Aubrey Turns Five!

I'm a little behind on this (by about two months), but Aubrey turned five years old in April! I can't believe she's that old and about to start kindergarten! But anyway, I digress. 

We started the day with our traditional Swedish pancakes, which Aubrey requested we make purple. She also decided to wear her birthday crown from preschool while she ate.

After breakfast, I nearly killed myself making rainbow velvet cupcakes for her birthday party. I had to make the batter, separate it out into six bowls, dye each one a different color, and then fill the (rainbow) cupcake liners with some of each batter. Unfortunately, I didn't do the best job of putting the same amount of each batter in the liners, but it still looked fairly rainbowy. The colors are just a bit darker because of the cocoa in the batter.

Then I piped rosettes on the tops. I had never done that before, and I was happy with them! You can see, however, that the cupcakes aren't exactly a uniform size. My first batch was overfilled, and then I did better on the second one. But that made them varied. Oh well, the frosting looked good!

So after the cupcakes were finished, we took them to Aubrey's party, which we had at a gymnastics place. We'd never done a party anywhere but our house (because cheap), but Aubrey had really wanted to do a party like the ones her preschool friends did at fun venues. Plus that way she could invite everyone she wanted. (Our house is too small to accommodate a lot of kids.) So that's what we did! And then she got zero presents from us; that was the exchange, which she was fine with.

Anyway, the "coaches" started the party with some stretches, which Aubrey--in typical fashion--refused to participate in. (Doing what everyone else is doing isn't really her thing.)

Then they did a follow the leader thing, with Aubrey leading (which definitely is her thing).

They all took turns jumping in the foam pit. And thankfully, Daniel got this amazing animation thing of Aubrey taking her turn--with a flourish!

Then they had to try to get out of the foam pit, which isn't exactly easy.

It didn't take long for the coaches to realize this group was going to do better with unstructured free play, so that's what they got. Aubrey was hilarious and started somersaulting over and through everything.

She really had a blast just running around everywhere, free to do her own thing.

Carter decided to spend his time crawling around and hanging on things.

And Aubrey and her friends did some hanging of their own!

At some point, the kids got the idea to roll each other around in one of the padded rings. 

And finally, just before it was time to be done, Aubrey did one last walk across the beam. Her balance has gotten so much better since her days of gymnastics in Massachusetts!

Before we went to the party room, we got a group shot of all the kids (well, except for Carter, who refused to join... but hey, what can you do?).

After eating some pizza, we sang and did cupcakes. I got this video of the song.

And then, at home, Aubrey got to open the presents from her friends. She was so excited! (We've always previously told friends not to bring presents, so it was a new and exciting experience for her.)

All in all, it was a successful birthday. Stay tuned for the traditional update on all things Aubrey!