Happy Birthday, my Big Girl!

A turned seven today. Seven. SEVEN! Where does the time go? This morning she opened her gifts. First she opened the Playmobil toys from her Grandparents. They got her the pandas and the baby giraffe. She was very excited to get those. Here she is opening her gift from me and C this morning, wearing her shirt from Aunt K. She was not able to really look at the magic kit because we were headed out the door for our day of special plans. Our first stop was the Build-a-Bear workshop in one of the malls downtown. She had saved her own money up to be able to buy a B-a-B on her birthday. E, of course, had to have one as well, and she, well, will owe me for a few weeks! Not quite to the point where she can save ahead like A can. Anyway, A got a koala and E got a white tiger and they had fun doing the whole B-a-B routine. After that we headed to the movie theater to meet their friend M and watch Harry Potter. I wish that I had not read the book so recently before watching the movie. It had too many discrepancies that bugged me. If I had not had the book so fresh in my mind, I would have enjoyed it much more. Not that it was not very well done. The girls liked it a lot, and for A, having read the book was a good thing, since she knew what was coming. After the movie, we went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. We kept the dinner venue a secret from A until today and she was very excited to see where we were eating. The girls had fun finding all the animals and eating together. A opened her gifts from M at dinner. One of them was a Littlest Pet Shop hermit crab, which M knew she really wanted. She said to M, very clearly appreciative, "Thank You!" I was proud of her for letting her friend know it was a good gift, especially after watching M wiggle with excitement while she was opening it. We talked about how much fun it is to give gifts to others. After dinner we took a short detour to see the lions. One of them was playing ball with the keepers. She had one ball stuck on her canine tooth and was batting at the other ball thrown to her by the keepers. So much like a housecat! We got up to the glass right by where the lion was and the girls watched for a long time. Then we tookk M home and headed home ourselves. What a day! A was going around proclaiming it the best birthday ever! She thanked us many times while we looked over her magic kit. I had told her that the gift was not something she had asked for, but was something she wanted. She kept saying how she had no idea what it could be, but I was right, she did want it! I read the instructions for the tricks and showed her how to do many of them. When bedtime rolled around she told me she wanted to stay up and play with her new gifts. I got E asleep while A snuggled with C in our room and when I came downstairs, she was waiting for me in my office. I shut down the house and we went upstairs to the guest room, me to read and her to play on the bed. After a while she climbed into the covers beside me and fell asleep. I kissed her good night and left my beautiful big girl asleep in the bed.