Madison's Birthday

The week that school started was also Madison's birthday.  To be honest I had kind of forgotten about it.  Not really forgotten - I knew it was on the 18th - but I just hadn't realized the 18th was on Saturday.  I had been so pre-occupied with all of our other problems and my mental health was in serious decline I ONLY dealt with matters as they came up.  So planning a party was not even something I thought about - until Tuesday when Madison said, "am I having my birthday party this week?"  CRAP!  "um... yes.  What do you want to do?"  After about 2 hours and a million ideas she finally decided on a swimming party.  I couldn't have been more thankful.  It was easy-peasy and cheap.  Everyone in our neighborhood gets into pools for free and we did it right after school on a Friday so we just did cake and a drink.  Since Madison is so crafty and creative she wanted to do one activity.  We came up with making boats for our dollar-store mermaids to float on.  She was happy, I was happy - it was going to be great.

While I was going through the girls' hair for lice the last 2 weeks the girls had been watching baking shows on Netflix.  Of course, this inspired Maddie to come up with an intense birthday cake.  We made a few compromises and this is what I was able to do with my skill level.  She absolutely loved it and so did her friends.

Girls making the boats.

We practically had the pool to ourselves - it was great!

Madison has 2 really good friends that she wanted to invite: Talmage and Antonio.  Both are boys with special needs.  Antonio is in a wheel-chair and is deaf, blind, and non-verbal.  Madison wanted to make sure that she had a party that both of them could come to and have fun.  Unfortunately Antonio got sick the morning of her party and couldn't come.  But Talmage had a great time with all the girls and Madison forced him to take a group picture :)

Ivy, Sammy, Talmage, Madison, Megan, Zoe, Delaney, and Lucia

Grandma Hanna got her a mermaid tail.

Antonio's mom came and SPOILED Madison.  They got her about 200 dollars worth of "American Girl" doll stuff (Target brand). 

She made out like a bandit - everyone got her such nice gifts.  It was better than Christmas for sure.  She has been VERY nice to share all her stuff with Megan.

The next day (Saturday) was her "real" birthday and we didn't have ANYTHING planned (no sports or anything).  So we let Madison pick a family activity.  She wanted to go swimming with all of us AND she wanted us all to get in the water (including me and Jason) AND she wanted Jason to "throw her around".  Good things she isn't too specific.  The weather wasn't as nice and started to rain - so we ended up in the indoor pool.

We all had a great time racing, diving, and playing around.

Her aunt Ashley gave her a Cake pop maker and her own set of piping tips.  She is in heaven.  We made them that weekend.  She is becoming quite the baker.