Seven: The Banana’s New Number

Let me start by saying that this was probably the most unplanned and spontaneous, yet busiest birthday ever.  In the end, though, I think our people loving girl who loves a reason to get out and do something had a great day.

On the breakfast menu for the bathtub was DONUTS!  This meant a very, very early morning trip to the grocery store for me.  I was actually at the store the night before getting cake supplies, but they were out of donuts, or at least the good kind of donuts.  It’s not like we buy a box of donuts very often, so I really wanted to have good donuts.  It was worth the morning trip.

Because it was Sunday morning, which is always crazy anyway, I got people up a bit earlier than usual so that we could fit breakfast and presents in before people hit the showers to arrive at church on time.  The morning went surprisingly well, actually.

The Banana was a present opening whirling dervish.  She ripped through those packages at a pace that only excited seven year olds can muster!  She was excited about all the presents, of course, and she took time to read through every single one of her birthday coupons all by herself.

The pink headphones were a hit.

We spent the morning at church, where many people  excitedly wished her a happy birthday.  After church and Sunday School we dashed home, where I was dropped off to prepare for a spontaneous fancy tea party while everyone else headed to the grocery store for lunch to get out of my way.  I just finished the last little preparations when they were back.  

Sophie, our amazing babysitter who took care of The Banana when she was a baby  and is one of my kidlets’ favorite people EVER is currently in town, and she came over for the tea party and cake along with our neighbors half way down the street.  Since one of The Banana’s friends had to go to a soccer game, we ate cake and party food and giggled for about forty minutes.  

At the last minute it was decided that the big sister in our neighbor’s family would stay with us for the afternoon and all the girls would go swimming.  Mr. SP had already left for a playdate with a friend for the afternoon.  Dr. Peds took the three girls swimming at the Y for the afternoon since The Banana had requested swimming for a birthday activity.  They had a delightful time together in the pool.  Mr. TOF was napping so I stayed home and cleaned up the tea party and relaxed for a few minutes.

When The Banana arrived home from swimming there was a special afternoon phone call from Grandma Kathy.  The Banana loves using the telephone.

Around 5:00 the soccer game was over, Mr. SP was back from his friend’s house, and Mr. TOF was awake.  Time for pizza!  We packed up a couple of vans with kids and headed over to Sammy’s Pizza and got a long table.  There was pizza.  There was pop.  There were crazy kids and a few spills along with a lot of excitement.   They pretty much downed three very large pizzas  . . . there was about 1/3 of a pizza left in the end.  Mr. TOF discovered shakable parmesan cheese for his favorite food, and he ate an incredible amount of pizza.  

That’s the aftermath of the chaos.

The Banana spent her evening smiling while her brothers and sisters did their evening work, because of course, it’s a VERY big deal not to have to do evening work on your birthday, and we had finished all of her homework the day before.  She used the computer for a bit, and then it was off to bed.