Twelve

I’m ridiculously slow about posting YaYa’s birthday celebration, but here it is one week later.

YaYa’s first request regarding her twelfth birthday was that she would be allowed to sleep in as long as possible.  Her second request was sunny side eggs for breakfast.  Dr. Peds is usually the sunny side egg maker here, and it was slated for work that day, but things worked out and he was able to stay at home long enough to let YaYa sleep and then cook the eggs.  There was actually a lot of resisting the tradition of breakfast in the bathtub, because sunny side eggs are hard to eat without a table.  However, I was so sad at the prospect of not following tradition on the birthday of the girl who STARTED the tradition (even though these days there is a bit of complaining about the bathtub being squished) that a compromise was reached.  The first half of breakfast was held in the bathtub for the sake of photographic opportunities.  The second half was held at the table.  There was drama to spare all around.  

Immediately following breakfast, there were presents.  

Although all of the presents were important and well received with appreciation, I suspected the gift of a sewing machine, which was Dr. Peds’ idea, would be a very big deal.  It was.  YaYa has been wanting to learn to sew for years, and of course, I don’t sew.  Although YaYa sometimes used my machine, it is down in the basement, which is a mess.  It just wasn’t working out.   As soon as he mentioned getting her a sewing machine, I knew she was going to be over the moon excited.  She was.  We set it up in her room.  The machine was supplemented with several books about kids learning to sew and sewing lessons (from a lady who has a sewing studio and specializes in teaching kids) that start next week.

YaYa sewed all morning. I love self directed learners!  (even if it involves fabric, which kind of makes me queasy).  

At noon I broke up the sewing party and we headed out to Bixby’s for lunch.  It was YaYa’s request.  She likes the garden turkey sandwich there.  I took my camera along, but she begged and pleaded for me not to document her lunch experience, and because it was her birthday, I relented.    It was 30 degrees, the warmest it has been (and will be?) for weeks, and I so wanted to throw everyone outside or take them sledding or something, but the birthday girl had other plans.  It seems that a certain Despicable Me movie had been released for renting the day before.  Although The Banana viewed it at the theater this summer with Dr. Peds, Mr. SP and YaYa were away riding horses in the Badlands with Grandma Kathy, and they have been waiting months and months to see this movie. Dr. Peds downloaded it the night before and told them they could watch it as many times as they wanted to the next day.  They watched twice:  once in the afternoon and once in the evening.  Although they look intensely serious in this image, there was significant roaring laughter coming from their direction the whole length of the movie.

After the matinee movie, there was more sewing.  

In the late afternoon we shipped Mr. SP off to play with a friend, and the little kidlets and I went outside to shovel the driveway.  Ya Ya kept  right on sewing.  Dr. Peds arrived home from work, and they all headed to open gymnastics, which in the end had been cancelled.  While they were gone, I cooked the birthday supper and finished the cake.  YaYa chose Scandanavian almond cake, possibly the most delicious option of the cake world.

Perhaps she had in mind to eat the candles?  

She cracked herself up.

Then she got crazy.  

While she was busy laughing, Mr. TOF decided he’d waited long enough for these candles to be blown out.

He took matters into his own hands.  After all, there was cake to be eaten, and no one enjoys a good piece of birthday cake as much as Mr. TOF.Luckily, he has a very gracious big sister who didn’t mind help with her candles at all.

Of course, there are no evening chores to be done on a birthday, which meant that the evening showing of Despicable Me could begin all the sooner, and the birthday girl got to stay up as long as she wanted.

Although it sometimes seems like we finish Christmas and then TaDA it’s a birthday day, there are some great things about having a birthday that will always fall on Christmas break from school.  There is always the opportunity to sleep in, and YaYa never has to go to school on her birthday, so she can always celebrate however she wants all day long.