Happy Birthday, Alli!

Our sweet not-so-little-anymore girl Alli celebrated her eighth birthday on Saturday.  We started the day out with her birthday party, which she shared for the second consecutive year with our former neighbors Addison and Samantha.  The girls' birthday is just a week after Alli's, so it's a great opportunity to get the majority of the second grade together for a bash.  This year, we decided to do the shindig at the bowling alley.  We had well over twenty kids there for two hours, and everyone seemed to have a great time!  Cue photo montage.

Afterwards, we hit up our favorite Mexican restaurant La Hacienda.  In my pre-pregnant life, I would have really enjoyed a margarita after all of that party stress, but I opted for the more baby-friendly water instead.

We came home to open family presents with Alli.  She really racked up.  It was almost an embarrassing display - a new purple North Face jacket and gloves with a white hat, along with the complete collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plus their sewer.  Cowabunga is back, baby.

Then we spent the afternoon watching Christmas movies (The Santa Clause and Ernest Saves Christmas), followed by a trip to the Fayetteville Square.  The wait to see Santa was long, but it was worth it when he sang Alli a happy birthday song!

 Your girl was feeling a bit under the weather, so after the Square excitement, I needed to grab some cough drops and hit the hay.  This morning, we had our one last birthday celebration by singing to Alli one more time and having her TMNT cake (girl is obsessed and we don't have any issues feeding the monster!).

Cake was followed by a game of perhaps the most disgusting but family appropriate kids game I've seen in a long time - Doggie Doo.  You feed the dog, crank his tail, and...well, you know.

I can't imagine a more perfect birthday weekend with our sweet girl, and I can hardly believe her little sassy self is eight!!