Birthday!

Jade is 7 today! I am completely and utterly exhausted from preparations and the party today, so this will be very brief.

T-bird Anni and Aprilia arrived on Saturday afternoon, and both Jade and Shannon were very happy to see them and to play with Aprilia immediately - no warming up time needed! Jade has even been speaking fairly openly in front of Anni (though not directly to her), so that's been lovely.

I put Anni to work making the birthday cake while I prepared the evening meal. Isn't it great having friends like that?

Anni and I were up till after midnight last night making said cake look like a horse's head. I did most of it but she did a great job steadying my nerves and making useful suggestions. Not long after we went to bed (it seemed) Shannon was awake and I had to go to her and of course spent the rest of the night in her bed, and she woke a few more times. Then Jade woke up at about 6.30am and was too excited to go back to sleep again.

She had a lovely time opening her presents on our bed with everyone watching, and was delighted with everything, which is always a relief! (Heely's, Barbie Jumping Horse (Tawny), I Love Ponies playset, squishy dolphin, fantasy castle playset, some beautiful elves/fairies on horses, etc).

She was not so delighted to go off to church but it was the 10th anniversary service of our combined group of churches which work together, so a local school had been hired and it was absolutely jam-packed with people standing round the back and sides as all seats were full. Aprilia and Jade went into the kids' group and Aprilia threw herself into all the activities with gusto and Jade refused to do anything, and in the end we left Aprilia in there enjoying herself and we went out so I could at least listen partly to the main speaker. Found Anni chatting at the main door with the mum of the only other home-educating family in our 4-church group, who introduced us to a dad who was considering HEing. Anni did a great PR job on HE! I met up with several friends whom I have not seen properly for ages so was disappointed to be having to rush off and get the party ready instead of staying for the barbecue and the afternoon's fun which was scheduled.

Anyway, we rushed home and made final preparations and then had 5 more small and excited small girls show up to have great fun at the party. We did a 'find the ponies' game where Jade's massive collection of little horse/pony figures were hidden in the garden for them to find. We did that twice! We had pass the parcel, show-jumping round a great course of jumps built by Bill, a bit of dancing, and a lot of playing and having fun. It was lovely! Beautiful, glorious sunshine too. Fab but exhausting, and as usual I question my sanity in continuing to do home parties, but as that is the way I always had my birthdays it is the only way that seems 'right' to me!

Aprilia and Anni are setting off in the morning to visit the MonsterTeenys, leaving us to get on with celebrating Bill's birthday .... now all we have to do is wait for him to decide where he wants to go for the day!