It seemed that May was all about Ayden. Besides Alex graduating form Kindergarten, which I will post in another post, May was full of soccer, Ayden's birthday, her birthday party and her Baptism. It was a fun and busy month.
Ayden with her crazy haired sister eating her birthday breakfast which was an egg, ham and cheese sandwich, american fries, strawberries, a cinnamon roll and OJ.
That evening she got to open her presents from her family. A couple of months ago while we were in a bike shop Ayden saw this blue cruiser and fell in love with it. She thought about it pretty often and told us it was all she wanted for her birthday. She was very happy to see it on the table when she got home from school on her birthday. She also received a special gift from her Grandma Kay and Grandpa Bill. They decided on the tradition of giving each granddaughter and American Girl Doll for their 8th birthday a couple years ago. Ayden is the second one of the 9 Granddaughters to receive hers. She was pretty excited. I am not sure they would have started this if they would have known that so far out of the 11 grandchildren, 9 of them would be girls.
She was still pretty darn excited to see it even though she knew exactly what it was going to be.
Ayden had her last soccer game of the season on her birthday. It was an interesting soccer year because Brad was the coach. He had volunteered to be the coach last year in order to keep her team together but the previous coach didn't do the proper paper work to ensure that would happen so Brad ended up coaching a new team full of girls who had never played before. In an area where soccer is super competitive that can be frustrating when you are playing against girls who have been playing together on the same team for 5 years already. They lost every game but one and some of them were like 3 to 14 which was pretty tough for Brad and Ayden. Anyone who knows them knows that they do not like to loose. I wouldn't call it a failed season though because Ayden kind of blossomed this year because she knew she was the only one who could really play and she stepped up. Ayden scored something like 15 of the 18 goals they had all season. After the season ended she decided she wanted to get on a team with good players so that motivated her to tryout for the select soccer team and made it. So next year will be interesting to see how she does on a team with other good players playing other good teams. Brad will enjoy going back to volunteering as the line judge and not having to deal with parents of a loosing team.
The girls did have a lot of fun together, they were more about goofing off and having a good time then actually playing soccer. That was one of the hard parts for Brad but the girls were happy. :)
Brad and his team.
That night Brad made chocolate covered strawberries for Ayden's birthday and he had her wait until the clock struck 9:04 p.m. to dig in. 9:04 being the time she was delivered into the world 8 years ago making us the happiest new parents ever. Honestly the best three moments of my life have been the moments right when my girls have been born. I can easily say they are the times I have been the most content and the only times I think I have felt true joy on this earth. I am really excited to feel that for the 4th time in just a couple weeks.
We have friend parties when our kids turn 5,8,12 and 16. Ayden was able to have a friend party this year and wanted a Harry Potter party. We made cool invitations written as if they were from Professor McGonagall on Hogwarts Stationary printed on fancy paper and sealed them with a wax seal. This is what they read but the print was scrolly writing and there was a Hogwarts seal on the top and professor McGonagall's signature. (I changed some of the numbers and such for privacy on the blog)
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Head Master: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
May 16, 2012
We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to a special birthday celebration outside of the school campus for Miss. Ayden Terry on the 19th of May from 10:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. This is a unique opportunity as it will take place in a muggle community at the ***** clubhouse located at XXXX Pride Crossing near the entrance on **** Rd. You will need to disguise yourself as a muggle to avoid alarming the public. Muggle Repelling Charms will in place, however, the Improper Use of Magic Office has still prohibited any use of magic to be used at this event. While there will still be some of our favorite wizardry activities and treats this will also be an opportunity to see how muggles celebrate birthdays. Lunch will be served. We look forward to your presence. You will not be able to RSVP by Owl Post as Ayden’s parents, Brad and Jenni, are muggles and will need to be contacted using the muggle telephoney system at XXX-XXXX or if you have the capabilities for email to *****@gmail.com.
Yours Sincerely,
Miverva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
The first activity we did was make fortune tellers, I told the kids that since they are wizards and witches they know how to really do fortune telling but Muggles have come up with silly ways to do it and this was one of them. We also made potions, which I think was the best part of the party and the part that the kids enjoyed the most. We didn't get any pictures of this part unfortunately. I found a recipe for a potion that would really bubble and turn colors and changed the names of the ingredients to ingredients found in the books and put them in cool jars and containers and each kid got to make their own potion in their own little caldron (black cups). We levitated balloons, did a dragon pinata, had cake, ice cream, root beer floats and pizza and opened presents. I think the kids had a good time and Ayden loved it so it was a success.
My only disappointment was the decorations. I looked everywhere for the right color of red and gold balloons and table coverings coverings (the gryffindor colors) but finally just settled on red and yellow thinking it would be okay but it ended up totally looking like McDonalds colors. Oh well! Laela and Porter had a good time entertaining themselves with the balloons most of the time.
Ayden had requested a cake with Harry Potter on it but I also couldn't find that anywhere. Harry Potter isn't really "in" right now so I couldn't even find little toys to do it myself. I talked her into letting me make a really good three layer cake and told her it would be the kind of cake they would eat at Hogwarts. Thankfully, she agreed to that. And it tasted good, which is something I don't think most birthday cakes can boast.
A couple of days later Ayden's soccer team got together for a end of season celebration party at a pizza place and Brad handed out trophies to all the girls and talked about each one of them for a little bit. He did a good job.
More pictures of Brad and the team.
The best part of Ayden's month of May was her Baptism. It was a very special day for her and we had a lot of family come support her in her choice to be baptized. All of her Grandparents, Cousin Janelle, Hillary and Stephen, Emily, Jeremiah and their kids, Steve, Joni, and their girls, the Binghams and the Matthews came. We had a BBQ at the park by our house afterwards and our friends the Sampsons came to that also. I will do another post with more pictures.
