Miss Eve celebrated nine big years today! I have lots of pictures and it was a busy day, but this is all I’m doing tonight. I love this girl more than the world, even when she drives me crazy, and I am so lucky to have her in my life. Happy birthday baby girl!
Last night we celebrated Eve’s birthday with a friend-filled slumber party! We had seven girls (eight, including Eve) come for dinner and fun. Two went home at bedtime and five (six, including Eve) stayed over night! It was wild and silly and fun! She has a nice group of friends.
When they arrived we had perler beads and Just Dance running on the XBox. A calm craft and an energetic activity. The girls bounced happily between the two.
Perler beads are plastic beads that you arrange on a little pin tray and then use a warm iron to melt them together. They take lots of concentration and fine motor skills!
I bought a dance game for the XBox and it was a HUGE hit! So worth the money!
When Alan came home from the gym he brought dinner with him. Pizza for all! Eve did her best to avoid all photos during this party. :/
Pizza and fruit salad for dinner. Yum! Duck Eve, duck!
Then time for presents. My phone camera was really lousy for this whole party. Dunno why. None of the pictures came out well. Maybe I need to clean it or something.
Presents and pjs.
Instead of cake, I made mini cupcakes and we did a fondue type thing.
The candles got a little interesting. :)
Everyone had fun using the tiny forks and dipping the cupcakes into frosting and toppings. I put out lots of options so there was something for everyone.
What’s a party without a giant cake bite picture?! :)
Then back to dancing! Gotta dance off the sugar. I found them running back and forth into the kitchen, eating cupcake toppings by the handful. I put a quick end to that!
Dancing the night away.
Just in time I remembered that we had a pillow case project to do as well! I had white pillow cases, stencils, and fabric markers for all the girls. They had a great time decorating them and signing each other’s pillow cases. It was really cute.
I found a cute poem on Pinterest and several girls used it on their pillow cases.
Now I lay me down to sleep… I’ll count friends instead of sheep…
Lots of hand tracing, well wishes, and positivity.
Her pillow case is all stenciled and so pretty.
Quick break for a game of darts. It’s good to have a receiver at the bottom to throw the darts back to you! They are magnetic darts, btw, no sharp objects flying around here!
I tried for a nice group shot, but where’s Eve?
Oh, there she is!
Things got a little silly.
Silly birthday hugs for Eve.
After the lateover girls went home everyone else brushed teeth and settled in for a movie. Eve chose to watch Duck Soup, a Marx Brothers movie that we had watched as a family last weekend. She loved it then and we had paused it a bunch of times for everyone to laugh. She was certain her friends would love it and said we would be pausing it every minute or two for laughter. Sadly, that was not the case. She loved it and laughed, but they were mostly just confused. I eventually made Alan and Lex turn off Minecraft and watch the movie, hoping their laughter might bolster Eve’s. Two loyal friends stuck it out for the whole movie, but the rest went upstairs to play. Eve didn’t seem to care. She was happy to be watching a movie that made her laugh.
I think Marx Brothers wasn’t what this Disney-raised crowd was expecting!
Everyone went to bed after the movie. In bed around 10:30, lights out at 11pm, and time for the serious voice at 11:30. They were all asleep by midnight! Thankfully! This morning I heard footsteps walking around at 6am, and when I got up at 6:15 I heard giggly little voices. Everyone was downstairs and dancing again by 7am!
Pancakes for breakfast, of course. With chocolate chips and syrup. But, wait, where’s Eve?
Oh there she is, avoiding my camera again. :) Silly girl. I try hard to respect her wishes and not take as many pictures, but it’s hard to resist at a birthday party!
Let’s keep this party going with an early morning dance-fest!
I learned from our past two sleepovers (Eve’s and Lex’s) that things are less fun in the morning and an earlier pick-up is better than a later one. Things went well this time, maybe because we had enough kids that no one had to work too hard to entertain anyone else, but still by 9am everyone was ready to go. Parents came, hugs and thanks were exchanged, and everyone went home.
