The Magical 21st

I know so many kids born on the 21st of August. Our Bitty, LWD in Seattle, Stomper's buddy Brandon, my friend's twins, my other friend's daughter...it's quite the day! So happy birthday to all. Especially to our little Bitty. We had a little shin-dig at the park. I thought it would be easier to do it there than at home (of course, not having a toilet at home contributed to that decision). Even in the future, when we hopefully will have a toilet in our house, I think the park is the way to go. I didn't really have a theme, any games, any crafts....just playing! We had family and a few friends there, and I kind of thought it was a little over the top until I realized that it was all just people who care about us and people who love to be together.


Cake by mommy, candles by Bitty. (Three were not enough.)

The, uh..."birthday fairy" had some interesting requests from Bitty this year. First and foremost was her request for a sparkly trumpet. I sicked my mom on that one, and she did find a couple of fun things at Red Balloon:



Also requested were purple roller skates (which we decided to NOT get her), a wand & crown (which we did get her), and a bus. That's right, a bus. I did find a Little People Bus at the toy store, but felt like she had enough stuff coming her way as it was. For example, she had also spotted at the grocery store a PINK phone. Not just pink, it was also sparkly. And it had fur. Well, feathers really - anyway, it was very shiny and poofy and pink. Love at first sight. My sweet in-laws got that for her. Hey, what family doesn't need a phone like that around? Also well-loved was a pink parasol from The Becky and the flower-girl dress that my now 10-year-old niece wore to my brother's wedding seven years ago. Bitty was quite the site:


The kids played and played at the park - I loved watching Bitty flitting around in that get-up. They all just raced around on the sunny grass, screaming and giggling. I was so proud of Bitty - she really didn't melt down, like I totally expected her to, and I was proud of Stomper too. Birthdays can be hard for siblings. But they did great. The one near-incident happened early on when my parents arrived, bearing a lovely bouquet of balloons. One of them, (of course t it was the purple one), escaped, and Bitty started to lose it. I tried to help her by saying it was going up to heaven and she then asked (now, this is a little sad, but also very sweet and cute,) if Matthew would be throwing it back to her from Heaven. Awwww. No, honey. But we're thinking of him, aren't we?

So happy birthday, darling daughter. It's been four days and we're still celebrating.



(I know, the picture's fuzzy, but I've always loved this one of Bitty at about 6 months...)