My little 3 year old!!

Happy Birthday dear Ella - yesterday!! Ella's been so excited for her birthday ever since Emily's. She had to wait almost 3 months! She was adamant about wanting a Minnie Mouse birthday party. I think it was because Emily was Ariel for Halloween and had an Ariel party. Ella was Minnie for Halloween, so I think she thought that's how you do things!! I was all ready to plan a Minnie party for her until she and Emily got hooked on Pinocchio. Ever since then she's been demanding a "Pinocchio party with no 2 foxes!" There's a fox and a cat that are the bad guys and she didn't want them to come! I really wasn't excited about making a Pinocchio cake, so I found a cool cake set on craigslist and showed it to Ella. I told her we could make, "Pinocchio's castle!" Ok, so that's a huge stretch, but it worked! I found out about an indoor carnival/Chuck E. Cheese type place and told Ella we could go to "Pleasure Island" like Pinocchio does. She was very excited about that as long as the "two foxes" didn't come.

I make her huge cake (3 cake mixes) on Thursday afternoon and decorated in Friday morning. Since I had to transport it to Jungle Jim's amusement park, I couldn't assemble it. We got it to Jungle Jim's without too much trouble and I just had to take a few minutes to "glue" (with frosting) the towers and turrets on and stick in the windows. It was my first time using fondant. It wasn't as smooth as I'd like, but it worked. She loved it and I had a fun time making it. I've decided to take the Wilton cake decoration class sometime this summer. Since that's about my 5th decorated cake I've made and I still enjoy it, I figure it's time I learned something about that trade. It would be a nice talent to develop.




Saturday morning Emily and Ella woke up early (as usual!). Ella was excited to see the streamers hanging for her and jumped right in on her presents!! She got her big presents early - a Dora dollhouse w/assessories (from a yard sale) and a talking baby doll. She then opened some books, markers, coloring books, clothes, necklace, magnets, etc. She loved it and was very sweet to let Emily help her open them all. Emily was having a hard time not being the star and getting presents. But Ella shared everything very well! Ella was sad when presents were done, but we told her that her aunts would have more presents for her later and that appeased her! We headed out early to find a couple yard sales before heading to Midway to find Jungle Jim's.

We had a great time at Jungle Jim's. All my sisters and their kids were able to come too. I loved the place. Emily had a blast doing everything. Ella was a little wary about a few rides, but there were still enough things to do to keep her busy. We took a break and walked next door to Souper Salad for lunch. We used to love that when it was in Orem and even Emily and Ella were able to find something they liked!










Later that night we went to Toys R Us to get her crown, balloon and use some of her birthday money. She ended up finding some Dora dollhouse furniture for her Dora dollhouse. They had Wiis in stock and I've been thinking a lot about them lately since I've been seeing the ads for the new Wii fit that's coming out. Steve confided to me that he had purchased a Wii last week for my birthday, but had returned it because he figured I'd return it. I seem to return all his expensive gifts! But this time I decided to go for it AND buy Guitar Hero! That's a game I figured I'd enjoy when I first heard about it. When I got the chance to try out my nephews' game while I was in St. George, I realized I did like it and was GOOD at it!! So I've been playing that and the sports games that come with it today. I'm already halfway through Career mode on medium level. I'm really having fun. Emily's enjoyed the bowling and golfing games so far. So happy birthday to me!!