Lilliana's 5th Birthday!

Today was Lilliana's 5th Birthday Party.  Dominike and I stayed up until 4 am getting the house decorated for the party.  I spend most of the night preparing the cake and food that we served.  I have to say, this is my best cake yet!

This was the first year she actually had school friends to invite.  And all that were invited came!  Maleena, Avery and her sisters, Malachi, and Devin are classmates that Lilliana has made connections with.  Because Lilliana is an only child, it is important to us that she gets to involve them in her life outside of school.  

The kids made their own gift bags when they came in 

When the kids came in, the made their own gift bags and got to fill it with all the goodies they wanted.  The vampire teeth was the biggest hit!

Maleena, Avery, Lilliana, Jayda, and Jazz

  Here we have all the ladies standing together for a photo.  They were all so sweet and so well behaved!

Izayah and Andrew are painting pumpkins

Izayah and Andrew are my husbands second cousins.  We were so happy to have them join us.  Here they are painting pumpkins.  I wanted to give the kids a crafty activity to do to keep them occupied.  What better way to celebrate Halloween than by decorating a pumpkin?  The kids were very creative!  Many of the painted pumpkins had a marbled effect to them because the paint had been globbed on all at once.  But once they dried they looked really neat!

Gift Time!

Lillliana's First Bicycle!

This was the year we decided to get Lilliana a bicycle.  I got my first bike at 5 as well and I loved it!  I went everywhere on my bike.  Sometimes I wish I had a bike to ride, but I enjoy the back pedal to brake bikes.  Now we can take Lilliana to the park to ride around.  Malachi lives near the park and his grandmother invited us for a bike ride after Malachi's birthday.

My masterpiece in its defining moment!

Best friends - Lilliana and Malachi 

They might just run away and join the circus...

 After the cake, the kids needed to go burn off some steam.  We all poured outside and let the kiddos run and climb all over.  Lilliana had an absolute blast.  We didn't have any meltdowns like last year, but she was asking us to wrap up the party so she could play with her new toys, LOL.  The parents had some fun too!  We are so grateful to everyone who came to celebrate 5 wonderful years with our little girl!