It's still hard for me to believe that my "Sweet Aves" is actually seven years old. She started out her birthday week (yes, it was all week....we celebrated a lot) with her Grandma and Grandpa Chidester and Aunt Penny who came for a short visit. It was a really hot weekend so we swam and stayed in as much as possible. By request she had pizza and cheesecake for her birthday celebrations while they were in town.
We decided to celebrate Fathers Day a few weeks early by heading over to PF Changs while my parents were in town. After we waited 1/2 an hour after our reservation time to be seated, then an hour for our food it turned out to be not such a great experience. I only share this next tid bit because of Avery's comment after the fact. While we were waiting for our dessert we were all just talking when Avery got the most disgusted look on her face. Micah burst out laughing and we couldn't figure out what had happened. Turns out that a scantily dressed lady in a tube top was using her hands while talking and her fingers managed to pull her tube top right off. She hurriedly put it back on and staggered out of the restaurant after having a little bit too much to drink. Avery leaned over to me and said "that was the worst birthday present ever." So sad that she had to see that, but her comment was too funny. We made up for it the next night by going to Lake Las Vegas for ice cream. It was so fun to see the live bands there and have some yummy gelato.
On Avery's actual birthday she was thrilled that I brought her McDonalds for lunch and ate with her in the court yard of the school. She had a great day at school wearing her birthday crown and receiving a lot of extra attention for the day.
After school we spent the hot afternoon in the pool (hence in all of her birthday pictures they are all freshly showered and in their PJ's.) After dad got home and swam for awhile we had Avery's birthday dinner. It is always interesting what each of my kids pick for their birthday dinner. They can pick whatever they want and Avery picked ham with potatoes and gravy. We gladly made that for her and enjoyed dinner together as a family.
Party Girls!
She was happy to receive this big, pink package from her Grammie and Gramps Phillips. She could hardly wait for dinner to be over to open it.
This was a candid shot of Aliza's face while Avery opened her gifts. It was so cute to catch her expression of excitement.
She had asked for Webkins and Zhu Zhu pets for her birthday. She received this cute poodle webkins from Abbie.
In fact she was so ecstatic about her Zhu Zhu pets that the next few pictures had to be taken with her Zhu Zhu pets. These little guys are definitely a big hit at our house. We haven't had any until her birthday. All of my girls are really enjoying them.
And I have to mention her poor melting cake. Avery had this cake idea from a Strawberry Shortcake cook book that she wanted me to copy. It was a white cake with one red heart on the top. I spent all day making strawberry freezer jam for the middle of this lovely cake (as the recipe called for) and then our house was so hot I couldn't keep it from melting the frosting. After I finally had to stick it in the fridge it looked kind of sad. After all that hard work no one really ate the cake. Couldn't blame them......but I went through a lot of work to just throw the cake away. Boo hoo I know!
We let Avery choose what kind of party this year she would like with her friends. We offered to take her anywhere. Bowling, movies, pedicures, and all sorts of other ideas. All she really wanted to do was swim. I was a little nervous about having other kids over to swim so we stuck to only letting her invite 3 friends. With those friends and their siblings that came along we had just the right amount of kids for a fun time. I regret not getting a good picture of the whole group.
We swam, ate pizza, played a few games, swam more, and then had cake and ice cream cones. It was a perfect little party for her. In the picture above they are playing Duck, Duck, Splash.
We played pool ring toss and a game that I found online called Dolphin Swim.
Basically, it was a race to see who could use their nose to get a ball to the other side of the pool. Sounds simple enough, but it was tricky. You could use your arms to swim, but not touch the ball. I was really fun to watch the balls going all over the pool not necessarily in the right direction. It was definitely not easy to do.
Avery had a great day and like I said before I just can't believe that she is seven years old already. My kids are growing up way too fast.
Last night while we were giving him his medicine he literally jumped out of my hands. He landed on the ground squealing and couldn't use his back legs. We didn't know what to do other than take him to the emergency animal clinic. I felt so horrible considering I am the one who dropped him. Abbie was the only kid awake and since it is technically her pet she was very emotional. We explained to her that he may have broken his back and she needed to say her goodbye's. We went through the whole goodbye process and Abbie was consoling him letting him know that heaven will be better than here anyway. I took him to the vet at 9:30 at night. Of corse they were very busy there with sick and hurt animals so I didn't get home until almost 12:00 p.m. That was a killer in itself. I'm getting too old to not be getting my beauty sleep. Turns out that by the time the vet saw Andrew he was using his legs and fine. If I only would have waited until morning. He is now on a very expensive pain medicine and is doing well. It's a good thing we like Andrew because after $600 and three trips to the vet in six weeks he better like his home here with us. 
