Birthday Parties

 Well, we now have a 9-year-old.  Evie's birthday was last Sunday.  Since she is now such an early riser, I was afraid I would miss my chance to sing Happy Birthday to her first thing in the morning, as we've done since her first birthday, but I managed to get up before her and sing to her.  

We went to church where she was wish Happy Birthday from a socially safe distance by many of the people in attendance, and then we came home for a bit before going to Granna and Grannadaddy's house where we were joined by Kathy, Rickie, and Olivia for dinner and cake.

Evie had a bit of a tummy ache right after dinner, but luckily it turned around after some Tums and some snuggles on the couch.  So she was well enough to eat cake.  We were pretty proud of our cake design this year (we didn't make it, but we ordered it).  Evie is VERY into wolves right now, so she got a wolf cake.

We followed this with present opening.  Evie got several things that were immediately enjoyed, in particular, these wolf slippers:

Just look at what a sweet expression she has in this picture... I just love her....

She enjoyed this SUPER soft pink rug.

The tradition of putting a present bow in her hair lives on.

Here she is opening her Disney train collectible that Kathy gives her every year.  Look at this face!

And everybody had to get in on playing with the kinetic sand:

On Thursday, Ryan drove Addie and Will up to spend the weekend with us.  He and Aimee have to work, but they'll be here tomorrow to see us and get the kids.  Addie and Will spent the night at our house Thursday and I let Evie have a day off of school on Friday so she could play with them.  They spent the night Friday too and then yesterday they were here for Evie's birthday party.

We had her party at a local nature center where Evie has done summer camps before.  Even though it was about 95 degrees, we all had a good time.  We went on a short hike, across a bridge where the kids could drop food for the fish, turtles, and geese in the pond, and through the trees where our guide taught the kids the difference between poison ivy and Virginia creeper and also found a king snake for them to look at under a log.  She had turtle shells the kids could examine, and talked about the different trees and birds we were seeing. 

Then, Evie got to pick two animals for everyone to see up close.  She chose a red eared slider (turtle) and an oppossum.  Evie's friend Calliope was so excited and she blurted out with gusto, "I've always wanted to touch an opposum!"

After washing our hands well, we went back to the pavilion for cupcakes and drinks.  Everyone had a great time and we are so grateful we were able to have a birthday party this year.

A lot of Evie's friends are only children who haven't seen other kids much all year because we've been doing virtual school at our local school system.  Calliope, as mentioned earlier, is one of those only-children and she came up to me at the end of the party and asked if she could give Evie a hug.  I told her it was okay with me if it was okay with Evie, and after they hugged, Calliope said, "It's been so long since I hugged another kid!"  That just broke my heart.  This pandemic has been so hard on our young kids, and especially these only children....

Evie and Calliope

Evie's "boyfriend" Desmond came to the party and is also an only child.  I was honestly surprised that Evie put him on the invitation list because we haven't seen Desmond in over a year, but he was one of the first kids she mentioned when we were putting the list together. 

Here they were told to strike a pose and Evie, of course, is doing ballet, and Desmond is howling like a wolf.  No wonder she likes him!

For posterity, here's the list of kids at the party and how we know each of them:

- Addie and Will, cousins 

- Desmond, "boyfriend" from preschool

- Sasha, friend from preschool

- McKinley, met through Sasha and now all 3 of them are friends

- Allyson, friend since first grade

- Nathaniel and Lydia, church friends, and their mom and I have been friends since children too

- Ivy and Corwin, their mom and I have been friends since high school

- Calliope, funnily enough, lives in the house that I grew up in which is only a few blocks from our current house - we ran into Calliope and her mom when Evie and I took a walk past my old house on day a couple of years ago

Evie amazes me with choosing such great kids to be friends with and she holds on to those relationships even through separations of school systems and even through a pandemic!  I am so proud of how sweet and kind she is and how she picks kids who are also sweet and kind to be friends with.