Annie's 5th Birthday

Annie turned 5 on October 29th. We had her birthday party the Saturday before her actual birthday. She was a bit vague about what she wanted for her birthday, so it evolved into an animal theme.

Here's the crazies after helping clean up the back yard for the party:

 They made themselves some animal masks, then we did a circus obstacle course a la Madagascar 3. We played a variation of Sharks and Minnows.

 Hello Kitty piñata. This was the only thing she really had her heart set on.

 We got all the activities done and presents open and still had almost an hour to go and only cupcakes left to do, so we turned on Penguins of Madagascar (the TV show, not the movie) since there were plenty of animals there.

 Then we moved on to cupcakes. Yum!

 We saved Annie's presents from us for her actual birthday. Rachel was a bit jealous over this stationary set.

 The most popular present by far was this Polly Pocket set. I found it on Craigslist for something like $5 and it has several dolls and tons of clothes, plus a car.

The girls have been playing with it non-stop since Annie opened it.

As for Annie, we are blessed to have her in our family. She has a fun sense of humor, even if she hasn't quite grasped the nuances of knock knock jokes yet. She is enjoying school and has lots of friends there. She is a great student, doing well academically, as well as always having outstanding behavior. Her school has a behavior tracking system where they get BTS points for good behavior or positive contribution in class, and negative points for not listening to the teacher, or disobeying rules. Annie has never gotten negative points, and gets positive points several times a week. 

In our home she is good at helping in the kitchen--she loves cooking. She does not love chores, however. She and Ryan fight a lot less than they used to, but still have their moments. Rachel and Annie are pretty much best friends and get along really well most of the time (until one of them punches the other a little too hard). 

Annie is getting really good at reading and most of the time can read her verse for family scripture study with very little help. She tries to avoid reading books out loud and prefers us to read to her, but on those rare occasions when we get her to read I am impressed with how well she is doing. She's a smartie pants and a good friend. Happy birthday, Annie!