Surprise Birthday

My Noelle turned 5 a few days ago. She's been asking us to call her Noelle more lately. When people call her Elle, she now says, "But that's not my real name. I'm Noelle." Anyway, as her birthday got nearer, she started talking about how cool surprise parties are. She even drew me a picture of people jumping up from behind the couch yelling 'Surprise!' How do you then not throw her a surprise party? She wasn't due for a birthday party this year since she had one last year but we can always have a family & cousin party, right? So that's what we did.

First thing in the morning, Mike took her for a daddy/daughter breakfast date. She went in her jammies & robe and was seriously thrilled to have her daddy all to herself. When they walked back in the house afterward, Paige, Haley & I all hid behind the couch and yelled 'SURPRISE!' when she came in the kitchen. She loved it. Then we surprised her with this...

Remember that bear from Costco? When she initially begged for one, we lived in our last house that had not an inch to spare for giant teddy bears. Once I knew we were moving to this new house, though, and that we wouldn't have enough furniture to fill it, I bought the ginormous bear and hid it in our storage unit. She was pleasantly shocked, to say the least.

Once during the day, I said to her, "I can't believe you are 5! That's so big!" She sadly said, "I really miss being 4."

Birthday evening, cousins, siblings, aunts and grandma came over in time to surprise Elle once again.

She was giddy that she had a surprise party just for her.

Showin' the love to Aunt KK.

Oh my, how I love this little girl. She is my little sidekick & shadow and I love it. She loves her alone time with mom or dad (preferably with both of us snuggling in our bed). She's a cuddler. She's an eater ... loves food, much like her mom. She's feminine and tough at the same time. I just adore her. Happy Birthday, baby.