Kiki's Birthday...

It is so hard to believe that our oldest is 5... time flies unbelievably fast. This is my child who is a wonderful dichotomy between blissful childishness, silly humor and astoundingly insightful wisdom. When Kiki was 3, I took her with me to pick up my new sewing machine at the Lloyd Center Sears in downtown Portland. It was the week before Christmas, and rush hour. We were stuck in traffic, and I was very annoyed and muttering to myself about idiots, traffic, christmas, rain, etc. She was sitting quietly in the back seat. Finally, I take a break from my muttering to change lanes, and I hear this tiny little voice from the backseat. "But Mom," she says, "We ARE traffic!" When I try to think of a way to describe my Kiki to someone, this is the story that immediately pops into my head.

Saturday was her actual birthday, so we spent the day doing fun things as a family, just the four of us.

This is Kiki, trying on her new apron... she has been asking me to sew her an apron for 2 years now... and I have, each time she asked, been saying, "Sure, when I'm done with such-and-such project, I'll make you an apron." Finally when we were in the fabric store a month or so ago, she called me on it, "Mom, you've been saying you'll make me an apron for 2 years now, when are you actually going to make me an apron?!" So, she picked out the fabric right then and there, and this is what she ended up with. Her fabric choice... Robert Kaufmann, Sweet Treats. So, Saturday we went for lunch to Abby's Pizza, for Kiki's requested and much loved Pepperoni Pizza.

Then we hit the bowling alley for some great kid fun. Bowling is a great thing to do with kids. They can be as loud as they want, everyone else is...

Kiki and Debris LOVE to bowl.

And, it's really fun to watch them bowl.

I was instructed to put this picture on my blog, by the birthday girl photo subject. :-)

While bowling, we discovered that Debris is an EXCELLENT breakdancer. I had no idea.

She was pretty cute... Debris is always happy to celebrate someone else... she's very selfless that way. So, her excitement over Kiki's birthday makes it ton's of fun.

As you can see, my children are much better bowlers than I am. But, they got bumpers-I did not.

After that, Daddy took a detour on the way home to try out Rovey's new shocks, lift kit, and rock sliders. (Ok, so we didn't actually do anything extreme enough to warrant needing the lift kit or the rock sliders, but hey.)

Burch Mountain... a great place to quickly get away from it all, and also a lovely view of the Valley, Cascade Range, and Waterville Plateau. We met a few other cars along the way, and finally after about the 5th one, Kiki asked, "Why's everyone smiling?!" It's true--everyone smiles when they're going losting, it's fun!

In case you cannot tell from the pic, the hill he is driving up is VERY VERY VERY STEEP!!! I should know, I had to climb it to take this picture.

We hit the tippity-top of Burch in time to explore a bit, and wait just a short while for the sun to set...

And, sit on a rock and play with the camera...

The girls could not figure out why anyone would want to sit and watch the sun set. How weird and boring is that?!

At about this point though, they thought it was pretty cool that they'd just watched the sun set... :-)

Me and my girls...

And then we drove down the hill in the dark, which is always a blast... if you think overlanding is fun in the day time, you should try it in the dark. It's even more fun then.

The city lights, way below.

When we got down the hill, we realized that we were hungry. So we went and wandered through the grocery store together until we found something that sounded good to come home and eat, and took Kiki's cake with us to Uncle D & Aunt G's house the next day.

Happy Birthday Kiki! Love you!