Harriet's 8th Birthday: April 26, 2014

Harriet woke up early on her 8th birthday.  She was so excited to turn 8, she didn't want to miss any of the day.  She went straight downstairs in a t-shirt with her blankie wrapped around her to open her remaining family presents.

She was super excited to get to open presents from Grace and from aunts.  Grace was a really good sister.  Despite her distaste for the Frozen movie, especially the music, she bought the soundtrack for Harriet with her own money, fully knowing she would have to listen to it a lot.  What a good sister!
Harriet was so thrilled and I think, pretty touched, that Grace did that.

 The Aunts sent some great stuff too - singing Anna doll (which has slept with Harriet every night since), new swim wear (she wanted a bikini - Aunt Em obliged.  it is so super cute!), and gift cards.

Hattie fell in love with the "minions" from the Despicable Me movies.  She really wanted to have her party themed around them.  I wasn't quite sure what we'd do that was minion-esque, but we gave it a whirl.  She was very excited to get to have her 8th birthday party ON her 8th birthday.  Grace got to do that too.  Whew, glad it worked out!

Again, she has been planning her EIGHTH birthday for so long... I was so worried it wouldn't go as she had envisioned it.  I think the party part turned out well, but she was super disappointed in a couple of friends who came and were not on their best behavior and, frankly, weren't very kind to Harriet.  Nothing will ruin a birthday quicker than being stinkers and ignoring the birthday girl.  I felt so bad for her.  She was so upset after her party.  She learned the hard way, that just because you invite someone over, and it's your birthday, they won't necessarily be good.  (As a side note, why do girls have so much drama? It's really hard for me to face sometimes.  I love the boys Grace has chosen for friends over the years. I can't believe how hard these girls are!  Even as an adult, I sometimes just feel like ditching most of my girl-friends and just hanging out with David's guy friends.  It's a much easier relationship.)

Well, on that note, she invited her "best friends" from school and the neighborhood over.  The party itself was pretty simple.

 We bought some Despicable Me wall decals and put them all over the house.

The greeting as you came to the door.

The cake as I finished it the night before.

Birthday morning.

The girls made rubber band bracelets, played "pin the pocket on the minion" and beat a poor minion to death in a mean round of piñata.  We had pizza and cake.  We opened presents.  Harriet got some very girly things - a bunch of make up, some barbie stuff, minion things, Hello Kitty, and art supplies - all her favorites.  

 Girls making rubber band bracelets.  Grace, Gillian, and Gracie

Gracie and Harriet

Julia and Adriana

Savannah on the end, and Joani joined us in the middle there.

I don't have any pictures of the "pin the pocket on the minion" game.  That was the first of Harriet's frustrations.  Some of the girls were cheating and kind of ruined the game.  

Harriet wanted, what else, but a minion cake.  He was pretty easy to make.  She had been to her friend, Gracie's, birthday a few weeks before and she had this really cool "8" sparkler candle for her cake.  The only thing is - when your candle is a sparkler, you don't really get to blow it out!  Poor girl, was scared to death of her cake and I didn't get the "blow out the candle" pic.  Still it was a pretty cool candle. 

After the party and girl drama, we finally got Harriet happy again and took her out to dinner.  She chose Gardunos where she could get her favorite meal:  chicken strips, refried beans, and Mexican rice.  They have an older couple who play guitar and sing at your table there.  We paid them to sing a beautiful Happy Birthday song to Harriet.  It made her so happy.  (yessss...)

Then, for dessert, we headed to Baskin Robbins.  When we came out of the restaurant, this crazy terrible storm was blowing through.  It was freezing cold, raining, wind blowing.  I thought - this couldn't be worse weather for a birthday.  Yuck! We warmed up in the car enough to still want ice cream, and thankfully, the folks at Baskin Robbins were smart enough to have the heat on.  So, we sat inside in the toasty heat and ate our ice cream as the storm blew through.  The storm was pretty worth it.  At the end, there was this STUNNING double rainbow.  We were too close to see the whole thing, but others who were at home in our neighborhood on the mesa said that you could see both rainbows stretching over the valley.  The colors were so intense, we could even see the purple (you can never see the purple!)  

I was so grateful for the sweet ending to the day, after it had been so rough in the middle.  I wanted Harriet to have her perfect 8th birthday that she had planned and hoped for.  I hope someday she realizes that "perfect" sometimes means that the middle is really messy and then things are fixed in the end, and that it's not necessarily perfect as you go. 

Happy 8th Birthday, Sweet Harriet!

Harriet's 8th Birthday Letter

I really do wish I had written this on/before Harriet's birthday.  Insert 1000 reasons why I had no time to do it.  If I had been able to sit down and think about it, this is what I would have written to her the week she turned 8:

(Harriet eating her birthday donut at school.  She brought Rebel Donuts for her class.)

