Tessa's 5th birthday party

For Tessa's 5th birthday party with our family, we ended up doing a ballerina theme. She kept begging for a poop emoji party. I'm usually willing to go along with a lot of my kid's crazy ideas, but I draw the line at decorating my house with emoji poop. So pink and gold ballerinas it was!

However, since she wasn't getting the poop emoji party of her dreams, she got a little demanding about her decoration requests--ha! She wanted lots of balloons and she wanted a cake with pink flowers all over it and 5 gold ballerinas on it. Can we say diva?! Buuuuut.....she IS the birthday girl, so I managed to make it happen! The frosting job wasn't the best (because I was running out of time and frosting), but she loved it!

 I ordered her a cute little shirt to match her pink and gold theme! I also made a tutu for her (that she refused to wear and that caused my husband hours of grief because he hates glitter).

 When we asked her what she wanted for dinner at her party, she immediately answered ribs and potato salad. I don't think Nick's had a prouder moment than that! He spent most of his day smoking ribs for his baby girl.

After we ate, she opened presents.....

She got so much fun stuff AND stuff she REALLY needed (which is my favorite kind of present). She got a leotard from Nana, ballet and tap shoes/Dr. Pepper/gum from Grandma and Papa, a ballet bag/leg warmers/$20 from the Kirkpatricks and socks/gum/shorts/emoji band aids from the Whitsons. She had been begging for ballet classes, so as a surprise present, Nick and I signed her up for them. After she opened all her ballet presents from everyone else, I was SO excited to tell her about the classes. I said, "Tess, if you have a leotard, ballet shoes and a ballet bag....where could you take all that stuff?" She said, "I don't know." I said, "Well......me and daddy got you ballet classes! So you can take all of that stuff to your new ballet class!" She just smiled a little and said, "Oh!" and then went back to opening presents! Ha!! Talk about a let down! I was expecting her to be giddy with excitement and she barely cracked a smile (however, after everyone was gone and the party was over, she DID give us big hugs and say she was so excited to start ballet). I'm just going to have to remind myself over the years that she doesn't really show a lot of emotion over surprises, but I know she quietly appreciates them in her own way.

After presents, we blew out candles and had some cake.

We took a few pictures with some of our party guests....

Then the kids played outside in the water and had a great time! It was pretty hot, but they didn't care! They had a blast running around and jumping in the pools and shooting water guns at each other.

Tommy loves his little cousin. They have to stick together because they're the only boys!

Tessa had a GREAT 5th birthday party--we had a wonderful time enjoying our family and celebrating our sweet girl!