She let us sing her "Happy Birthday!"

Yes, I know,  it is a miracle!

Well, at least, it was to me.

Remember last year... she ran off screaming and it took her a few minutes to calm her down. After that experience I got right on "My Fragile X Community" to find out if anyone else's FXS girls had done this when they had birthday attention... and yes, I found many instances where other FXS girls had been through the same hyper-arousal issues, so...

this year was a whole different story.

I informed everyone that we would just have the cake and no song. So we brought out the cake, lit up the candles and she blew them out...

Here is what she did to the lovely cake that Jessie made for her.

That is German chocolate cake frosting she has on her fingers... Now at first I thought "Oh, no, I shouldn't have even done the cake." But after we washed off her hands and listened more closely to her plees, I came to realize that she wanted all of us to sing "Happy Birthday" to her! I think that in her preschool class they taught how you sing the song when it is your birthday and so after she blew out the candles she was expecting a song. When we didn't sing she was frustrated trying to tell us and so she had a little fit and stuck her hand in the cake when we were starting to serve it up. So, we quickly gathered round and sang her "Happy Birthday" the good old fashioned way—with vigor! She was so happy after that and was ready for a slice of her birthday cake!

She is 5! 5! I can't believe she is 5! So grown up! Such a joy. A frustrating, hyper, aggressive joy! (smile)

This is definately one of my favorite pictures from the day. She LOVES her daddy! Look at her smile...

Perfect shot of her blowing out her candles! We all laughed because she was spitting while she was blowing... we all know how that goes right? And right when a string of spit was about to land on the cake and the wind kicked up and blew it back. Joel called out, "Thank goodness for nature!" We all laughed!

Here's the point where she finally got them out...

I was teasing her with her frosting hands trying to avoid a fall-apart. It worked.

Sister loved ALL of her presents. Her favorite present though, was the band-aids! Yes, I said band-aids. She loves them. She loves to put them on all the time. Sometimes she actually needs them and sometimes not so much. I should take a picture one day. This day would have been especially good because the band-aids grandma Lynne gave her were different colors. She had them all up one leg—good times!

Uncle Frank had all the kids entertained. They had him wrestled to the ground and he still came back for more!

And these next pictures, I know it was Sister's birthday but, I love these pictures of Baby with my dad—he put his hat on her and gave her an ice cream scoop and she was a happy camper! Oh, how I love them!

Here is a picture of Sister last year at her birthday! She has grown!

 And here is one from 2008