Vacation and a Birthday Party

Ohhhh, we are back from vacation. It was glorious. To quote somebody I don't remember, "We did nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be." Well, we didn't quite do nothing--we talked and ate and went to the state park to walk and take pictures and went to rock beaches and took naps every day and slept in every morning and I read and read and read...you get the picture. It was the most relaxing time I've had in ages. Like this:



Or this (Darren was far, far away from me when he snapped this shot):



We did miss the girls, but it was a good kind of missing--we needed to miss them a little bit. And we did not miss being wakened at 5:45 in the morning by them. They had a wonderful time at my parents', and they were happy with the whatever-you-call-them thingies we got for their crocs (Kermit the frog and some crayons for Lucy; Mickey and Minnie Mouse for Elaine) and the Door County Silly Goose t-shirts we brought back for them. Then they fought all the way home in the car. Oh, and I discovered the most wonderful shop in Door County (I'm not big on shopping; we found this the last day we were there--good thing; I spent enough money in there as it was) called Made in Britain, Ltd.: it was filled with tea and British food stuffs and souvenirs. I got a tiny red telephone booth key chain and a Mind the Gap key chain (I like key chains. A bunch of them. All at the same time. It drives Darren crazy.), and some loose tea, and a t-shirt with a map of the London underground system on it. Oh, and a refrigerator magnet (of course!) of a sign for New Scotland Yard. Not to mention getting in a big conversation about how much we both adore England with the store owner. I'll be going back there every time I hit Door County.

The next day was Lucy's birthday party. She's not turning 5 until this Saturday, but we're doing something as a family that day so I had her "friend" party a week early. She wanted a flower fairy party. She had three friends from school: Rachel, Paige, and Gabby, and two friends from church: Isabella and Rylee. We kept it all outdoors (thank you Jesus for the beautiful weather!!) I put out containers of bubbles and sidewalk chalk for everyone to play with. My friend Catherine came over and painted the girls' faces, which was a HUGE hit. She's a wonderful artist and did whatever the girls asked for, ranging from a bee (for Elaine) to flowers, fairies, rainbows, butterflies, whatever.

I had bought tiny cards and envelopes and stickers with fairies on them. I designed a little treasure hunt and wrote one clue to each girl on each card from a particular flower fairy and decorated it with the sticker. I hid them all around, and each clue led to the next one. The final clue was for Lucy on a little birdhouse that sits in our back flower bed. Behind the birdhouse was a box with a bow, containing a little flower fairy and a fairy necklace for each girl (I made the flower fairies--soooo easy, and I bought silver fairy charms--$5.95 for a dozen--from Oriental Trading Co. and put them on pastel ribbon to make the necklaces).

For food, I made oversized cupcakes and decorated them as mushrooms, tiny cupcakes that Lucy helped decorate for "fairy cakes," fairy fruit magic wands (fruit on a little stick), tiny cookies called Fairy Magic Bonbons (aka dough consisting entirely of butter, flour, sugar, and food coloring, rolled in confectioner's sugar), and strawberry punch. Unfortunately, I got so busy and frazzled, that I didn't take pictures of the favors or the food. Lucy and Elaine have their flower fairies and necklaces, so I'll try to post a picture of those soon...but alas, the refreshments are long gone.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, and Lucy got just beautiful presents. I was also so impressed with all the little girls--everyone was so polite and sweet and graciously took turns for face painting and thanked us for the nice party. Lucy had a wonderful time and told me afterward, "I just loved my party! I wish all my friends could just stay here forever!"

Here are some pics:

Miss Catherine painting faces...



Lucy and her dear friend Rachel (I call them Betsy and Tacy!)

Opening presents...




The "church ladies"...



And lest anyone forget, Little Sister was at the party too. Whenever we would talk about the party in the days leading up to it, she would insist, "And me too! ME TOO!" Yes, Baby. You too!



(I had to get red frosting out of her nose after her nap as you can see from the shot above...)

That night at bedtime, I tucked two tired little girls in and heard their prayers. Here was Lucy's: "Dear Jesus, thank you for this lovely day. Thank you that it was so nice out. Thank you that all my friends came over and for my presents. Thank you that Mom took responsibility for my party. Amen."