Cora is 5. For Realsies.

I remember putting a calendar together for Preston's mom around Christmastime.  I was putting everyone's birthday on the calendar, and I remember how stunned I felt when I put down that my littlest little girl was going to turn FIVE in April.  Crazy!  And now it has come and gone already.  My little Cora is five years old.    

The day before Cora's birthday, Grandma Zaugg came over for dinner.  Cora had decided that she wanted to have a Hello Kitty birthday.  I am not sure why, but I was all for it because there are a TON of Hello Kitty party supplies readily available.  Since it was a Hello Kitty birthday, I was going to make Corbie a Hello Kitty cake.  The only problem was, I had procrastinated the cake baking, and so I had to frost it about 5 minutes before we ate it.  Good thing Hello Kitty is not too hard to draw.  Even better that the 5-year-old only cares that the cake decoration it is made of FROSTING, and not how well it is done.  

Preston unfortunately had to work on Cora's actual birthday, so most of the festivities on the big day were left up to me.  Cora's friend party was planned for right after preschool on Cora's birthday.  Arden had been having a rough weekend with her new braces and was feeling bad about missing the party since she was still going to be at school.  I am a braces veteran and have a soft spot for braces-related suffing, so I caved in and took Arden out of school for a "long lunch" so she could come to the party.  She wore her Hello Kitty shirt for the occasion.  Cora was excited to have her big sister there!

Cora had a great morning at preschool, and got to wear the "Birthday Queen" crown.  After preschool, all of Cora's little friends came over for the party.  Since I had EIGHT 4- and 5-year olds on my hands, most of my time was spent playing party hostess and not enough time was spent playing party photographer.  I feel so bad, I didn't even get a picture with all the party guests. Oh well, we had fun and we will just have to have good memories of this birthday since I didn't preserve them on film...or on memory, or whatever.  

We had the traditional pizza lunch on our Hello Kitty plates and drank water from our Hello Kitty cups and wiped our hands with our Hello Kitty napkins.  Then we played "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty."  Here is Cora taking her turn.  She is either cheating really really bad or she is the best Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty player ev-er.  Hmmmmm.

Her little friend E had everyone laughing when she tried to pin Hello Kitty's bow on the partygoers instead of the poster.

 After that, we did a treasure hunt for Hello Kitty party favors (no pictures), and broke a Hello Kitty pinata (no pictures, but I had a good excuse for that.  I was using every once of my energy trying to make sure that the pinata was the only thing that got hit with the stick.  It was hard because Hello Kitty started slowly leaking candy pretty early on.  When a piece or two would fall out, everyone would try to run in and grab for the candy while the stick was still a-swingin'  We all survived somehow).

After the pinata, Arden was feeling sad because, well...I am not sure exactly why.  I know it had something to do with the fact that Cora was taking the "Birthday Queen" title a little bit far.  She was more like the "Birthday Tyrant."  Anyway, Arden ran up to her room.  All the cute little girlies followed her up the stairs, worried about her.  They decided that they would try to make her feel better by singing her a song.  They chose to sing (what else?) "Let it Go" to cheer her up at the top of their cute little voices.  It was so sweet! Arden decided to rejoin the party...partly because of the singing, partly because it was cupcake-and-ice cream time!

Like I said, I totally sucked at the photographer thing.  I tried to take a video of all Cora's cute little friends singing "Happy Birthday," but it turns out I hit the wrong button and only started recording when I thought I was stopping.  Duh.  So I pretty much missed the whole shebang.  I made Cora "pretend" she was blowing out the candles again, but you can see that she isn't very good at pretending.  Oh well.  Thanks anyways Corbs.

 Then it was PRESENT TIME!  Everyone was willing to help Cora unwrap and play with her loot.

Then the party was over.  Cora and Dax played with her new toys, while I tried to get everything cleaned up.  That night, Cora got to choose whatever she wanted to eat for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Haun.  Cora had seen how much fun Arden had sitting on the saddle at Texas Roadhouse on her birthday, so she wanted to do the same.  I told her that other restaurants would probably sing and give her ice cream too, but Cora loves her some steak and had her little heart set on that saddle.  So we found ourselves back at "the Roll Place," with the pretty birthday girl sitting on the birthday saddle, getting a birthday "Yee-HAW!"

It was a fun day!  Here are a few things about Cora the 5-year old:

Favorite color:  Pink or purple or red
Favorite breakfast:  Nutella toast
Favorite lunch:  Chicken Nuggets
Favorite dinner:  Pizza or Steak
Favorite movie:  Frozen
Favorite TV show:  Paw Patrol or My Little Ponies
Favorite thing to do:  Play with my toys, or go to my friends houses (she would always rather do play dates at her friends' houses, instead of here.  She thinks our house is sooo boring).
Favorite song:  "Oh Lellow Lellow daffodil" (song she learned at preschool...actually it is "Yellow," but I like the way she sings it better.)
Favorite animal:  Kitty cat
What she wants to be when she grows up:  I don't know!  I'm only five! (eye roll).
Favorite treat:  Frosting
What would you buy if you had a million dollars:  Lots of candy!

Happy Birthday, my little Corbiecakes!    Please stop growing up so fast.