Birthday Bliss

Here are some photos from Jarrah's sixth birthday. She'll have you know that she'll only be "Final Six" when she has her birthday party (we always wait until school is back in session, so kids are back from vacation), but we had a glorious time on the actual day.

First, there was some serious present-opening, a lot of it courtesy of Nana and Granddad in Perth. You may observe that she had a hairstyle and costume change mid-way through, since we couldn't see her face but the camera kept capturing her undies. The biggest thrill was a stunning satin and tulle ballerina skirt with matching top and hair ornament, which she insisted on putting on immediately. Since it was her birthday, I refrained from my typical Jewish mother speech along the lines of "Oy, it's positively ARCTIC out there; put on a sweat-uh before I faint!"



The first stop was lunch at Smashburger with BFF Joy. I was a bit mystified by the choice of Smashburger, since I told Jarrah she could eat anywhere in the world she wanted, and she doesn't actually eat burgers. But her decision never wavered with multiple queries, so Smashburger it was. Here you can see the girls getting their groove on to "Poker Face" with a shared iPod.











Next stop was Build-A-Bear in Fashion Valley, which really shows how much we love that girl, since the traffic getting in and out of the mall was legend. We made it, though, and I even gave in to the purchase of a dog bed for new Jack Russell friend, Alexandra. Joy got Sparkle Kitty, and--oh, happy day!--the dog and cat got along just fine.

At this point, I would like a moment of appreciation for carrying on with the rest of our glorious plans when I felt like Hell on Toast and wanted nothing more than to curl up with a blanket and some tea back at home. A big shout-out to Mary, for helping me through. She took Jarrah and Joy back to their place for some play time while I hightailed it home for a big bag of Warm Things and a loooong drive in rush-hour traffic to meet them and other Dear Ones Steph, Shaun and Nathan at Quail Botanical Gardens for holiday lights and--bliss!--SNOW!

Here's where I learned another of those glorious Lessons We Can Only Learn From Children, because all the adults were properly crestfallen when we saw that all that remained of "several tons of real snow" was a single dirty, icy ramp-like hill for sledding purposes. But were the kids disappointed? Um, see for yourself, Readers. There was surprisingly swift and frequent sledding for nearly two hours, resulting in three sopping-wet but happy and unfrozen cherubs who were eager to go find the promised S'Mores. Paul (also sick) was a champ and drove over with dry things so they could be warm and toasty standing around the fire with their marshmallow sticks (most of them did not make it to the toasted stage before consumption.) There was some glorious running and screaming amidst the twinkly lights (that place is just gorgeous this time of year) and a Cuban band that Stephanie bewitched into playing "Happy Birthday" for Jarrah, and just when all the adults were ready to keel over (all of us pretending it was actually the kids who were tired) we retired to a nearby Coco's for Kids Eat Free Tuesday and the pie Jarrah had requested instead of cake.

Yes, Friends, it was a big day in Birthday World.