Tess's 6th Birthday

We had a great weekend, celebrating Tess's 6th birthday, a little each day for three days!  I got to get out of the house for a while on Friday to do our shopping for the birthday girl.  Bryan fed Bree 2 bottles while I was gone and she did great!  It's so nice when a baby will take a bottle so Mom gets a little time alone!  Then, that evening we met Gma and Gpa Terry at Chuck E. Cheese's for pizza and games.  It's been years & years since I've been to a Chuck E. Cheese's; Bryan & the kids had never gone before.  As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Miles saw and recognized the sign and yelled "Chuck E. Cheese's!"  (Man, TV commercials, even on PBS, really do get into kids' subconcious!)  Here is Tess on a ride where she had to pedal a bike and then her chair lifted up.  She thought this was a pretty fun game.

 Miles is playing his favorite:  basketball

 Here is where Chuck E. gathers all the kids for a song & dance, and then he throws a bunch of tickets in the air for the kids to catch.

 This is Miles and me while he was doing a Nascar racing game.  He's concentrating pretty hard.

 Here is Tess on Saturday, her actual birthday.  One of the things she really wanted was makeup.  "Real" makeup.  So we got her some blush and lipstick.  I think the lipstick is already about halfway gone because she puts it on so often, and so generously! 

We also got her a new swimming pool.  We had a cute inflatable princess pool, but it got a hole in it, plus I only liked to keep it up on the grass for a day or two before deflating it, because I was always worried about it killing the grass.  So, this is a plastic one, that we can put on the patio and just leave up all summer.  So far the kids love it.  (Here they are with a few neighbor friends.)

On Sunday, we had Papa, Charlotte, and Gma & Gpa J come up for cake & ice cream.  For her cake this year, Tess said she wanted a "tooth" cake, since she just lost her tooth.  I wrote the "Happy Birthday Tess" and drew the outline of a tooth, and then Tess wanted to decorate the tooth.  She drew a face on it, with a big grin, and the tooth's grin was also missing its tooth.  Cute!  She was pretty excited to be able to decorate her own cake, and it sure made it easy for me!

 And, lastly, I'll leave you with a lovely picture that our sweet 6-year-old took of herself.  It's a very flattering shot.