That's right folks, she made it to the fifth year of life without major incident. Its hard to believe myself. This girl is one big ball of fiery energy that keeps all of us on our toes. Don't be fooled by her silliness and charm because before you know it she'll be telling you how lame your fashion choices are and how uncool you've become overnight. Some things that make Noelle special to us besides all her wit are as follows: She is so stinkin' smart, I had to buy a Human Body book for kids so that she and I could learn together. She's quite the artist and leaves her sketches, notes, stories and all other written things all over the house. She loves to draw girls with fancy dresses and high heeled shoes and recently has been having me cut out fish so that she can illustrate each one with its own personality. She then stuffs them into an envelope and asks me to mail them to various people. My favorite was the one with a "backpack" and falling out of that backpack is a bear. There was a very elaborate story to go with the backpack fish. Noelle loves to make up songs. Just today in the car she was singing a song about leprechauns and how they will mess up your hair and your room. I tried to catch it all from the front seat of the car and laughed the whole way. Lately she has started playing with Sydney more. This makes Boo and I both very happy considering just six months ago she was still asking when we planned to return her sister to the doctors who "got her out." The best is watching them together on the swing set, it makes my little mother heart swell. Noelle still loves to dance and still loves those darn tap shoes. I have to set a timer for tapping so that we can all keep our sanity around here. Sometimes it works. Noelle is very, very excited to go to kindergarten, however she feels the need to explain to anyone who asks her about it that she will indeed need to have some shots or vaccinations done before she can go and that after this she'll be done with shots forever. If only it were really true. Five has been a long time coming for her and now that it has arrived it seems she thinks she has the power to do even more amazing things. Our dear Noelle, we are so excited for you to learn a lot more things that hopefully include tying your own shoes and riding your bike without training wheels. Swimming wouldn't be so bad either. However those are just a smidgen of the things you will embrace in the next year or so. Thank you for your sense of humor that keeps Dad and I on our toes. Hopefully you'll never take life so serious that you can't have a good laugh. We sure love your guts even if they do stink from time to time.
Here are some birthday party extravaganza pictures that pretty much sum up the birthday experience at our house. (in no particular order.) 
We decorated the yard with many balloons and after the festivities one of the highlights was to gather them all together and run laps around the yard. It was also a game of keep-away from Sydney and Jackson. 
Every year Noelle request some sort of bubble maker. This one was pretty awesome. 
Here are the parting gifts for our birthday guests. Man did they make out like bandits. 
Noelle and her friends sat in a big circle for the gift exchanging. Sis did her best to be in the middle of the action as much as possible. 
We played some fun games to make all our guest tired including sack racing, go old fashion foot races the length of the yard, poisonous snake (jumping over a rope), a pinata, and pin the tail on the donkey. Some kids were in it to win it, and other chose to stand on the sidelines and spectate. 
The party riff-raff 
If you're willing to go through the trouble of creating a log in for yourself we'd love any and all to participate in the voting. You can vote daily. I can think of at least five people that will join me on this daily quest. Thanks to all five of you even if we don't win.
