Leah's 5th Birthday

Happy birthday to my Leah Lulu.  Leah has been in love with Pandas for a while now, she even has an imaginary pet panda named CheeChoo who shows up occasionally.  She is also my little princess girl so she really wanted a Princess Panda cake. 

Hooray for my Carebear cake pan it once again saved the day.  Leah wanted a pink cake and strawberry ice cream for her birthday, go figure.

 Luckily it was a beautiful June day so that we could have her party outside.  Leah picked a guitar for her pinata this year and had so much fun strumming it in the store and at home that mom rescued it to survive until the party.  Leah was excited to have a family party as long as we could have balloons, games and a pinata.  Leah's Howell and Funk cousins came to join in the fun along with Nanas and Papa, aunts and uncles.

The festivities didn't end after the party though.  Leah had her Howell cousins: Gabby, Sage and Kirsten over for a giant sleepover.  The girls watched a Liken movie and then crashed in sleeping bags downstairs in the living room.  The next morning mom whipped up some yummy waffles at Leah's request.

 

Leah's present arrived a day late for her party but on time for her birthday.  She was thrilled with the Squinky Carousel just like the one she had been pining over at the Museum of Idaho gift shop during the Carousels exhibition.  She was also so excited to receive the movie Wall-E, "I love it" she exclaimed.

Leah requested to go to Leo's place for her family activity where she, Abi and Tal racked up a ton of tickets playing games in the arcade.  Leah fell in love with a ribbon dancer prize and Abi and Tal were kind enough to pool all of the tickets together so that she could get it for her birthday.  Afterwards we went and played at the playground.  As we were exiting the van Leah  excitedly told me, "I always wanted to be a ribbon dancer, and now I am.  I'm living the dream."  This girl cracks me up.

10 Things About Leah

1.  Leah remains my girly, girl..  She adores dressing up, wearing skirts, tutus, wings and crowns.  

2.  Her favorite color is still pink but "violet" not purple is making a run for it.  She loves violet because it is a color in the rainbow songs, while purple is not. 

3.  This girl loves her TV.  She has been running Netfix since she was about 2.  She is only allotted 2 hours of "screen time" a day but she will sneak downstairs to watch shows when I am not looking.  She loves CareBears and My Little Pony just as much as Fairly Odd Parents and Sponge Bob.  She just finds a new cartoon and watches all of the episodes.  Leah also loves playing games on the computer on the PBS kids website.

4.  When watching TV Leah loves doing art projects and crafts.  She loves to color, paint, cut, glue, and recently had become quite the little drawer.  She loves drawing princesses with poofy dresses and long hair as well as pictures of our family.

5.  When we go outside, Leah loves to ride her bike.  Her stamina isn't great though so we are challenging her to ride from our house to the bridge this summer, 0.5 miles, without stopping.  She also loves drawing with sidewalk chalk, jumping on the trampoline and playing with best friend Sam Hurley.

6.  Leah loves fried eggs, macaroni and cheese, ramen, strawberries, cheese sticks, yogurt and chicken nuggets.  She also has a sweet tooth and LOVES candy.  

7.  She is losing her baby teeth at an incredible clip.  The top four that came in with weak enamel that flaked off, we have been able to save from fillings or caps.  Hooray.  She is great at letting me brush and put on her paste.  

8.  She continues to have the cutest little lisp and difficulty saying R's and L's.  The lisp is accentuated by the loss of all of the baby teeth bu.t her Pediatrician says not to worry..

9.  Leah is our little entertainer.  She loves to sing and is one of the loudest in Primary.  She sings herself and Eva to sleep nearly every night.  She dances and twirls to Abi's piano practice.  And Leah can tell the funniest, most amazing stories.  

10.  Leah loves her babies.  The end of her bed is piled with stuffed animals, dolls, blankets and treasures.  Each night she takes a cadre of different babies and toys to bed along with her Ladybug Pillow Pet, Pink Fuzzy Pillow, and normal cupcake pillow.  It's almost hard to find our Leah in the bed.