Afton's fifth birthday

Today our sweet, fun, spunky, beautiful little Afton turned five! The festivities began a few days ago...

Afton had mentioned that she'd like to go to the zoo for her birthday. Saturday Dan had some stuff to do in the morning. After an early lunch we headed to the Richmond Metro Zoo. It was better then we expected! Lots and lots of animals and we could see pretty much all of them (not too many hiding asleep in the shade).

 We could feed the giraffes. Sam and I both fed this one. Yuck.

(In honor of Grandma and Grandpa Cheney coming to visit, our kids decided to wear their Cheney shirts.)

We met my parents back at our house, visited for a while, and then headed out for Afton's second request - Chick-fil-a. Then we came back to our house for presents and cake. Afton opened her presents first.

This baby stole the show. It's a Frozen themed Lego castle.

She also received shoes, a dress, a nightgown, a puzzle, a pillowcase, and Sleeping Beauty.

Afton had drawn a picture of what she wanted her cake to look like:

I gathered she wanted a layered blue and pink cake (similar to one she saw in a Sleeping Beauty book). Here's what I came up with. It was a little rough (especially the drapey things on the sides) but she didn't seem to mind. It was my first tiered cake.

She's the cat's pajamas.

Our traditional pic with the birthday kid.

Sunday she got sung to during primary and we ate leftover cake. She and Sam put together the lego castle and played with it pretty much all day.

Today, her actual birthday, I invited a bunch of people from church to meet at a park for a playdate. She had lots of friends come and it was a beautiful morning. She wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty, so she and Sam did that, too. We also went to the gym and they gave her a free shake. We had pasta for dinner, and she got to blow out another candle. (I had an extra "tier" left over from the first cake, so I decorated that for her to use today.)

 We got a little creative with our wrapping. Dan drew this picture of Afton astride her purple stick unicorn, Majesty.

She had a great birthday! We are so blessed to have her in our family.