Lottie turns 5

 I can't believe it!  My little girl is really growing up.

 She was so excited on Thursday morning to see her bike.  This girl was made to bike around.
She loves it and now with her new wheels she can finally keep up with Jack.

 Our rule for birthday parties is only on ages 5,8,12 and 16.  Now that Lottie's birthday is over I am so grateful for that.
It was so much fun but also so much work and John and I were exhausted afterwards. 

When we were thinking about what kind of party to have for her we decided we should incorporate her most favorite thing which is biking -
so we had everyone bring their bikes and we had a bike party.

We made little name plates and then attached them to their bikes with zip ties.

Then we let them loose on our obstacle course. 

It was so much fun.  A little too fun maybe because we started attracting a whole bunch of neighbor kids.  That's when we had to pull everyone in for presents.

All of Lottie's presents have been a huge hit with all my kids.  Our cousin Emma gave her this parachute and everyone thought it was the coolest thing ever.

We fed everyone pizza and this little group of girls always seemed to end up together on the circle.  I'm so grateful for all these cousins that Lottie gets to grow up with.

At the end of the day when I was tucking her in she said to me, "It's too bad you didn't come to my party mom, you missed all the fun!"  HA!!  Isn't that just how it is.  Here I slaved over this party and was involved in every moment of it and she didn't even notice me there.  Oh well, she had a fun birthday and that's all that matters, right?