A Very Full Birthday!

My little girl's 5th birthday!  What a day!  

We started off with her choice for breakfast...chocolate chip pancakes, chocolate milk, and bacon :)....yep, that's my girl!  Then, we had to do presents, of course....

She loved the wrapping paper on this one, and wanted me to carefully unwrap it so that she could keep it.  Thanks Babu and Bibi Hanson for the extra wrapping paper.

A Barbie Princess movie and coloring book.

A new outfit, that I had brought with me last year.

Oh yes, Mommy knows her girl!  When she opened these, she said "You're perfect, Mom!"  Thanks Yvette for getting these, and Carol for bringing them out.  They were definitely the hit of the day!

Kissing her new Elizabeth and Felicity American Girl Dolls!

While in Dodoma, she began to love Strawberry Shortcake (thanks for the introduction Garrett family!)  Well, I didn't have time to get any Strawberry Shortcake stuff sent here, so I surprised her with giving up our carefully guarded computer bandwidth and she watched a few episodes on YouTube.  Hmmm, guess the boys like Strawberry Shortcake too :)?!

A picture of the mess left on the school table.  I also brought this Safari shirt out last year, it matches those adorable green and pink plaid shorts she's wearing, I LOVE IT...but she chose the new butterfly shirt to wear today.

After presents and movie time...we actually did a bit of school, learning about Saint Domingue/Haiti and the rebellion that brought about it's independence from the French and Spanish in the early 1800's.  We talked about Yellow Fever/Malaria and how they treated it back then, and colored different versions of the Haitian flag.  

Then, tonight, we went out to dinner with our friends at Mediterraneo.  A wonderful restaurant that sits right on the Indian Ocean.

The view from the restaurant and our table.

Final dinner out with our friends the Clendinens, they leave for the US early tomorrow morning...joined by the Robinsons from England and the Bramsens from Zimbabwe!  What a great group of people!

Watching them make the pizza in the big oven.

After dinner, we went to our church Small Group.  We had made a Chocolate Sponge cake this afternoon, and so we shared dessert, and they sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

Just a few of the friends in our Small Group.

It was a very full and wonderful day!