Time Flies when you're having fun

On Saturday, our little Shayla turned 5...





...I can't even wrap my brain around it because the time has gone by so fast!


Shayla really wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese for her party which I was pumped about because it meant we weren't having the party at my house which meant I didn't have to clean a dang thing...I try and avoid that whenever possible. All morning I looked around the disaster area known as my living room and thought "It's so great! No one will ever know!" So we took Uncle Dan to the airport, ran some last minute errands, and ended up in San Bruno (which is where the nearest Chuck E. Cheese happened to be). I don't know if anyone else is aware of this, but apparently the Chuck E. Cheese in San Bruno is actually south of the border...who knew? I mean I was under the impression it was still in Northern California.

It was a gigantic nightmare. There wasn't even room to breath let alone play ghetto arcade games and eat overpriced (mediocre at best) pizza. I called all the party goers as fast as I could to warn them not to come clear down there, at least not without their passports, but I was too late for some of them (I'm really sorry about that...you know who you are). We stuck it out for about a half hour and then went back to my house.... you know, the disaster area that no one was supposed to see. Lucky for me I have good friends who love me anyway and even helped clear away some of the debris so we could actually have a party. It all turned out great in the end. Shayla had way too many presents as usual, and opened them in record time. I didn't make a cake this year, but I did Shaylaize the Costco sheet cake by putting plastic horses on the balloons...whatever works right? Thank you all you good sports who drove clear down only to turn right back around. And thank you Nana, Poppie, Grandma and Grandpa for all the presents...I have hardly any Shayla Christmas shopping to do because I saved a bunch of the presents we were going to give her!





I think this picture sums up the Chuck E. Cheese fiasco pretty well



Anyone who knows Shay very well knows she is obsessed with Animals. I swear she can understand them...it's totally bizarre. Anyhow, not a day goes by that she doesn't ask for a pet and I don't say "after dental school". But she got four gold fish from a birthday party two weeks ago and was ecstatic. Three died within 48 hours. One was very resilient, but bit the dust after Shayla gave it cinnamon and sugar to eat for breakfast (or maybe it was because Kyler thought it needed toys and put several small stuffed animals in the tiny fish bowl). She was pretty depressed so we got her a small aquarium for her birthday and Zach took her to Petco after her party to pick out the fish. Unfortunately, the fish in the picture are no longer with us. They only lasted a few hours. I realize you all think I must be the culprit here, but we did have some goldfish that lived for a couple years so I do know somewhat what I'm doing. Today we're off to the pet store again, and these ones had better survive.