It's a tradition

We visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden, Liza insists on visiting the butterfly release, I have to kill half an hour taking pictures while she communes with nature.

Birthday party

Playground World, I (and fifteen of my closest friends, and some of their siblings) am in you!

Only shot of the day which shows more than two kids on any piece of equipment - they scattered like ball bearings dropped on a concrete floor, and Liza bounced between clumps of school- and non-school-friends all afternoon.

I told all the parents they were allowed to play on the equipment, too, but strangely enough there weren't many takers.

Good thing nobody took me up on the trampoline offer - somebody probably would have fallen and broken a hip.  We may be young at heart, but none of us are actually young anymore!

We had to drag them inside the party room for pizza and cake.

Good thing the cupcakes looked awesome - the kids were impressed for 10 seconds before they ran back out to play.

We gave her the choice between opening the presents at the party or opening them at home and having more time to play.  Greed won.

It was a lot less work to prepare for this party than for last year's Angry Birds Extravaganza.  And despite having three times as many guests, we finished the thank-you notes in a fraction of the time.  So, it was a winning situation all the way around!