Birthday

Vivian celebrated birthday week with three parties, the now traditional dinner at Musashino, and a special Grandma Princess Day. For her actual birthday party at home, she invited all the kids in her class at school and a few other friends. Jo created a ice-cream themed party and turned the garage into Vivian's Ice Cream Shoppe - with a few gallons of Amy's Ice Cream ice cream, toppings, checked table cloths, bubble-making machines, and birthday cup cakes in the shape of an ice cream cone. It threatened to rain all morning and then cleared up before the party.

 

In the pictures below, there are a couple of things worth noting.  These two pictures were taken early in the party. First, note that Vivian is wearing a light pink fluffy dress. The pictures above were taken about a hour later. Note that she's wearing a dark blue dress - in fact the same dress she wore at her 3rd birthday party. At some point she asked Ms. Mary to help her - and there was a quick costume change. We didn't notice it till later.

Also note the large cardboard box with the hand drawn ice cream cone. I drew that at 11pm the night before the party. I was supposed to cut a window in the middle of the pink ice cream portion and the box was to serve as prop in a bean bag toss game. About an hour into the party, the box was pushed on to it's side and six or seven kids camped out in there for some time. We had to trick them into coming out when the ones towards the back started turning purple. Kids love boxes.

A day before Vivian's party, she asked me if she could start doing grown-up things because she was going to be four now. I said No. "How about on my 5th birthday Daddy? Can I drive then?" Check back in about 12 months to see if you want to keep off the streets.