Jensen's Birthday Week Recap

I think all in all Jensen had a good 5th birthday...the celebrating lasted 3 days so I hope she had a good time. Her actual birthday was a Thursday and we started a tradition a few years ago that we let the kids pick somewhere to have dinner on the night of their birthday. All week leading up to Thursday she had said she was going to pick Chik-fil-A. Fine. On Thursday morning she suddenly changed her mind and said she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Ugh. I actually thought Chuck E. Cheese might not be open for dinner during the week. After all, I'd only ever been there a few times for lunch during the week or for parties on the weekend. I mean who goes to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner? Well, apparently quite a few people. The place was just as packed and loud as ever. There was even a birthday party going on. At least our local Chuck E. Cheese was recently remodeled so it was a tad cleaner than it used to be.



After dinner we came home for cake and family gifts.



One thing Jensen has been asking for for a while now is to get her ears pierced. I've been all for it but it took us a while to convince Jim that 5 wasn't too young for earrings. He finally relented and I took Jensen in to get her ears pierced on Saturday. She was such a trooper! She did not shed one tear. Her eyes welled up when it was over but no tears spilled out. Luckily we went to a place where they pierce both ears at the same time so it was over very quickly. She picked out a cute pair of pink CZs on 14k gold posts. She looked so adorable with them!




Everything went just a little too smoothly so I should have known something would happen. That night Jim and I were out and the kids were with a babysitter. We got a call from the sitter that one of Jensen's earrings had fallen out and she didn't want the sitter to try to put it back in. We were downtown in the middle of a play and couldn't get back home right then. Once we got home I tried to put the earring back in while Jensen was asleep but the hole had already started to close up and I couldn't get it through the back. I took her back to the store the next day, but they said we'd have to wait a week or two for the ear to completely heal closed and then have it pierced again. Poor Jensen. I don't know if she'll be quite as brave the next time now that she knows what to expect.

And, finally, on Sunday we had her birthday bash. We had it at The Little Gym where Jensen is taking gymnastics and dance classes. There were almost 20 kids there running around like crazy and having a good time. You can view all the pictures here if you're so inclined. Here's a few highlights.