birthday eve

on the eve of my birthday, my mom organized a party with some of the friends i've been spending time with this summer. my mom spent a good chunk of time (thrifty) decorating and planning food and activities for the evening.

when my friends arrived, they had to find their place at the table (there were bags with their names on them marking their place) - and took their white party hat out to the patio where we decorated them with crayons.

ever since having a blast at stella's birthday party 2 weeks ago i've wanted many details of my own party to be just like stella's (well, mostly just that i wanted a scavenger hunt, and a number4 candle on my cake) .. SO, after we decorated our hats, we each grabbed the bags with our names on it and found a map inside for my own scavenger hunt. it showed a plan of our house and our yard - with 6 numbered locations. we needed to follow our own (specific/different) order of numbers in order to find all of the treasures. we got annie's cheddar & honey bunnies, a granola bar, an egg full of gummy bears, a pencil and pad of paper (that my mom made) with our names on it, and a red LEGO key chain!

once we found all of the treasures, i had the great idea to open presents -since the pizza wasn't quite ready to eat yet - and i got some of the coolest gifts! legos, MACK, magnetic Robots, a new book (The Little House) and some "ice cream money" (Joe bucks from Sebastion Joes so that we can go out for ice cream!!) and with each gift, i received lovely cards made by my friends.

After gifts - and after some tasty salads (from the garden) and home-spun cheese take&bake pizzas from Papa Murphy's ... each of us got our own LEGO cake. they were the square shaped legos with 4 nobs on the top - perfect for 4 little candles (bummer i didn't get my number 4) and all of my friends even got a candle in the middle of theirs - so that we all could make a wish and blow them out together!

this is the first year that my mom has gone to this extent to plan a birthday party. i think it was worth it! when she asked me what my favorite part of the evening was, i said,"EVERYTHING!"

tomorrow - on my actual birthday - my cousins lussi, sofia, taavi, marin & mason are coming to another party. my grandparents and aunts and uncles will also be there! i don't know it yet - but there is a package waiting for me from EELI! i'm going to be so surprised!!!!!

another sleep over!

2 nights after we got back from our sleep over at avery's house, we had another one at our house!
maeva and meg came to hang out and sleep over at our house! i was pretty excited (and it has become clear that i now expect to sleep over whenever we see other kids!). maeva is walking around and had a lot of fun walking up and down our hallway and stairs! my mom brought the gate back so that we could all be contained in the 'playpen' that is our living room.

it was a lot of fun reading books and getting ready for bed together. we both (beautifully) were asleep by 8:30 so that our moms could watch a movie and have some girly-time!

the next day we went to the beach. (the same beach where eeli went swimming with the fish) and i had a grand-time building sandcastles and digging holes in the sand to fill with water from the lake.

maeva had a blast feeding me some veggie straws. it was a little tricky for me to coordinate my mouth with her hand, but i've been telling my mom & dad that i want a little sister, so i really don't mind one bit!!

avery's house

this is avery's house. my mom and i took a short trip south (while my papa took a long trip north to the BWCA) for a BBQ that amanda & matt hosted.

i had so much fun playing with avery. he might be a little bit younger than me, but we have so much in common! we both love trucks and construction vehicles ... and CARS! as in, cars the movie. avery has several characters that i don't have and it is super fun to play with him!

as it got darker outside, matt turned on the outside lights and it was just a lovely evening to be in their back yard.

during the BBQ, i really came out of my shell. you can see a bunch of us were sitting on a blanket singing songs and my mom was so surprised to see me stand up and sing the itsy-bitsy spider song to everyone on the blanket. not only that, but i sang it loud and confidently - without being shy like i normally am!

the best part of the whole trip was that we got to have a SLEEP OVER! avery and i had our bedtime snacks together and were so excited before we went to sleep that we were both flopping around on the bed in the guest room -- laughing our heads off.

the next morning, matt made us pancakes and we played together all morning long. legos, trucks, cars ... we even got to watch curious george together...while our mothers drank the most delicious coffee and continued their conversation from (late) night before.

after a delicious lunch, of tempeh ruebens and grilled cheeses, my mom and i got back into the car to drive home. as has become customary when i've enjoyed myself, i told my mom, "that sure was fun!" yes, i can't wait to see avery again!

bug bite ... head

a couple sunday's ago, we went to visit my uncle rikk in milaca. i told my mom that afternoon when we were picking wild raspberries in the field outside the house rikk just bought that a bug had bit me above the ear. she looked at it and didn't think much about it. on monday the side of my face started to swell. this is what it looked like at its worst. by WEDNESDAY it was almost back to normal.... almost.

i've had bad reactions to bug bites before. all last summer i had welts on my arms and legs. but i haven't had much more than a handfull this summer - and so my mom didn't think much about this one either. it seems, though, that bites on the head tend to swell considerably more than on other parts of the body. it looked pretty bad - to the point where i didn't even look like myself. but, that was about it. i didn't feel bad. it didn't hurt. i was pretty much the same old kid, i just didn't look like it!

it didn't stop me from mastering these new kid training chopsticks that my mom got for me. they are brilliant!