Celebrating a special 6 year old

Our precious Madeline Bei turned six years old this past Wednesday.  It's crazy how quickly time has flown.  I have been working on her China book lately (yep, I'm that much of a procrastinator) and am just amazed at how little she was when we first brought her home.

Our precious girl had a few requests that we made good on for this birthday of hers.  First of all, she wanted to go bowling.  And since Auntie Shell and Lydia were coming down from Connecticut to help her celebrate, we thought we'd going bowling at Splitsville in Downtown Disney.  We were somewhat limited in the times they gave us.  So we opted to go right after church, around lunchtime.  Since Havi is still too young to go to her class by herself, I sat with her and Auntie Shell in the cafeteria during church.  She's less distracted (read- LOUD) there than in the larger commons area by the sanctuary.

After church, we headed over to Downtown Disney.

 My sister's crew (including her in-laws) all met us there.
You can spy them waiting for us on the far left in the photo above.

 Every photo Patrick took of me with Madeline had this little photo bomber in the bottom right corner.  So we rolled with it.

I made my favorite rich and delicious chocolate cupcakes with a simple sweet American buttercream.  Then I asked my sister at the very last minute to pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top make some cute toppers.

 Unfortunately, the lighting was terrible.  And so the cupcakes look orange when, in fact, they were coral like the toppers, though not as saturated.  Oh well.

 For her birthday loot, she scored some cute hair accessories, a light up neon slate, a puzzle and framed photo of herself with Lydia.  The second thing she wanted, besides to bowl, was a pair of roller blades.  (For the record, she took one day before she was off and "rolling" on them with Caleb.  And now she can pass down her too small for her roller skates to Havi, who's more than happy to inherit them.)

 After bowling, we scooted over to Fantasia mini golf.  This was my feeble attempt at a selfie with the birthday girl who kept running away from me.

 See that gap in Lydia's smile?  Her tooth got very loose the night before, and I offered to pull it out for her.   

Everyone was a bit infatuated with the ball cleaner as we waited until it was our turn out on the course.

 *fake smile alert*

 Since it got so hot while we were mini golfing, we decided to get some ice cream.  The ice cream was melting pretty quickly.  So although I had my camera, I couldn't really snap any photos until I finished my humongous waffle cone.  I did manage, however, to capture Leah with her Grandma Marsha in their coordinated but completly unplanned outfits.

Before I wrap up this birthday post, I have to share the third and final request from the birthday girl- an ant farm.  Yep.  I don't know where she got the idea, but she wanted one.  So Patrick ordered the farm and the ants.  Everyone watches the ants all the time.  It's pretty funny.  And I want to say thank you so much to Michele and Lydia for flying down here and helping Madeline celebrate her special day.  We loved seeing you guys.  Can't wait until we do it again!

Well, although February was a slow month with my camera, March is proving to be the opposite.  I have some serious catching up to do- including some tennis updates and some every day fun.  

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  We'll be at the courts!