When one has a birthday in the dead of winter. One loses many exciting options for birthday parties. There are no outdoors, no pool parties, no tents and water balloons. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of 5th old snow themed birthday parties. So, our options were the gymnastics place and Chuck E Cheese. I had thought Mira would opt for the Gymnastics place, until Erika got to her. I’ve gotta give Erika credit, she has an amazing way of getting Mira to see things a certain way. And as soon as Erika mentioned the “ticket blaster,” the discussion was pretty much over (more on that in a bit.

Onto the party, we invited all of Mira’s friends. Most of those friends just happen to have parents whom are also friends with us. Go figure. Here is Drake and Marley. I’m not sure if there is anything more exciting then kids riding motorized, flashing machines all morning long on a wintery Sunday.

Drake and Marley

So, they’ve got this weird horse thing that you ride like a jockey. My brother-in-law, Alex Keefe, got suckered into getting on it. Ummm, someone get me the camera quick. This shot is going in the scrap book!

Alex the Jockey!

Onto the sweet ride that Mira was on with her friend from Daycare, Quincy. This thing was bouncing all over the place, but I snapped a nice shot whilst they were peering over the windshield.

Quincy and Mira

As we all know from our last post. Erika’s friend Keeley moved back to Michigan from Arizona. The Hurley family was nice enough to make the trip south from Ludington. Here’s Luna, Erika, Keeley and baby Emmy.

Fresh off the moving van!

Onto the festivities. The mouse himself made an appearance and we all sang Happy Birthday whilst Mira wore the most ridiculous crown I’ve ever seen. Go figure, she thought it was the coolest thing ever. Yes, she picked out the rainbow frosting and chocolate cake. She was so excited!

The magical cake!

And then it was time for the Ticket Blaster. I have no idea what the draw here is. But kids go absolutely bonkers over this thing. You go inside and little tickets fly everywhere. Then you try to grab what you can and as you see here, Mira was stuffing the tickets down her shirt. I’ve gotta give her credit, it was an ingenious way to store them. Hands down, this was the highlight of the 5 year old birthday party. Next year I’m gonna take her to a park with a port-a-john and hook a fan up to one of the vents. It’s the same thing right????

Ticket blaster!

We took one last picture with most of the kids who weren’t completely terrified of Chuck-E-Cheese. Ah good times…

Birthday Party!