Caroline's 6th Birthday!

I can't believe she is already six!

We had a family party to celebrate Caroline's birthday this past weekend. Her Gran, Grandad, Gramma, uncle, aunt, and cousin were able to come. We had lunch first: chicken salad from Chick-fil-A on croissants, fruit salad, taco dip with tortilla chips, crab pasta salad that my mom made, and tea and Coke. After everyone had eaten their fill (and I was going back for more... yeah, finally gaining weight, and in a sudden large quantity!), it was on to presents!

From Mommy and Daddy, Caroline got an optic explorer (a telescope/microscope tool she has been asking for), Tree Connectagons, and Little House of the Prairie paper dolls.

From Gramma and Grampa, she got a pet cat for her 18 inch doll (intended for American Girl dolls, which are the same size as the girls' Madame Alexander dolls) and a castle floor puzzle.

Uncle Mike, Aunt Crystal, and Julianne gave her some new books to read.

Gran and Grandad gave Caroline a magnetic mosaic picture maker. Here is a photo of what the girls created with it the next day:

And here Daddy shows Caroline how to use the telescope feature of the optic explorer.

Caroline requested a fairy castle cake. It was lots of fun to make it! Here are several different angles:

We used these fairy figurines that Caroline had gotten for Christmas to decorate it.

Everybody sang "Happy Birthday..."

...and Caroline blew out all the candles!

The girls had already made pre-arrangements as to who got to lick which fairy figurine.

The castle towers and turrets were made from ice cream cones, which everyone enjoyed after cake - even the adults!

This one was too cute to leave out... Cecilia works on her ice cream cone.

Happy Birthday, Caroline! You are growing up so quickly and are becoming more and more helpful and independent - reading books fluently and tying your own shoes - I can hardly believe it!