6/23/14

Ava turns 5!


 My little girl turned 5 a few weeks ago. 
I can't believe it!!
 We made pancakes and sang to her.  She loves getting sung to.
 Her cake this year was a DQ ice cream cake knock-off, so I had to make all the pieces and put it together a few pieces at a time.  It kept melting on me, so it was a tad difficult to assemble.  The cake was delicious though. I just layered 3 different ice cream flavors (chocolate, vanilla, and dulce de leche) along with a fudge cookie layer in the middle (crushed oreos mixed with a jar of hard shell chocolate).  YUMMY!!!
 The primary presidency came by and made her a birthday balloon hat.  She loved it. Another lady in our ward brought her a tutu and book because they were "birthday twins".  So nice.

 Here's the cake.  It's the same shape as our pool.  The gray bench, diving board and pool noodles are similar to what we have out there too.  I wanted to make the slide curve like our slide, but couldn't get it to keep that shape. The 'water' is blue gelatin.  Again, because the cake had to be frozen it posed problems I didn't think about.  I put the gelatin in the 'pool' and after an hour or so it froze, so I couldn't add the kids and it didn't look like water anymore.  I tried again about an hour before we were going to eat it and it still froze too much.  Finally, I just added everything and then added the gelatin right before we pulled it out of the freezer.  It finally worked.

 The kids loved to see themselves being made for the cake. Grant is the one in the red inner-tube (he always wears goggles to swim too).  Ava is obviously the one with blonde curly hair, and since Noah is ALWAYS under water, I had him diving into the pool. 

 Ava LOVED her cake!!  My kids associate their birthdays with what cake are they getting, not what presents are they getting.  In fact, they rarely even ask for presents on their birthdays (Christmas is a different story!!).  It's great, and a little funny, that the cake is what they look forward to most on their birthdays.  
Ava did get a new bike for her birthday.  I swore I took pictures of her on the bike, but can't find them on my memory card.  I probably didn't have a memory card in the camera at the time, and just started snapping pictures.  I've been known to do that numerous times.  I'll have to get her on it and take some pictures.

 See how happy she is when everyone is singing to her?  So cute.
 Happy Birthday my beautiful girl!!  We sure love you!
Of course, all the kids wanted to "eat themselves". :)

A few things about Ava:
* She loves her curly hair (hopefully that continues) and tries to tame it in the mornings by herself (which makes it worse).
*She loves to look at books.  Multiple times a day she will either go to her room or down by the book cupboard and just look at books for 30-60 minutes.  Occasionally she likes me to read them to her, but most of the time she just likes to look at them by herself.
*She loves to swim and is an incredible swimmer.  She spends about as much time under water as Noah.  She doesn't really like to wear goggles and opens her eyes the whole time underwater, so she usually has blood shot eyes during the summer - along with green hair.
*She loves avocados, "chicken" (all meat is chicken to her), cherry tomatoes, string cheese, milk, sweets, noodles, carrots, cucumbers, nuts...... She really likes almost anything.
*Ava is very sweet and social.  She is not afraid to talk to anyone or try new things.  
*She loves to color, and her recent thing is to color pictures and drop them in our neighbors (Doug and Linda) mail slot.   They get a couple pictures a day.
*She gets embarrassed when she gets in trouble, or does something wrong, and tries to change the subject or say "that's weird". 
*She can play and have a running dialogue for hours with just her and a few stuffed animals; however, she definitely prefers to play with Grant (or honey, what she calls Grant when they are playing), and sometimes Noah. 
*She pronounces many words and phrases wrong - nastics (gymnastics) hims (his) 
*She loves to be outside, riding her bike, making a mess (she frequently turns dirt into mud), exploring, jumping.....
*She still get emotional during movies when something sad happens. 
*She LOVES Nala.
*She gets really excited about things (birthdays, adventures, watching a movie, etc.). 
 
We are so glad we get to have this cute girl in our family!

4 comments:

ellisgomez said...

That cake is amazing! perfect :) Happy Birthday Ava girl!

Karen said...

Wow! You should go into the cake making business. You are amazing!! I can't believe Ava is 5. She is such a beautiful little girl! :)

Becca said...

Stop it. Just stop. That cake is ridiculous (in a good, annoyingly awesome way). Ugh. (insert giant smiley face here)

Ambs said...

I am in awe of this cake... just wow! You are such an artist!