Celebrating MG

Next in the birthday line is the sweet and unforgettable MG.

She turned

!!!!~~eleven~~!!!!!

this year. AND, as she grows more lovely every day, her sweetness and patience grows, too. I can see God has some wonderful plans for her. She is so gracious (REALLY!!~~she does have to put up with 3

siblings and, quite often, some very difficult-to-please, demanding parents),,helpful and very, very creative. She wants

to please, and she also wants the freedom to stand her ground. This last part will be our hardest challenge as parents, for though we want her to stand her ground, too, our stubbornness has already clouded our eyes to those golden moments where her standing was truly good, noble,

right and pure...it was just not timed quite right! :o) But, back to the main point....

Celebrating MG!!!!

We made cake pops for her to share with her classmates at school:

And on her birthday night

we had our own "quiet" family celebration

with cake

~

and presents.

Then a few days later we hosted a Crafting Birthday Party.

Since I knew it would just be me with a group of girls, I had to limit the amount of friends to come over. There were so many little girls that we could have included in

the party, but with the ones that did actually come, plus all of my own children, and THEN the

added fun of paints and glue and frosting and sprinkles and scissors and pens, etc, etc, etc... the small number was more than enough!!!

Momma-made cupcakes

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Cupcake decorating 5th grade style

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First craft

With this craft

the girls "drew" pictures with Elmer's glue

After it dried completely,

they painted over the

canvas and the dried glue with a solid color.

The idea was for it to turn out like the photo on the left. Since the

glue was not completely dry, the girls took home their own brush and bottle of paint. I figured this would happen, though.

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Second craft

I showed each girl what we were doing, step by step, and it was such fun to see them take the steps and make the designs their very own.

Same idea?

Yes.

Unique to each girl?

Definitely!!!

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Third Craft

Each girl picked out her own branch and her own vase,

and while they were writing on their "leaves" something they like about the other girls at the party, each vase was filled with stones and sand so hold the branch would stay in place.

Once the girls were finished writing the notes were tied to the girls' respective trees. Because we were running out of time, each girl received a baggie full of pre-cut

flowers/leaves they and their families could use to add more to their

Thankful Trees.