Ava's 5th Birthday

Happy 5th Birthday Ava! We are so proud of you as our daughter. You are such a bright, helpful, empathetic, cheerful, beautiful little girl (oops, I mean big girl).

We love to watch you teach others, be a leader, express your opinions (ok I don't love that part all the time), take in everything you see and experience, be the best big sister, work hard, and especially be helpful to others. You are really starting to love to swim, ski and run, and have always loved gymnastics, going to the park, going to the mountains, swinging, being outside, taking Marley for a walk, riding your scooter, reading books, coloring, having parties, playing with your friends, talking on the phone, playing cards and games, playing pretend house and teacher, keeping all your things neat and orderly, enforcing all the rules, and loving your little brother a ton.

You have always been mature, but have matured even more this last year and although you earned your nickname "Punchy" when you were a baby, we now only see your punchiness ever so often when you're tired, but we still love to call you our "Punchy."

We love you so much and it makes me teary to think you are 5 years old and will be heading off to Kindergarten in a month. We hope you had a wonderful 5th Birthday weekend that started off with... ...decorating and bringing cupcakes to your friends at summer camp...

...opening a couple of your presents on your birthday morning...

...staying home from Summer Camp to hang out with mom while she worked.

Thank you Ava for being so patient and waiting to have your birthday party on Sunday while mom and dad timed races on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon we spent the day having lots of fun trying to stay cool during the hottest day of the summer while having a water fight with Grampy and Sharona...

...and playing on the slip and slide...
...finally it was time for Ava's party day to begin. She started off the morning opening her presents and new furniture...

...and then it was off to Pump It Up where 14 of her friends joined in the celebration for some jumpy, mega inflatable, fun. There were huge jumpy castles, mazes, slides, basketball arenas and more. It was perfect...

...all the pictures turned out horrible because the kids were all having such a blast and running and moving too fast for me to take any good pictures...

...with a little encouragement from his sister, Dylan, finally went down the big jumpy slide and after that he was hooked...

...after 1.5 hours of jumping fun it was onto pizza and ice cream cake...

...and back home for more presents and a big nap. Happy 5th Birthday Ava!

Ava and Michael discovering that teaming up made them slide faster.

Dylan trying to hang with the big kids. Don't worry, the end of the video doesn't look so great for Dylan, but he got right back up and headed down the slide again.

Happy Birthday cake time!