It's Your Happy Happy Birthday Day!

Ma belle Evangeline turned 7 on the 13th. I reused the decorations from her birthday party and some balloons to snazz up the gift counter. 

Her door was a success!

I'm open to suggestions of fun things like this I can do in the future that they won't be expecting. I feel like I've started doing the same thing all the time, and they are never genuinely surprised. 

But they do love it!

She had girl scout camp the week of her birthday, so she didn't have time to open her gifts in the morning, as we needed to be there by 8AM, and I don't think Ben was even awake when I left to take her. She just loved this camp and had a great time every day. Her camp nickname was "Sprinkles". (Just like Kara's pet hamster.)

She was a little sad not to get dressed up on her birthday, but needed to wear shorts and a t-shirt for camp. When I picked her up, she was so excited and had an amazing time being the birthday girl at camp. 

While she was gone I decorated her cake. I had tried to talk her into birthday pie or brownies, since we had cake at her party, but she really wanted her own cake on her special day. She came home from camp with some papers and crafts. One of the papers had them list their favorite things, and hers were, pink, sprinkles, and cake. So I think I know what she was thinking about all day!

After camp we went to Six Flags with friends. We have never seen Marvin the Martian's dog there before. I don't even know his name.

Of course they made us go on the dreaded ferris wheel. I couldn't say no to the birthday buddies! We had a fun time and it was a hot one. I was definitely ready to get home to a nice, cool house. 

It was hard to wait for Daddy to get home so she could open her gifts, but wait she did. She passed the time by changing into several different dresses before settling on one that felt birthday appropriate. No more shorts and t-shirt for this little queen. Daddy came home with the requested ribs from Daly's BBQ, and after dinner we let her open her gifts from us. 

If there is one thing she probably doesn't need, it's more dresses. We got her this anyway. 

Kara and Kiersten got crafty. They did buy her gifts that they gave her at the pool party, but they wanted to make her something as well. 

They worked together to sew her a pillow and blanket from fabric I had sitting around. I noted that I should probably show them how easy it is to sew a pillow correctly. She loved it though. 

They also gave her a box of rocks that they had painted. It was weird, but Ben and I did our best not to laugh. They actually spent a lot of time painting them all and tried to think of her favorite things to paint on them. We do tease them occasionally about giving her a box of rocks for her birthday. 

When I was cleaning out the closet in my craft room I found a lap desk that was Kara's when she was little. Around age 7/8 she said it was for babies, and she didn't want it anymore, and I stashed it away in the closet. She let Evie have it for about 9 seconds before deciding she actually wanted it back. So we got Evie her own for her birthday. 

New suitcase!

Everyone loves cake/singing time. 

The cake turned out just as she had wanted it. 

Making a wish...

A successful extinguishing of the flame.

I hope all of her wishes always come true.

Here is another picture from girl scout camp. She loved the different themes they had for what to wear each day. She also loved that I let her stand on her booster seat and stick her head out the sunroof in the drop-off line to giggle at her friends with their heads poking out of sunroofs and windows. 

The following weekend the girls had swim conference. 11 and up were on Friday night, so I just took Kara as it was at our neighborhood pool. She did a great job, and I loved how quickly the meet ran with just the older kids. I was on lane loader duty, making sure the right kid is in the right lane for each race. With the older kids I didn't need to do too much except stand around listening to all the gossip, haha. 

The younger kids swam on Saturday. Evie brought her new favorite doll, and only had 4 races to swim. I didn't catch Kiersten for a picture because the meet ran so fast she was always swimming or lining up to swim it seemed. They had a great time, and Evie got several ribbons!

Later that night she lost a tooth. They are falling out like crazy, but taking FOREVER to come back in. I love my little toothless wonder!