It's almost impossible to fathom how quickly time flies by, but think about it this way and it should sink in. Our little girl has now lived 1/3 of her life in our house before she will (presumably) head off to college.
And I think it’s safe to say that it’s been 6 relatively easy years. This was what we’d term a transition year from a birthday standpoint. Gone were the days of having the grandparents head to our house for a themed party.
Instead, we let Kari invite a handful of her closest friends from school to our house. The format was a bit different this year as Kari requested to have pancakes but because of previously scheduled programs for Kari on Saturday mornings, we had her friends over for dinner, thus a theme emerged: Pancakes and Pajamas. There was a pile of pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and of course, all kinds of sugary, sprinkle-y goodness.
They burned off those calories by running and jumping in the basement before returning upstairs for a simple craft project. Earlier this fall I found some really neat fabric at IKEA meant to be colored and decorated. The kids each got to color their own string bag. Each child then got a little notepad and mechanical pencil as their party favor to go with the bag. This proved to be a good way to wind down before winding back up with cake and ice cream!
The traditional star cake made yet another appearance and this year was adorned with a lovely purple icing, which Kari helped make. All in all it was a fun couple of hours. Kari’s friends – Molly, Asaiah, Nolan, Abby, Isabelle and Ruth - were all well behaved and very good eaters!
With this being a new chapter in birthdays at our house (friends, no grandparents), I urged Kari to consider a gesture to help others who are less fortunate. I suggested that since she gets so many nice thoughtful gifts from grandparents, us and close family friends, that perhaps we'd ask her friends to make a donation rather than bring birthday gifts. Kari was on board, and from there, we chose an item to donate. I gave her three ideas from which to choose and she quickly selected school supplies. She couldn't hardly imagine kids her age without nice pencils, crayons and markers. I was scared out of my mind she was going to change her mind the day of the party and insist on gifts, but she never wavered. Her friends were so generous with their donations and shortly after the party Kari and I donated the items locally to an organization we were familiar with through church. We're looking forward to this being a new birthday tradition in our home.
