Brielle's 5th Birthday Party!

After four years of having at-home, family-only parties, we finally gave Brielle a super-fun birthday celebration at Pump It Up with her friends from school. Her birthday isn't until the 21st, but we arranged it for the weekend before in case her friends would be gone for spring break. I love this action shot of Brielle on the inflatables...

The turnout was really successful. We had over 20 kids (including a few younger siblings). Most of the kids were from "Spanish school", but Brielle also invited a couple of her favorite friends from her old school.

She really loved playing with her old best friend, Eugene, again.

For the first hour, the kids played freely on the inflatables. There were plenty of squeals of joy as they flew down the slides together.

Ronan loves Pump It Up too. Brielle was enjoying running around with her friends, so we spent a lot of time watching Ronan play.

He's even big enough now to climb up the stairs and go down some of the smaller slides himself.

His favorite area is probably the bouncy house with the balls. He can actually get the balls into the hoops.

During the last half-hour, the group moved into a party room to eat some snacks, (vegan) cupcakes, and soy ice cream.

Brielle was the only kid with a big cupcake. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and she blew out the candles. When I showed her this photo I said, "You look a little shy." She replied, "No, I was happy."

Ronan was happy about his cupcake too. (I can't tell you how wonderful it's been for him and me to be off of the restrictive diet that we were on for 10 months!) We're not sure why, but he decided to eat his cupcake by diving his face into it.

Brielle was the queen of the party. She got to keep the inflatable crown that they gave her. We didn't have time for her to open her gifts at PIU, so we spent the weekend opening them and playing with them at home. Her friends were so generous and got her some really great gifts.

We all had such a wonderful time at Brielle's birthday party! On Friday we'll take Brielle to her favorite restaurant and open family gifts together. Thank you to all of her friends (and their parents) for helping Brielle have such a special day!