Happy 7th Birthday Lindsay!!!

Big girl turns 7 today and I can hardly believe where the time has gone. She is such a grown up girl and we are so proud of her. Special day deserves some special treats! For breakfast, Lindsay was treated to fresh raspberry stuffed crepes with a candle no less. (read: family favorite roll-up pancakes and oops! We are out of syrup! But we have fresh berries and powdered sugar...) After school we went to Baskin Robbins for her free ice cream scoop and we upgraded to a double - that was quite a treat! Off to gymnastics and to meet daddy for dinner at Red Robin - gotta love bottomless steak fries. We love you Lindsay!!!

Lindsay doesn't like cupcakes (it's the frosting, you know) and since they don't allow Mommy's homemade chocolate chip cookies at school, she has a hard time coming up with something to bring for school birthday treats. We are glad they do still allow such a frivolous thing, but, it must be store-bought. This year, she picked rice krispie treats. So, we did a birthday tag since they don't exactly scream "Happy Birthday!"

Invitation to Lindsay's family party this past Saturday...we are on an "every other year" plan for family/kiddo parties. This year was the family party, but of course we included Ellie's family. (They are "like cousins" as we always say!) The year of the family party is supposed to save money - no elaborate theming or expense on decorations or excessive gift receiving and whatnot. Well, Lindsay asked for her family party to be a Beach Party at grandpa's house. So, a little theming was involved but it was fun though...they only have a birthday once a year, right?

(click collage above to enlarge if you wish!)

We had such a fun time at Grandpa Mike's house for a pool/beach inspired party. The kids and parents alike enjoyed themselves in the pool, though it was almost a hot tub with the water temp. reading 94 degrees! These kids are all little fish and impress me more and more with their swimming skills. The big blue slide was a big hit as was jumping off the waterfall. We had a yummy dinner complete with fruit kabobs and fancy umbrella drinks. Yum! Everyone had fun taking a whack at the totally awesome pinata that seemed to be made of steel. Grandpa took care of it though! Lindsay received lots fun gifts including several sets of earrings, a make-up "caboodle" (for all the lip glosses and nail polishes that seem to multiply exponentially) some jeans and a shirt, a gift card to Old Navy (which is such a grown up gift and she is SO excited to use!) a gift certificate for a GNO (Girl's Night Out, of course) with Ellie and Maddy, and a Hannah Montana T-shirt and Hannah Montana Beach Towel. The latter was the ONLY gift of the night to incite screams of delight! Thanks Auntie Molly! Lindsay loves ice cream and not cake so much so we got a beach cake from Baskin Robbins - it was so yummy - chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and white cake and was decorated to look like a beach scene with sand, umbrellas, beach towel and even flip flops. It was darling.