow a measure of my love for them. Normal party mentality is: 25 kids+elaborate decorations+perfect theme+perfect location=perfect party. Now I am not sure where this mentality came from; my parents did not bring me up this way so apparently its something I came up with on my own. Having said all that, we had a fabulous "low key" event that ended up being the three day birthday extravaganza and every bit of it truly thrilled Alora. It all started on Thursday, the night before her birthday.

We suprised Alora by telling her Thursday that her "BFF" could spend the night. These two girls had a blast dressing up, playing games and running around the house. They always have a blast spending the night together. They crashed around 10pm in the same bed cuddled up together and awoke Friday morning to birthday breakfast, cinnamon rolls. We sang around the table at the exact time of her birth-Very Cool!

We then headed to Pell City for some family fun. There were a couple of things Alora asked for her birthday: a cake with flowers all over it, some flowers on the table, pizza for dinner and for her gifts, clothes and money! Mimi came through. There was a cake, pizza and flowers, not to mention "the singing balloon" which was the hit of the party. Mimi had a cake ordered from Edgars Bakery in Birmigham so I cannot take credit for this masterpiece, although I think I could have made that cake. It was nice to have the baking pressure removed, I have been baking a good bit lately and appreciated the time off, so "thank you" Mimi! One of Alora's favorite things was a toy learning laptop that has not left her side since she opened it, thank you Papa Bud!



Now before I move on to Saturday I just have to say that my entire family knows that I am blogging now, so when they see me flashing a camera they know that this could possibly be a picture that will be featured on my blog. Without further explanation, this is one of those pics that i could not pass up.

I mean who needs 25 kids at a party when you have a crazy BiBi!
On Saturday we were off to Meemaw and Poppies house for some more family fun. Now what you need to know is that Alora is not the only birthday that occurs in October. I don't know why we haven't done this before, but we got the fam together and celebrated everyone: Alyssa (Sept.), Angie (Oct.), Ashley (Oct.), Eryne (Oct.), Abby (Oct.), Alora (Oct.), Kayla (Nov.). I hope thats right, its hard to keep up with it! When I was at the end of my pregnancy with Alora we knew we would have a C-section so the doctor sat us down to schedule it. I remember sitting with the calendar and begging him to squeeze her in on the 10th so that she could be born on a day that was all hers, seeing as how there was already a birthday on the 9th and 11th. We had a blast getting everybody together and as you can see from the pic, Alora got her money and a cute little purse to house it all.



Meemaw gave her 25 one dollar bills all tied together. Alora thought she was rich! After food and cake, the kids ran outside to play with--new toys? no. an electric game? no. high dollar in line skates? no. These kids were having a blast with a bucket, an ancient skateboard and a hill. I cannot tell you how much fun they had taking turns and pushing each other down this hill. They also made fake snow. Hangin' with cousins was a real treat for Alora and Andrew.


What did Alora do with all of her birthday money she received from her family? She took her purse, from Uncle David and Aunt Tammy, filled it with greenbacks and went shopping for more clothes, of course! She has a good eye. I did not have my camera, but my mom and I chuckled many times to ourselves as she, with purse over her shoulder, moved through racks of clothes to pick out her new ensemble, including a fabulous pair of boots. I have called her, my little Punky Brewster but I have to say, she is quite the fashion diva. She did not spend it all, however, wanting to keep coke machine money on hand for late night church cravings.

We love spending time with our families and we loved celebrating Alora's birthday with them. We are richly blessed in so many ways. Happy Birthday, Alora!!!