She's a big five year old!

Jordan had the birthday of a lifetime! We spent four days at Disney World and she was celebrated each and every day! She's a very lucky girl. At the beginning of the holiday season, Jordan was nutty about opening gifts. I couldn't understand why she was acting so crazed about the experience. Then it hit me... She only gets to open gifts across one period of the year. There's Christmas and her birthday all within one week and that's it. The thrill of opening gifts is a once a year thing. It can make even the calmest of children (and Jordan is not the calmest) start to get overly excited.Ever since Jordan was born, we've had a tendency to extend her birthday into various family visits. So her celebration started with a birthday cake and gifts from her uncle while we visited him in Charlotte right before Christmas. She got some super cool gifts and a beautiful princess cake.Fast forward a week later and we got to celebrate Jordan's fifth birthday for four straight days. It started with our first lunch in Italy while we were in Epcot. Jordan got a surprise song and birthday candle with her dessert.But the big deal was Jordan had a chance to dress up like Rapunzel from the movie Tangled, meet Rapunzel in person AND eat lunch in Cinderella's Castle while meeting all kinds of princesses. It was princess galore. If you ask Jordan about what was the best part of her birthday celebration, she keeps changing her favorite parts.
The cupcakes and fun lastest all the way to the last night of our visit to the parks. Jordan loved wearing her birthday pin where it seemed like every single Disney cast member (also known as employee) was wishing Jordan a happy birthday saying things like: "Happy birthday princess!" or "Happy birthday Princess Jordan!" The birthday girl got very good at saying thank you to each an every person. She loved telling people she was five by holding up her hand. So many people would declare: "You're a whole hand old!" It was very cute.We're exhausted and I have a bunch of stories to share and I plan to do that. But we're back to school and I'm back to work. We have a lot to do but I don't want to forget the stories. I took a ton of video snippets... Hopefully I'll find time to put something together with it.Oh - one other thing. Jordan is a daredevil. She LOVED the fast rides - at least the ones she was tall enough for. She couldn't ride the largest roller coasters, but she did get to ride Test Track and the Tower of Terror. I caught a moment of her pure happiness on Test Track. She couldn't stop laughing. It was awesome.