Livvy's Birthday

Somehow without my permission my first and only precious little baby girl keeps growing.  Here's what Olivia Joy looked liked a little over six years ago.  So sweet and small; she fit perfectly into an oversized Christmas stocking.  She truly was an angel of a baby - she nursed well, slept through the night early on, cooed and talked with her big toothless smiles.  Absolutely perfect!

And then Livvy grew and grew.  She's still a very good and fun kid to have around.  She is smart, goofy, a great help with things around the house, and with minding her brothers.  She's tender-hearted and yet stubborn and opinionated at the same time - takes after her father (love you honey...OK, she a bit like me too).  :)

Here's what she looked like a couple of months ago in one of her finer moments after playing outside for a few minutes.  Give the girl some mud and she would swim in it if it was deep enough!

At the end of November Livvy turned six years old.  For her 6th birthday Livvy decided that she wanted a pumpkin cake - to taste like pumpkin and look like a pumpkin. At first I was hoping she'd changed her mind to something else at the last minute, but it ended up being a very fun theme. My mom and I made two different kinds of pumpkin cake batter. One was a chocolate and pumpkin and the other was a pumpkin spice. We made cupcakes out of most of the batter and one small round for the adults. We iced the cupcakes with orange frosting and waited for the kids to come.

I am not one who enjoys coming up with all sorts of kid party activities or little goody bags, etc.  I'd rather not have my kids come home from a party with more candy or little cheap toys, and so I don't like to send kids home from our parties with stuff like that (I know, what a bah-hum-bug-mom).  I have caved to the pressure and sent home goody bags on occasion, but I'd rather not.  So, I usually try to have the kids do something that the kids can eat or dispose of soon afterward.

This year, to go with the pumpkin theme, I left all the cupcakes plain and had the kids decorate their own pumpkins and then stick them in the pumpkin patch (a long tin-foiled covered board edged with Twizzlers and filled with crushed chocolate graham crackers) until it was time to be consumed.  All the kids had a great time putting all sorts of sprinkles and candies on their pumpkins.  It turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.

For lunch I even had the kids make their own pizzas.  I think everybody enjoyed it, even though deep down I felt slightly guilty for taking the easy way out from doing all the other party stuff that's popular these days to do.  But really, Livvy had the best time just being with her friends, and that's what really matters.  I have to remember that when I'm in the midst of things and getting a little stressed.