Chloe's 5th Birthday Party!

Chloe had her FIFTH birthday party today! She is not officially 5 for a few more days still, but today was her party. She had a lot of fun!

She wanted a FISH themed party this year. We had blue balloons taped to the ceiling with blue and green ribbon tied to them, to give the house an under the sea feel. I made these invitations with "swimming" fish on them. The top part spins around on a little brad. Chloe colored and glued the fish on by herself. She loves to help!

We had the last rotation of the invitation say, "You'll have a FIN-tastic time!"

Here are the cupcakes I made:

Multi-coloured fish! The scales, eyes, and lips were M+M's, and the fins are these orange slice candies. Fun to make! The girls had fun helping with this too!

We had fun planning out the goody bags. They had things like Goldfish crackers, Swedish Fish candies, fish stickers, and these little fish tanks! They are really just Swedish Fish candy in blue Jell-O that I put in little jars:

We planned out a whole bunch of fun fishy games too. I meant to put these pictures on the end of this post, but they ended up here instead. Here are some of the girls fishing for their goody bags. Izzy loved hooking them on the fishing rod on the other side:

We played a game where they had to eat like fish do--with no hands! They had to try to eat the donuts on a string with their hands behind their backs. A little messy, but fun! It was a little tricky to do with no hands.

They made paper plate fish, with glued on aluminum foil for the scales:

They also made these homemade bottle aquariums. They filled empty bottles with glitter, ribbon, fake grass, craft balls, rocks, and of course, fish! It resembled aquariums and under the ocean, and when you turn the bottle upside down it is fun to watch things sink to the bottom, and float to the top.

We also played Pin The Fish On The Hook:

Most did a good job avoiding the hook!

I made this game, Fish For Your Name, where I put letters of their names on little fish, and put metal paperclips through the mouth of the toy fish. Then I made little fishing rods for them out of wooden dowels, string and magnets. Then they got to fish for the letters of their names! I let them take their letters and fishing rods home as a souvenir too. I found a pack of those little toy fish at the dollar store. There were over 100 little fish in the bag. Great find for this party!

Cupcake time!

Presents!

Ben and I are saving her gifts from us until her real birthday, but we did give her one from us today too. Ben had to go upstairs and bring it down. Here are some pictures of Chloe's reaction:

It was a real fish for Chloe! She loves it very much. She named it, Goldie Bubbles Swimmer Anderson. She calls it Goldie for short:

It is just a tiny guppy.

The person at the pet store told us to start with one small one and then get a bigger one after about a month. This is our official first pet!

Chloe is excited to keep it in her room and feed it and take care of it. Happy birthday Chloe! We love you very much!

Izzy's Teapot

Olivia loves to play on Izzy's new iPod, but thinks that it is called a teapot. It is actually really cute when she asks, "Where is Izzy's Teapot? Can I play on Izzy's Teapot?"

Olivia misses Izzy and Lily when they go to school. Yesterday she woke up and came down after they had already left and she asked, "Where is my Izzy? Where is my Lily?" I think she was trying to say where are my sisters and it came out like that instead. Too cute.

Olivia has learned how to play the computer. I think Chloe is the main one who has taught her. She plays on Starfall.com and loves it! She can maneuver the mouse and everything, all on her own. She is only 2 and a half! All my other kids did not learn how to work the mouse and play on the computer until they were much older. I said to Olivia, "How did you get so smart?" She said, "From the pooter and Lily's DS." She likes Lily's DS too apparently!

Almost every week at church someone compliments me on how well behaved the girls are in Sacrament Meeting. They say things like, "You are so lucky your girls just sit there nicely and colour, while my kids run wild!" There are many times I feel like my girls are running wild too, but it is nice to hear sometimes that people notice them when they do behave well. This past Sunday an older lady was sitting behind us and afterwards told us, "Your girls are so well behaved. They sit so reverently and quietly." She was saying that she loved to watch them, and at one point Olivia was gently playing with Chloe's pigtails and was holding them up to her own head as if to say,"I wish I had hair too." She said it was really cute. I didn't even notice! Olivia's hair is really short for her age! It just grows so slowly. Every child is very different and unique, even if they are from the same family!