Claire turned 7 yesterday! We had such fun with her birthday... maybe in great part because she was SO excited about it. She was very happy to finally be the age of all her classmates at school-- all the rest had already turned 7, and she was still 6.Usually, I tell the kids I'll do a friends party every 2 or 3 years, and on the other years, we just have a party with Gma and Gpa (and sometimes some other relatives might be around :). Well, right now, everyone in our families is in MI/CO/CA, so I knew we had to plan something different to make her bday special. (Chad's parents gave Claire her gift and even a cake way back in August before they left)
Because we had no school on Monday, we planned Claire's party for the evening before her actual birthday. Claire wanted to invite George and Cheryl Michael, and Sheila Tingler-- a special teacher/friend from church. We really had a fantastic time, and I know Claire thought it was special (so I felt successful! :).
Here Claire is giving Katie a hug-- she had just opened a really neat present from Katie-- a set of necklaces that says Big Sis and Lil Sis-- so the 2 of them each wear one.
Oh, dear. Here's another crooked picture. If someone knows how to turn these, you'll have to tell me.
This is the cake Katie and I made for Claire. We used Wendy's idea for Madison's cake, and modified it a bit so we could leave the middle without frosting-- since Claire likes yellow cake but only without frosting.
For our meal, we had a menu planned by Claire... grilled hotdogs and sausages with buns, Texas toast, apple slices, red finger jello (cut by Jenna into cool shapes, even the word "CLAIRE"), peas (because I told Claire she needed to choose a vegetable, not because she wanted any or ended up eating any), and I surprised her with some fresh (expensive) raspberries.
It took her 2 tries to blow out the candles. On the first try, she got none, and on the second, she got them all.
We also had some party horns that provided a bunch of laughs.
Here's Claire with Mrs. Tingler, who was Claire's 4's and 5's teacher at church. Very sweet woman. Sheila plays bells next to me at church also. And her son is Katie's youth group leader.
George and Cheryl both came, but he had to leave after supper for church board meetings, so we missed getting a pic of him.
Claire got some fun presents-- gummy worms and gummy bears, a little money and gift cards (the girls first thought it was a $500 gift card, and we had a good laugh over that!), headbands, socks, crocs, a fairy book, video, markers.
On Tuesday morning, the real day of Claire's birthday, Chad had arranged a string thing-- he had string going all over the living room, stairs, family room, bathroom, even some in the garage. Started upstairs and ended back up here at the piano. Claire followed it around, collected some cool notes on the way, and found a pretty blue scarf at the end.
Claire was born at 12:09pm, so this year, she made a big deal about not actually turning 7 til during lunch at school. :)
After a pizza supper, she opened the cards and packages that had come for her in the mail. Fun to spread it out like this.
Claire is such a special addition to our family! I just can't imagine how boring our family would be without her. She's a spark, full of life and silliness. She's smart and catches on to humor quickly. She also can be very loving and kind; as well as very hyper and crazy. For her birthday party, she definitely was all those. She's so much fun!
Seven years ago, we were in the middle of our Johns Hopkins adventure with her. Learning about the NICU. Trying to cuddle her with all the wires attached. (Trying to nurse her with wires attached, in the middle of a room with several babies/doctors/nurses!) Wondering when/if she'd have to have heart surgery. Wondering what God had planned for her life. She was a beautiful 9 lb 3 1/2 oz baby... nurses kept commenting that she looked like a baby doll and she looked absolutely gigantic compared to most of the babies in the NICU! Two months later, she had her heart surgery, and other than a very neat scar, you'd never know. She ran/walked 2 miles at school last week! Thank you, Lord!
No comments:
Post a Comment