Allison, Mia and I just got back from a long day of events. We finally decided to go and get our family pictures taken with Jerry McElroy. We had a great time and usually we would place a picture up for you to see, but he uses film. You know those cameras that don’t have a color view finder on the back? Yes, you have to wait a week to get the results. Anyway, we just finished our nightly rituals of giving Mia a bath, brushing her “teethies”, praying, reading a story, singing and going “beddy”. After leaving Mia’s room, I changed my clothes and walked by the kitchen. See Exhibit 1 (picture at the top of this blog). I know what you are thinking… we have just been robbed. Why else would all of the cabinets be open, right? No, we had not been robbed. This too is part of my nightly ritual of closing all of the cabinets that Allison has opened throughout the day. For some reason, Allison opens cabinets, but doesn’t shut them. What’s weird is that she doesn’t even know they’re open. One time, I asked her to go to the kitchen and tell me what was wrong. Every single cabinet was open (similar to the photo). She didn’t even notice the open cabinets, but thought I had swept the floor! It’s always good for a laugh!
I was looking at Pottery Barn kids magazine one day and they were selling a birthday banner for $45 similar to this one that I made out of felt and fabric for less than $10!
Our little birthday girl was a little shocked to see so many people at our house when she woke up from her morning nap, but she got right into party mode after some lunch and a swim.
She really enjoyed opening presents with Momma and reading the birthday cards. She likes to turn the "pages". 
Mia's favorite gift was this Radio 
Mia is definitely our child. She's not big on getting dirty, so we weren't surprised when she didn't dive right in. After a close call with the flame, she took off all the marzipan polka dots and broke off a small corner of the cake to feed to Momma. Because of the flame incident, my family stopped singing after the first verse of Happy Birthday. In our family we sing three verses, but Mia only got one on this day. Here's a picture of the cake everyone else ate. Aunt Heather did a great job!
Mia let us know she was partied out by popping her "
Sunday, on her actual birthday, we did a little "redo" of the cake smashing with better results. Mia is still not the type to rub cake in her hair though. We also sang all three verses of the birthday song and she LOVED it! She smiled and swung her feet while we sang. She was enjoying it so much that we sang it twice more, all three verses! Here's a picture of the second cake smashing opportunity on Sunday afternoon.
