Livvy Turns Seven

Well, technically Livvy's not seven yet.  In approximately seven hours she will be seven.  She was born in the wee hours of a cold November morning back in 2004.  Seems so long ago...and yet not so long.

Today we celebrated her birthday with all her friends.  It was a Little House On The Prairie birthday.  There were 15 children all together (not including the two babies): five boys and the rest girls.  All of her girl friends came dressed in pioneer dresses and bonnets if they had them.  The boys just came in their regular clothes.  Although my boys like the LHOTP, they're not as keen as Livvy and the girls about getting all dressed up and playing "Laura" - no monster trucks or super heros.

The first thing that I had all of them do was make butter for their sweet corn muffins - something that the real Laura would have had to do.

Once their butter was made, everybody sat down and ate their buttered muffins and drank friendship tea (also known as Russian tea).  I had gone to Savers on Veteran's Day and found 19 little glass tea cups for around $.30 each.  They worked out really well and will be great to have on hand for future tea parties. ~I was too busy pouring tea that I didn't get a picture.

Next we played "Pin The Bonnet On Laura". Yesterday I drew a picture of a little prairie girl on an over-sized piece of paper and made little paper bonnets for the kids to stick on Laura's head.  It turned out to be a really fun game.

After Livvy opened some presents, we sung Happy Birthday and cut her cake.  Speaking of the cake, I think it's one of the best cakes I've done so far (not that I've done that many)!  I always have this image in my head of what I want the cake (or whatever artsy thing that I'm working on in the moment) to look like...rarely does it turn out like I want it to.  This time, with some pointers from our neighbor Heidi, it looked so cute!



Once the cake was consumed the real fun began.  The girls headed outside to play "Laura" and the boys grabbed some hammers and...well, we have this old fence on the side of the house that the kids like to pound on. They call it their fort.  The boys did something over there.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the girls:

Grammie made Livvy's prairie outfit and bonnet.  It was so cute!!

Livvy's best friend Sabrina.

Hannah and Sage.

It was a wonderful party for a pretty special little girl.  We love you Livvy!

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On a side note, Tom's parents got here yesterday.  They'll be staying only a week this time.  We're very excited that they're here!

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On another side note, Tom finished painting the living room early this afternoon - 12:45pm to be exact (the party started at 1pm).  Tom finished texturing the living room walls and ceiling, and hallway on Friday early morning - around 6:30am to be clearer (yes, Tom pulled an all-nighter).  Bye-bye blue/green/aqua walls!  It's now the light tan that's throughout the rest of the house.  It looks so nice!!  Thank you honey!!

There's still lots of little things to do on the house, but having the living area done is so nice!  I can't wait until I can actually start hanging pictures.  Fun, fun, fun!