Five!

People who have older kids always say, "it all goes by so fast".  It didn't seem like it was all going very fast for the first few years, but all the sudden it really is.  I can't believe we are the parents of a 5 year old!  And what an amazing five year old she is.  She's bright, inquisitive, engaging, snuggly, feisty, motivated, and strong.  I have so much fun hanging out with this girl.  She makes me giggle and think in ways that I have never.  We love you Macalister Jane!

Above is the invitation we sent for her party.  We decided to go big for her celebration of the 5th trip around the sun.  She was very excited to donate food to the food shelf after her party and romp around with her friends.  We knew that Dec. 22nd would be a tough day, but more than 20 people responded to say that they'd join us for fun at the Fun Zone at Smugglers Notch.  We were most excited about the fact that three of her cousins, aunts and uncles, and one set of grandparents would be able to make it for the event.

Unfortunately, as the weather gods would have it, the weather was terrible on her birthday.  It had rained and frozen and the roads were all covered with a sheen of ice.  My brother called at 8:30am to tell us that he had called Smuggs to inquire about swimming after the party and the operator told him that the entire resort was out of power.  When I called, they told me the power was back on, but I couldn't get in touch with anyone about the status of the Fun Zone.  Because we had already shopped for all the food, her family was all there, and I thought parents might want to let their kids get energy out in an indoor environment, we decided to keep with the plan.  And I'm so glad we did:

The kids had a ball!

And so did the adults:

While only about half of the guests actually made it to the party, Cally didn't seem to be phased.  She loved seeing her cousins and the friends and families that made it there.  

We made it home for some gift opening

And even got a few good family shots:

Cally got to have her family birthday dinner the night before.  She couldn't decide between eating latkes, falafal, or calzones.  In the end, she choose calzones which she got to assemble herself and eat with her grandparents.  On the night of her actual birthday, the parents went out to dinner while she stayed home with her cousins and got to have her favorite babysitter for the night.