Happy Birthday to Alice

Alice turned 6 last Thursday and you would have thought it was Christmas the way the boys acted. All the kids were up at 6.  Actually, the day before Rex had also woken up at 6 and got out of bed to set a special birthday table for Alice complete with the special birthday napkin.  He said he wasn't sure he'd wake up early again on Alice's actual birthday so he decided to celebrate a day early.  I thought it was sweet.

Alice got to open her birthday outfit.

Then take her traditional picture in the bathroom.  (I wonder why my niece Lark doesn't since she was also born in a bathroom?)

 Alice wanted a Pink Swipe birthday this year.  For those of you lam-os who don't know who Pink Swipe is, Pink Swipe is a super hero Alice created who has a pet cheetah and is married to Blue Swipe and has a daughter names Purple Swipe.  I'm not really sure what her powers are since they seem to change every time I ask Alice and mostly Alice just likes to talk about Pink Swipe's family--Blue and Purple Swipe and sometimes a few brothers are thrown in there, but not often.

 Alice really wanted her ears pierced for her birthday and aside from the fact that Grandma Pattie is anti-ear piercing, I couldn't think of a reason not to let her so after homework on Thursday we headed to the mall and got her ears pierced at...Claire's.  Surprise.  Greg wanted me to take her to a tatoo palor because he heard they do a better job but I thought that Claire's would be a more 6-year-old girl friendly place to go so we did.  But I did take a long time making sure her holes were lined up just right.  She just sat there patiently.  Rather than do the usually two-at-once approach, Alice opted to have one ear done at a time.  She said it hurt but in her usual, calm. matter-of-fact way she does for shots, etc.  Another reason I let her get her ear pierced: I knew she wouldn't cry or complain about it hurting.  If she was going to cry about it, I would have made her wait until she was older.  Then we walked around the mall a bit and made sure to get Rex a whoopie cushion because Henry had broken the one Rex bought himself, which is  a whole other ordeal and ended in early bedtimes and lots of tears and few wonderings to myself if my parenting is in vain and where I went wrong.  Back to Alice's birthday.

Alice's friend Lottie heart attacked her bed--Alice thought it was pretty great.

For dinner we had macaroni and cheese and 2 loaves of garlic bread because Alice is pretty obsessed with garlic bread.  Then we opened presents.

 And finished the night with cake.  Alice really wanted a cake in the shape of Pink Swipe.  I thought about doing the whole Barbie-in-the-cake thing, but really didn't think I could pull that off.  So last week, I took Alice to Hobby Lobby and let her pick out $24 worth of very expensive sprinkles and a $4 cake-topper to pacify her.  She was pleased.  It definitely isn't a Pinterest-worthy cake, but since when have my cakes been?  And Alice was pleased with it.

Then Saturday, Alice choose to go to Chuck E. Cheese with her best friend Lottie for her birthday activity.  I didn't see much of the girls but Zora and I had a decent time.  Zora thought the creepy, singing, animatronic mouse was cool but was terrified of the slowly spinning hot chocolate mug. Kids are weird.  Rex was supposed to go with us but when Lottie's parents dropped her off, they offered to take Rex with them to race go-carts (Lottie's older brother is one of Rex's best friends) so Rex went with them and Henry and Greg are at the beach in Florida, more on that later.

 Anyway, we're pretty pleased with Alice.  She's a hard-worker, is actually helpful when we ask her for help (as opposed to most children who just get in the way), is creative, and a fast-learner.  She likes to make people happy and is constantly apologizing when she doesn't fully meet someone's expectations--her kindergarten teacher (who is the same teacher Rex had) says she apologizes for not being as smart as Rex, which, first is not true, and second makes me sad.  We're working on that.  She also really likes to wrestle, sorry Wheatley boys, and isn't aware of her own or other people's personal bubbles, especially the Wheatley boys (sorry again).  She's terrified of animals, especially the Wheatley's cat, but to be fair that cat thinks it's a mix between a lion and a puppy.  And she hates shoes.  Like really hates shoes.  It takes her about 10 minutes to get her shoes on just right every morning.  But we love her nonetheless.