Amber turned six! Ever since Jay's birthday six months ago, Amber has been asking almost every single day "Alexa, how many days until November 4th?" Thank goodness for voice-command devices and their ability to do day-counting math in the blink of an eye. Amber's day came at last, and she reveled in every special Birthday Activity.
The night before, Jeff and I put six balloons on Amber's bed while she was asleep. We also wrapped her roller skates in separate gift bags to make her birthday gift display more expansive. Perception is reality.
At 7am on the birthday, Amber opened her presents: three packs of gum from Rose, a coupon for 15 paper airplanes from Jay, and an art kit, playdough, and roller skates from us parents. She was pleased with her haul and alternated between skates, playdough, and drawing all day long, with gum in her mouth most of the time. She wore her roller skates to her kindergarten class's daily Zoom meeting, although I did make her spit out the gum for the meeting.
In the evening, we had our local family members over for birthday dinner and cake. While we were at the store picking out pretty paper plates a few days before her birthday, Amber declared that she wanted cheese pizza for her birthday dinner. When I asked her if she was sure she didn't want macaroni and cheese like usual, she was sure. On her birthday, she said "we're having mac for dinner!" I said "You chose pizza and it's too late to change your mind!"
At 4:00, Jeff picked up Little Caesar's pizza while the girls helped me set the table in our skinny kitchen. We crammed 12 chairs around our 6-person table. It was epic. We had 13 guests coming, but we figured with 7 kids and 6 adults eating pizza, we could make it work just fine. It worked, and was even somehow less chaotic than I was expecting. It was definitely chaotic and loud, but it wasn't as chaotic and loud as I expected, so that was a plus.
Grama and Grampa gave Amber a kids makeup set and the girls immediately painted fingernails, eyelids, cheeks, and lips in various shades of pink and blue. While the adults talked, the kids played with Amber's gifts. Jay escaped the hoard of youngsters in his room with a book. At one point, there were six kids clustered on our small kitchen floor, busily pounding, rolling, and cutting playdough. It was cute but too crowded for me even to reach my phone for a picture!
Amber's birthday cake of choice was a yellow cake mix with a can of pre-made chocolate frosting that came with rainbow sprinkles. I employed the trick I learned last year and microwaved the can of frosting so I didn't even have to spread it on the cake; I simply poured the melted frosting on top, shook on the sprinkles, and POOF, a low-maintenance birthday cake was done!
At 7pm we said goodbye to the cousins and cleaned up the birthday mess by gathering the corners of the pink plastic tablecloth and tossing everything into the trash bin outside. It may sound lazy, but I prefer to think of it as efficient.
1 comment:
Lingering satisfaction with her birthday.....What a good mom you are to make it so!
She is the cutest spunky little curly-head, and you are giving her room to live life to the fullest!
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