The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess’s 5th Birthday

Tess’s 5th Birthday

Tess has a MAJOR con of the date of her birth – it’s in JULY which means Disney is SCORCHING HOT.

But she also has a MAJOR perk of the date of her birth – it’s in JULY which means SUMMER!

Tessie gets to have the WHOLE DAY whereas the rest of our family has to always attend school or work on our birthdays (unless it’s like every possible 7th or 8th year where it falls on Saturday!).

Tess has been super excited about her birthday this year – I feel like it’s the first year she’s truly understood that it’s HER DAY.

I love that when we came in singing she was smiling SO HUGE!

I keep birthdays pretty basic. I like to have a special balloon for the birthday child, special donuts for breakfast, and a banner.

Usually we open gifts later in the day but since it’s summer and I knew we’d be swimming I wanted to surprise Tess with one of her presents first thing that morning!

It was sorta a mini “Yes Day” for Tess!

She lead the way on the activities during the day including watching Tom and Jerry (she saw it at school and now LOVES IT…so random) and playing games!

And of course…we had to SWIM 🙂

I let the kids have another donut with their lunch and Tess cracks me up with the way she eats…she dunked her donut in her yogurt and Nutella

We had originally planned to eat out with Zach’s family in honor of her birthday but decided instead to do a combo party at our house with the fam for Zach’s birthday that way everyone could swim and such and Tess was totally happy with that!

So instead of eating Chickfila with the big fam we hit up CFA for her birthday dinner!

GIRL LOVES FRIES.

I loved that Tess insisted on dressing fancy for her bday dinner too – it was so cute.

We listened to Captain Zoom on the way for her day song and everyone had fun playing before grubbing.

My sweet girl! We love our Tess!

We got home and dove into the present opening.

I really love our new tradition of having the siblings give a gift from the heart as a birthday present. They all take it super seriously.

The notes they write are especially so sweet!

Auntie Katie dropped by a gift (SO THOUGHTFUL) and Grandpa and Grammie sent theirs as well. Belle is her current fav princess so her new doll was exciting and she’s been sleeping with the mermaid book she loves it so much!

I took Tess to Target recently to let her browse for birthday ideas and yall my heart stopped when she was drawn to the Barbie aisle.

I was a HUGE Barbie girl growing up. HUGE. I’m talking I have multiple tubs FILLED with Barbies in our attic just begging to be played with again.

She said the gift she wanted most for her birthday was a Barbie and yall know I MADE THAT HAPPEN.

Growing up Barbie’s were my THING but I did jump on the American Girl Doll bandwagon too.

I had two dolls and when Britt was younger I sent them both off to the American Girl Hospital” to be freshened up before giving my Samantha to Britt for her fifth birthday.

I saved my second American Girl Doll to give to Tess for her 5th bday too!

I knew she wouldn’t be overly excited about it but that she’ll appreciate it with time.

The doll isn’t one of the story ones and is the “create your own” girl. I can’t remember what I named her but I LOVED red hair and green eyes as a kid!

To make it more fun for Tess I ordered this super cute Harry Potter outfit!

If yall remember Christmas was a bit of a struggle with Tess and gifts…

You guys I’m SO SUPER PROUD of how great Tess did with her birthday!

She wasn’t overly thrilled about the doll but she was appreciative of everything and kind and gracious and had some wonderful, genuine reactions to things as well.

All her gifts!

We waited until after Spear went to bed to dig into the cake.

Like Britt, Tess wanted a cookie cake and ice cream.

When I ordered the cake I requested a MERMAID cake and this is what they did…not quite what I was expecting haha

We ate cake while watching Tess’s birthday slideshow. Always so fun to look back on the year behind 🙂

To end her birthday Tessie wanted a sibling sleepover…another perk of a summer birthday!

But yall we need to just change it to “late night sibling hang out” because by 9:00 Kye and Tess both wanted to go to their own beds and Britt was all upset because girl LOVES being with people.

Tess had a great birthday and we are so proud to have her as OUR 5 year old!

Emily Parker
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