Dear Harriet,

You are 8 years old!  Turning 8 has been a goal of yours for a very long time.  You have wanted to be 8 for so long, definitely since your sister turned 8, and maybe before.  You have always been so jealous of Grace and all the growing up she does before you have a chance, but when she was baptized and started to go to activity days at church, you really couldn't stand being left out of it.

You have thrown a fit every (other) Thursday night since Grace started going to activity days.  This is something you WANT to do, can't WAIT to do.  You watched Grace get baptized and immediately started planning your baptism.  You have been planning it for 3 years!  I'm confident that you have put more thought and planning into your baptism than few others ever have, adults or children.

I know you are so excited for your birthday party.  I was kind of surprised.  I thought you would want a girlie theme, like Frozen, or Barbie, or American Girl Dolls.  I think it's pretty adorable you chose the Despicable Me minions to celebrate your 8th birthday.  They are so silly and funny and cute, just like you.  I hope your party goes just as you have hoped and that all your friends come and make you feel as special as you are.

This school year has been a rough one for you.  I am so proud of you for how well you have handled all of the challenges and frustrations it has brought.  Neither one of us were perfect in doing that, but for a little kid, you have really learned a lot and come a long way in dealing with unpleasant things.  I am so proud of you for trying your best and being willing to take chances, even when you knew you might be disappointed.  You want so badly to be in the gifted program (and you should be in it,) and you were willing to give up one of your favorite school events (the jog-a-thon) to go and take the test.  I know that was a really hard decision, but it is amazing that you understand what is the most important thing to do in these situations.

Dear Harriet, I love you so much.  I wish I could fix things for you so that you weren't so frustrated with the injustices and inconsistencies in the world.  You have an amazing ability to spot them and I know how mad it makes you when you find them.  You make me learn how to be a better mom every single day.

I hope that you have an awesome birthday party, filled with friends and all of the things that make you happy.  I hope that your baptism is a truly magical day that brings all you have hoped and planned for.

Congratulations on turning 8 years old.  I am so happy for you because I know how much you have wanted it.  I hope that 8 is your best year ever.

Love Always,
Mommy

Easter 2014

Easter Sunday is kind of a blur to me now.  This is why you have to keep up on things like blogging and journaling.  All I know is that we got back from Carlsbad on Friday night, seems like we did a million things Saturday, and then the Easter Bunny (and the Tooth Fairy) came that night.  Let's not talk about how old Grace is getting for these things, but she still wants and likes to believe, so I keep letting her.  (It was Grace who lost the tooth, very late, on Saturday night!  Can we give the magical creatures a break, peeps?!)

We had a nice Easter morning, filled with the usual egg hunt (girls requested that EB please hide the eggs in harder places so that the hunt would take longer.  He obliged.) New Easter Dresses, and since Harriet's birthday was in 6 days, we had a joint Easter/Hattie Family Birthday party after church with Grandma, Grandpa, and Christine.

 The grand tradition of our EB is that he puts cadbury mini eggs in plastic eggs on the stairs.  The kids polish up this area first and quick.

Kitty Cat was totally annoying after EB came.  She played floor hockey with the plastic eggs all night.  Just when I thought I didn't have to worry about animals and Easter eggs anymore... (Velvet used to try to eat all the candy before the girls got up.)  

Kudos to 1:00pm church so that we had tons of time to fill our morning with hunting and candy and playing and then enough time leftover for dressing up and hair.  

Hattie wanted us all to wear identical Easter Dresses.  I just couldn't make it happen, so she settled for "coordinating."  I think it turned out nice.  Just wish I had time to get my hair done before Easter.  Those roots are dark and grey!  yikes.  

Oh, I KNOW what was the big deal about Easter!  Grace played her guitar for the first time in sacrament meeting!  Back in January, the chorister had asked Grace if she would accompany the senior primary in playing this song.  I think I've mentioned it on the blog already.  We fussed with microphones and things so that you could hear her above the piano and the 50 kids singing.  She did AMAZING.  It was really really cool to see her play like that and be so confident and share her talent so willingly.

I had one of those amazon local coupons to Nothing Bundt Cakes, so Harriet got a pretty cool Easter/Birthday cake to put a candle in for dessert.

Happy Easter to all!  On a side note, having Easter be the last day of Spring Break is not cool.  Not cool!  I used to think that would be nice - to have spring break line up with Easter.  This is the first year the school district planned it that way.  Usually, spring break and Easter are separate.  When we were kids, we just got a long 4 day weekend for Easter and no spring break and it seemed nice that way.  But the truth is - I don't like to travel on Easter (or Christmas.)  So, if we use our big, long, spring break for traveling, then we have to be back by the weekend and then getting ready for a big holiday like that after the kids have been home all week and you've been busy doing things and going places - well, it's a bit much.  I guess I either need to decide to be ok with going somewhere for Easter, or being more organized so it's all done before spring break hits.  It was all incredibly fun and worthwhile, but I was exhausted and really done with it by the time Easter dinner rolled around.  Next year, I will figure it out and do it better.