Our Baby is Seven!

It was a big birthday day around here yesterday. 10 girls joined Sarah at Happy Joe's to celebrate her 7th birthday! The celebration was complete with pizza, tokens for games, prizes, ice cream sundaes, party games, and plenty of chatter and laughter. We skipped gifts this year in favor of a book exchange (each child brought a book and left with a different book). It was a busy couple of hours at Happy Joe's - something Daddy says he never wants to do again - but Sarah and the rest of the girls were having a great time.

After the party, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, a couple of girls came over to our house for the afternoon. We were joined by Grandma and Grandpa and (SURPRISE!) Great Grandma Elsing. We were all glad to give Gram a tour of our house in her first trip to Mankato since we moved. We continued to celebrate by opening a couple of gifts at home and eating angel food cake with icecream and strawberries. One of the girls had a little too much birthday and it ended up on our patio outside!! She made a quick
recovery though :o) We had planned on having a campfire that evening which Dana ended up starting in the middle of the afternoon saying, "The girls wanted to burn stuff." Huh?! They were very responsible, however, and we used the fire later to roast marshmallows for s'mores. How many treats can we fit into one day?

Sarah says her favorite part of her birthday was the campfire. Mommy thinks it was her new sunglasses which hardly left her face all day (except to share with her friends - good job, Sarah!)

Here's Sarah's version of the happenings on her birthday - "We opened presents. I got sunglasses, books, a shirt, hair things, a sucker, and we got to have seven tokens. We went to church. Then we went to Happy Joe's and had pizza and ice cream sundaes. 10 friends came and I was the special birthday girl. Then I even got to have 2 friends over at my house! Grandma and Grandpa came to see me with Grandma Elsing. I sat and cuddled on her lap. I got a book from them about art and an American Girl doll game. We had a campfire with my friends and we got to throw pine needles into it to help it grow big. It feels good to be seven. I like it. Everyone says I look seven too."