I want to say she fell asleep at the table, but not really. She did get a Little Live Pet and had fun taking care of it and “feeding” it this morning. That head definitely went down on the table many times while she was playing though. :) Tired girl.
Alan went to work today (poor guy) and the kids and I are taking it slow. I just dropped Eve off at Girl Scouts and apologized to the troop leader that half her troop was up until midnight partying at my house last night. I hope they all survive.
Overall a super fun party though! Eve has great friends and I think everyone had fun. There was no fighting and only the slightest bickering. Everyone played together and no one seemed excluded. There was plenty of sweets and toys and balloons for all. Another successful party on the books! Now we have almost two weeks to recover before her actual birthday! :)
I went up to check on the kids before I went to bed last night and found sweet surprises in both room.
Eve had a really hard time falling asleep and was up very late last night. This might have been partly why. I think she’s getting excited for her birthday. :)
I’ll help translate a few:
1. Little Live Pets (official website, Amazon)
2. Mechanical dog. I think she saw one at KMart one time.
6. Non-permenant hair dye. She wants to dye her hair bright purple.
10. Surprises
I think the rest make sense without translation. :)
Lex, on the other hand, had no trouble falling asleep!
When I showed him these pictures this morning he was surprised he’d fallen asleep that way. He said he only meant to cuddle her for a few minutes then planned to put his head back on the pillow. I guess he was pretty comfy. ?
Eve and I went out to deliver Girl Scout cookies today (finally!) and found these lovely things growing in the yard. Our first flowers always bloom in the middle of the yard.
Delivering cookies with our new wagon.
We bought a wagon just for this reason. Last year we delivered the cookies, in the snow, by carrying boxes and bags in our arms. It was exhausting! The wagon made the process a whole lot nicer. It took us over two hours, but we finally got all the neighborhood cookies delivered! Family, friends, and school were delivered last week, so now we are done! Whew!
???? Someone is turning nine soon! ????
Eve made herself this amazing sign for her bedroom door and I love it. She took dinosaur stickers and guessed at their feelings and emotions. I asked if it was a book about feelings and she said no, just a regular sticker book. I especially love the face with steam coming out of it’s ears under the “Don’t come in” words, and the “hangry” one, and well… I love them all! I mostly love that “Happy” is the default checked box. :)
How are you feeling today?
We have this book called The Valentine Express that we’ve had for years and years. It’s a cute story of bunny siblings that learn about Valentine’s Day in school and decide to make Valentine’s Day gifts for all of their neighbors. We read the story every year and often get inspiration for cards.
The Valentine Express
Today, after a late night at hockey, Eve spent the afternoon in her room making Valentine’s Day treats. She decided to make treats for each neighbor and came down once to have me help her count houses.
Meanwhile her new dog enjoyed a a delicious popcorn snack. :)
She finally finished around 5:3pm and wanted to head right out and deliver them. For some reason she wants to put them in mailboxes, not knock on doors. We’ll see what the neighbors think of that. She signed them all “from Cupid,” but I thought it wiser to have her name on them. :)
Two Valentine “trees” and a very serious face.
A sampling of her creations.
Seeing as it was 5:30pm, dark, and 2° outside, I talked her into waiting until morning to deliver the goods. She agreed, reluctantly.
She then had a mini-meltdown when she realized how messy her room was, hid herself under the coffee table with a book, missed dinner, and went to be in tears. Sweet tired girl. Hopefully an early bedtime will help her make it through the day tomorrow. <3
Daisy likes to join us when we read downstairs. She was behind my head for awhile, then here behind Eve’s, the after Lex joined us on the couch she curled up on my arm by the pillow. Never sleeping, just being with us. It’s very sweet.
It’s buddy week at karate again! Bring a buddy, break a board.
Hehehe… it looks like I used the exact same title last time too!
Look what she did at school today. Just for fun. She needs a little work on her spelling, but the sentiment is there. ?