Makaela's birthday party at the zoo

We postponed Makaela's birthday party by a week in order to have more time to prep for it and give Matt some time to settle back into homelife. I decided to have it at the zoo because I didn't think Matt was going to be home and wanted to avoid cleaning and decorating the house. Makaela said she wanted a Dora and Diego birthday so the zoo seemed like a great place to host it. I spent most of Friday night prepping breakfast foods and then this morning, got up to bake all of it. Makaela and Matt iced the cake and put together Dora (which I made the night before). I think more frosting went in Makaela's mouth than on the cake though.
As we were driving down to the zoo, it was pouring. I was freaking out. Luckily, the gods smile on the tourists in Waikiki and it was clear down there. As we were walking into the zoo, Matt had a mishap and the beautiful cake he and Makaela just made, ended up upside down on the floor. Matt was so upset, but we tried to get him over it. Makaela started dancing around him singing, "this is the best birthday ever, this is the best birthday ever", which made Matt feel better. Luckily we were able to reconstruct the cake before everyone arrived for the party. Once everyone got there, we started making our "backpacks" and "rescue packs". The kids got all dirty with stamps, markers and stickers. It totally fit into our Dora theme.

Gavin, Brooke and Makaela wore their rescue pack/backpacks the entire day. After the arts and crafts, the kids ran around the banyan tree pretending to be Diego (Gavin), Alicia (Makaela) and Dora (Brooke). There were a few falls, but the kids were so into their game of "pretend", they got right back up and kept playing.

After the game, we ventured out to "rescue" the animals and "explore". The kids were so cute holding hands and having toddler conversations about them. Listen to the way Makaela says "zebra".

We sang to Makaela with her patched up birthday cake minus the candles (I thought the zoo would frown upon open flames) and the kids, pigeons and peacocks feasted on strawberry Dora cake.

Makaela was utterly exhausted and passed out in the car before we even got on the highway to head back home. We had a great time and I will treasure Makaela's mantra from today "this is the best birthday ever". I hope she says this every year.