Five Years Old

Zaylee turned five years old today.




Look at that smile! She has such a fun and cheerful personality.



And she can sometimes be a little wild and in-your-face. :-)


To celebrate turning five, Jeff took Zaylee to the library and helped her get her very own library card, which made her feel very grown up! She got to check out her own books and everything.

We gave Zaylee the royal treatment of being able to choose what to eat today. She chose pancakes for breakfast and pizza for dinner. She has good taste. :-)

I made her birthday cake to look like a jeweled crown. Yellow decorator sugar, ice cream cones, and Jolly Ranchers made for a sparkly cake that Zaylee just loved. The kids helped me to decorate - Zaylee by choosing the colors for the jewels, and Thomas by making sure that the frosting still tasted good every few seconds. The cake didn't turn out quite like I was planning, but it was fun, tasty, and we all liked it.


We gave Zaylee two great gifts - a watercolor paint set, and a pillow buddy (pillow that folds up into a stuffed animal).






I made this pillow buddy last night, and it took so much longer than I expected it to! I thought it would be maybe an hour or two, but no! I was up until nearly 2:00 in the morning, having started making it around 8:30, after putting the kids to bed.




I used this two-part tutorial (part 1, part 2), using a faux mink blanket I got at a thrift store. I have to say, I LOOOOOVE the way it turned out! And Zaylee was really excited about it. So excited she wouldn't stand still long enough for a decent picture. But who needs a "good" picture when you can capture joy like this? :-)


She has named her pillow buddy Polly, and is snuggled in bed with it right now.

All in all, a great day for everyone.