Six Years Old...Finally

Kate has been "five-and-a-half" for about 3 years now or so it would seem. Finally, she's turned six. The day before her birthday she stopped everyone in her path at church and announced her upcoming number change.

We'd already pre-celebrated Kate's and Cole's upcoming birthdays with their Pappa whose birthday falls just ahead of Kate's, the Saturday before which only served to fan the flames of Kate's anticipation.

The night before Kate's big day, her daddy and I set the birthday scene...

...the birthday plate...

...birthday "curtain" (as per request of the Birthday Girl)...

...birthday presents...

...birthday streamers...

Then it was off to bed to await the big day and the awakening of the Birthday Girl...

Bring on the...

 ...birthday breakfast...

...birthday blow out...

...birthday bummer...

(Molly's response when we refused to sing "Happy Birthday" to her too!)

...birthday buddies.

Then it was on to lunch at McDonald's,

 lunch choice of 9 out of 10 six-year-olds across the nation.

 After lunch we drove the "birthday-mobile" to...

...good ole Chuck E. Cheese's

where a Kate can be a Kate...

...and where Kate scored a happenin' birthday crown studded with game tokens.  

After divvying up the tokens...

...Kate and her birthday buds played...

 ...and played...

...and played...

...and played...

...and played some more...

...and more...

...and lots more.

Molly and I tried to play games that netted us the most tickets...

Meg and Cole discovered that the "Deal or No Deal" game could, if played properly, provide a wealth of tickets.

After nearly two hours of playing and ticket collecting, we herded our gang to the ticket counter. Kate had big dreams about what shiny new doo-dadd she would purchase with her 54 tickets and spent no less than 15 minutes making her selection...

..."fangs" she calls them.  

Just what every fresh six-year-old needs!

Deciding that we'd eeked out every drip of fun that Chuck E. Cheese had to offer, we travelled onward to the next stop on our birthday tour so that Kate could spend the first of her birthday gift cards!

(tune in next time for the next great adventure!!!)