Perfect 10

September 13th......a day that is played up every year for MONTHS ahead of time in our house!  Birthdays are probably more important for Ava than anyone else in our house....maybe except me.

We both just love our special day!  I finally had to tell Ava to stop telling me every detail of what she wanted it to look like and just enjoy what we did for her!  Such pressure!!!  Let's get started:

She asked me to bring her cupcakes for her class, and specifically she liked the idea of dirt cupcakes with worms.  She was so excited to have them and the kids got a kick out of the worms.

 After school was out, we headed down to Austin Aquarium.  Elle was the only one that had ever been and all of us were excited to go.

This is the look on Ava's face when we got to touch and feed the sting rays!!!

Look at my face!  It says it all.  I was actually feeding the rays and it was FREAKING ME OUT!  I kept screaming and then doing it again.

We also got to feed sharks which all the kids LOVED!  It was just so much fun to watch them.  We also got to see some shark eggs, which we could see through and see the baby sharks wiggling around in their sacs....it was crazy!

After the aquarium, we headed to Chuy's for dinner.  This is Ava helping Levi with his homework while we waited for our food.

After dinner, we headed to Amy's Icecream for dessert--this was Ava's request, but I like to think it was a gift to me for planning her birthday!  :)

Then the part that Ava couldn't barely handle waiting for!!!  We headed home to open presents!

This was her favorite gift....and it cost us $9.99---the price of the plastic container!  

It was a box filled with all kinds of metal parts, nails, screws and pieces of wood.  It's an inventors box for her.  I can't wait to see what she'll make with all of it....and what this creativity will lead to in her future!  We stumbled on all the wood at a neighborhood garage sale last week, for a man that was a woodworker and getting rid of his shop!  He was just giving this away!  We have lots more in the garage that just wouldn't fit in the box.  The metal parts were from a friend at church that has a shop on his land and lots of things we could have!  Shawn and I were just so thankful that both of those things came together right around her birthday....we couldn't have afforded all of this stuff!

Ava's not the only imaginative one....both other kids were dreaming right along with her of all the things they were going to make with the things in this box!

She woke up this morning and told me that it was the best birthday ever!  All the pressure and hard work are worth it when I hear that!