May you live all the days of your life.
— Johnathan Swift
And she’s as princess-y as ever, let me tell you. Here she is, decked out in her birthday finery:

It’s the shoes that kill me.
There was trampoline fun for everyone!


There was a piñata – princess-themed of course.

David suggested I appreciated the irony of beating the princess-themed piñata to pieces (I’m anti-princesses). He wasn’t entirely wrong.

There was a cook out and cake. Before I say anything else, let me once again commend Molly on her cake craftiness. She asked the Princess what kind of cake she wanted, and she made it happen. That said:

Hannah Montana? When did my sweet, innocent, princess-loving niece discover Hannah effing Montana? God help us.

When I asked Nate if the Princess wanted anything special for her birthday, he told me that when he asked her, she said “Flip-flops,” so I headed to the flip-flop extravaganza that is Old Navy and picked out two pairs. I knew which ones she’d love most, and I was right. Here she is, modeling both her new dress from her other aunt, and her new favorite flip-flops:

I wish I’d taken video of this – she was sashaying back and forth in the living room like a model, flipping her hair, with her little hand on her hip like that. I was dying. She is too grown. God, I love her.

And may she always be as happy with a gift of flip-flops as she is at 5! She’s beautiful! I think she looks quite a lot like you might have at that age. Can’t say for sure of course, but there’s some of you in there.