Flip Flop Fun

Our middle daugther, M., turned 5 on August 2. Let me tell you just a little bit about her. M. figured out long ago what it means to be the 'middle' child. I thought we had done all we could, to keep that "middle child syndrome" from showing up at our house but somehow, it happened anyway. M. will NOT be left out! Because of the 'middle child' stuff, M. loves it when she can be the center of attention. However, being the center of attention is also hard for her because it brings out her shyness. Her NaNa and PaPa sent her a balloon bouquet for her birthday. When it came, I sent M. to the door to get it. The lady said, "Are you M.?"

M. just nodded

The lady said, "I've been looking for you."

And I thought M. might just turn around and run. But she didn't. She took the balloons from the lady but refused to speak in order to say thank you.

M. is my only blond, blue eyed little girl and she takes great pride in that most of the time. Although, she is holding out hope that her baby brother is going to receive all those recessive genes that she got. She tells everyone that she looks like Grammy and Uncle H. (who are both blond).

M. has a sweet, sweet personality and she loves her sisters dearly. But, if wrongly accused - everyone better watch out. She will explode into tears and you can't even talk to her. Or understand what she might be saying to you, either. She wants (and expects) everything to be fair. It breaks my heart to watch her have to learn that life just isn't that way.

M. is also a thinker. She thinks about a lot of things and asks many, many questions to which I usually don't have answers.

M. is also a girl who, once she has made her mind up, doesn't waiver in her decisions. A couple of weeks ago, I told my older two girls that they had two weeks to decide whether or not they wanted to take dance this year or not so we could sign up. M. informed me that she didn't need two weeks to decide. She already knew that she wanted to take gymnastics and not dance this year. Her birthday present was NO exception. She wanted a new bike. A barbie bike to be exact. We went and looked at bikes and she did not for even one minute want to look at anything that didn't have barbie on it.

We have a rule in our family that we only have big "friends" birthday parties when someone turns 5, 10, or 16. Our M. has been looking forward to her 5th birthday since her big sister's party two years ago. So, we spent most of the end of last week preparing for the party.

M. chose to have a pool party. I was so worried about her party since we had just moved 2 hours from all of her friends and I was afraid that we wouldn't know enough people in just 5 weeks to invite. However, the whole day was a big success -- full of friends old and new who took time out of their day to celebrate with M. It was so great to see everyone!

This pool was in a town about 30 mintues away from where we live now. It was an indoor pool that had a whole water park kind of area. It started out very shallow with lots of water spouts and gradually got deeper. It stayed at 3 ft. so most of the kids could stand up in it. At the very end though, it did deepen to 4 ft. and had a water slide. The older kids loved this part. I think we had a couple who spent the entire two hours just going down the slide. I apparently didn't get a picture of the slide.

After the swimming we went to another room for cake and ice cream. And for M. to open her gifts.

Another case in point about M. never changing her mind is her birthday cake seen here. The invitations we sent out had flip flops on them. I tried (HARD) to stir her toward a cake that would fit that theme....She would have none of it. She saw this cake that has Lilo and Stitch on it and had to have it. Can I just tell ya'll that I don't know for sure that she has ever even seen the movie 'Lilo and Stitch'.....

I think we all had a really fun day and my M. had the best day ever! Thanks to all of our sweet friends for making it such a special day for her. I think it will be one she will NEVER forget! Happy 5th Birthday, M.!!!