Birthday Party!

Kathryn's 9th birthday is later this month, but we'll be shooting a wedding that weekend, so we decided to have her party early! On Sunday, friends and family helped us celebrate another year of our sweet girl's life!Once again we realize how blessed we are to have family live so near to us. Granma, Granpa, an aunt, a great-aunt, a few cousins (adult and kids), neighbors, and friends from church all joined us. We always include grown-ups in the party as well, so we had a little social thing happening with coffee and cookie-brownies (yum!) at the same time as the kids were running around and playing.I always ask for no presents, but grandparents and close family are exempt from this rule (and other friends just don't listen to me!), so Kathryn did get some nice gifts: a new set of pajamas, a couple of new outfits, a book, a kit to make a stepping-stone, a gift card to Micheal's (hurray for crafty stuff!), a couple of toys, and a kit to make beaded bracelets. The coolest card was made by our scrapbooking friend who took photos from facebook to make an adorable little scrapbook-card of our family, our dog, Kathryn riding her bike, and so on. What a neat idea (that I may have to steal borrow sometime in the future)!

Our sweet young friend Emilie makes beautiful and tasty desserts, and she offered to make cupcakes for Kathryn's party to go with the butterfly theme Kathryn had chosen. She even coordinated the icing colors with our decorations! (You've seen Emilie here on my blog before as Lindsey's gravity-defying dancing friend, as well as one of the sweet gals who helped plan the welcome party for Lindsey.) We used candles that spell out Kathryn's name, and Kathryn added two more to equal her age, plus another one to grow on.Emilie managed to meet Kathryn's persnickety tastes in cupcakes; Kathryn doesn't usually like cake or cupcakes, but she said Emilie's were great! I made a frozen sherbet dessert, layered to look like a watermelon. It was a big hit with everyone as well. Of course, we did have some healthy snacks, too, like grapes, clementine oranges, and baby carrots.

After playing, presents, and dessert, it was pinata time! Kathryn's one big request, other than a butterfly theme, was to have a pinata, and I was happy to find a cute butterfly one. She was delighted, and the party guest kids had fun, too. After all, who doesn't like to whack something and get candy? It was a tough little butterfly, so after everyone whacked it, we still had to pull strings, and then whack some more!

While my dad was here for the party, I made sure to get a photo of Kathryn with him on his Harley. She didn't want to stay there while he started it, though! (It's loud!)

What a wonderful day!