Birthday party, and an ode to cheap gifts from Wal-Mart

Last night we celebrated Kaitlyn's birthday. My parents, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece came over to help us celebrate. Here are a few pictures of the evening...

We did a princess theme and got a Little Mermaid cupcake "cake"


Blowing out the candles

After she blew out the candles, she accidentally put her hand in the frosting writing beside the cake. She wasn't quite sure what to do about that at first, then she tasted it. Yummmm!

Getting down to business

After cake and ice cream, we moved on to opening presents. My sister's family got her a dog from Build-a-Bear. Kailtyn was very interested in what was in the box, but as soon as she saw the dog she pulled back, folded her arms, and said, "I don't want that!"

I don't know what it was about the dog that freaked her out, but she refused to have anything do with it until she discovered that she could take the shoes off. (She has a fascination with taking shoes off and putting them on again.) Here she is warming up to the dog.

My parents gave her money, intending for us to use it to buy some things for her room. (Possibly a new bedspread? Or maybe some fun artwork? Hmmm... Mom is going to have fun spending this!)

When she saw the money she took it and started "counting" it. Of course she didn't really count it, but she laid it all out on the floor in a way that made it look like she knew exactly what she was doing.

She loves playing with and mothering her baby, so we wanted to get her some toys that could foster her imagination in that area. We found two little gift packs at Wal-Mart (for $5 each - woohoo!) that have various baby-related items, such as bottles, diapers, pretend lotion, soap, food, etc.

And, of course, the el-cheapo gifts from Wal-Mart turned out to be her favorite.

I don't have any pictures of her playing with the play kitchen we got for her. Probably because she didn't really play with it, except for the spoon she used to feed her baby the pretend food from the el-cheapo gift.

Another recent cheap Wal-Mart gift was a little umbrella stroller we bought for her to push her baby around. It cost $7, and is probably the best investment we've made in a while - she LOVES that thing.

Apparantly we have not been doing nearly enough shopping at Wal-Mart.

I have more pictures and videos that I've finally saved on my computer - my intention is to get those posted sometime soon. (Which probably means that I'll have them up just before Christmas.)

I've also intended to post one of those mushy "I can't believe my baby had a birthday" messages, but so far I can't seem to get my mind fully wrapped around that. (Again, this means that I'll probably get it posted sometime around Thanksgiving.)