Madi's Birthday weekend!

Last Friday, June 28th, Madi turned six!! All month long she'd been reminding us that it's "her month" and would then add, "so I can do whatever I want!" Phew... thank goodness June is finally over! :) Her birthday turned into a weekend full of fun which started Friday morning when she woke up and discovered her special birthday visitor - Papa!! My mom was away babysitting other cousins in NC and then Texas, so Madi figured no one was coming. My parents have been able to see Madi every year on, or at least within a few days of her birthday, so we were grateful to Papa for carrying on the tradition!

Friday was a nice low key day. We had an early celebration in the morning with pancakes and presents before Spencer left for work.

Nancy Sanchez (Madi's primary teacher for next year) came over in the morning to do some face painting (something Nancy loves doing on the kids birthdays).

Then we headed out for ice cream and shopping with Papa to show off the girls beautiful "princess faces".

Halfway into our shopping trip Madi started feeling sick and wanted to go home. I had her favorite birthday dinner and dessert planned, but Madi just wasn't up for it. She took a bath and got ready for bed instead. I was feeling really worried since a birthday party was on the agenda for the next day. Spencer gave Madi a blessing before bed which helped her to relax and fall asleep. Then in the morning, after a solid 12 hours of sleep, Madi was as good as new!

I spent most of the day on Saturday getting ready for the big birthday party, but Papa, Spence, Madi, and Elle were able to go off for some fun during the day. Check out the sweet ride Papa drove down for the weekend. We had a lot of fun with that car in the 3 days Papa was here.

At 2pm the party started. Madi had 9 little girl friends come, so with her and Elle it was a total of 11 girls, plus 2 neighbor girls who came over as helpers. Madi was very specific about what she wanted to do at her party, the dessert she wanted, what games to play, etc. I wanted the party outside so we called it a backyard garden party and planned some of the games around the bunny theme that Madi wanted.

We started off with a little scavenger hunt to find the cotton balls they would need for our first game.
Here's the girls searching:

Then they used their cotton balls to play "Pin the tail on the bunny" (drawn by Spencer himself). Madi loved getting to spin each of her friends before their turn.

We had a flower craft (which ate up a lot of our time),

Then we tried to fit in a few more games before cupcakes and ice cream cones. Originally Madi asked for carrot cupcakes which I thought would be easy to make, but the cones weren't staying upright in the oven and I just got frustrated and gave up.  I was very happy with our much easier option!

A light breeze kept blowing out the candles. Madi got a kick out of watching her candles blow out while everyone sang to her.

Present opening was Madi's favorite part of the party. She's such a one-on-one kind of girl and loved having individual time with her friends. Each friend got to sit next to Madi while she opened their present and I took pictures to mail with the thank you cards Madi mailed out. Here's the line up:

I love how patient and calm little girls are. They were all so cute and loved watching Madi open all of her gifts. Parents started coming as soon as the first gift was opened so Madi ended up opening in the order of arriving parents.

I was quite pleased with how the party turned out. Two hours flew by! I had enough stuff planned that I could have easily filled another hour. Once the last guest left, we woke Cal up from his nap and took off for the beach- one of Madi's favorite beaches- the one with the swings!

The kids played, we splashed in the ocean, walked on the pier, and had a grand time!

Madi sporting her new dress (from friend Natalie) and glasses (from Lily)

Happy birthday Madi! We love you so much!