Depending on how you look at it, Sarah either had bad luck with her birthday timing or she totally lucked out. I hope we were able to turn what could have been the former into the latter for her. Her birthday was this past Friday, also Veteran's Day, and Brian was the #2 doctor, which meant that he had to work late (usually 8-10pm quitting time), Pawpaw had a Veteran's Day dinner obligation and Uncle David was still on the road doing his weekly semi-truck route. So Friday night was not going to be our traditional family birthday dinner. But I knew Sarah would be so disappointed if we postponed the whole celebration until the following day, so here's what we did...
First of all, Aunt Karen decided that she was due for a visit to Tennessee and decided to time her trip so she could be here to celebrate with Sarah. So after Sarah, Andrew and I baked a cookie cake on Friday morning, we packed up our things and headed to Gran and Pawpaw's house to spend the day. Sarah helped me put the finishing decorative touches on her cake that afternoon.
She very carefully placed her candles in a symmetrical pattern on the cake.
Then after dinner it was time for the first singing, the first cake, and the first blowing out of candles. Accompanied by a favorite great-aunt, of course!
First thing Saturday morning, the birthday extravaganza continued when Brian and I gave her the Elsa Snow Castle Lego. I had expected her to need help putting it together, but she AMAZED me by being able to put it together practically by herself! Last year she got one much smaller set that Nathan practically put together for her, but this time around she just needed me to take apart pieces a few times or glance at the instructions to help her figure out what was going on. She really enjoyed putting it together and was very pleased that she did it basically by herself.
After lunch Brian took her shopping to spend her birthday money. She picked out a Frozen music box (anyone seeing a pattern here??). She later reported to family members that "Daddy made me spend
all my cash on my box", making it sound like Brian forced her to buy that particular toy!
Then it was party time, which started with the rest of Sarah's presents. Nathan loved showing Sarah all the special things about the Lego set he picked for her...
I have to put in a side note here about Nathan buying Sarah's
birthday present. I took him to Walmart earlier in the week so he could pick out his gift for Sarah. He had been reminding me for a while, making sure
I wouldn't forget to take him. On the way to Walmart he counted his money (which
included most of his birthday money) and he had just over $9. I told
him that I would be happy to match whatever he spent so that he wouldn't have to
spend all of his on Sarah's present, but he responded "I don't consider
it a birthday present from me if you pay your money for it!" I thought
that was so generous of him (actually also Sarah refused to let me chip in when she was buying Nathan's birthday present with her chore
money).
But it gets even better. Nathan and I stopped to look at the
little toys near the cash register and he found two different things he
was interested in buying for himself. I told him that it was fine for
him to spend money on himself too, especially since it was mostly money he got for his birthday. Next we walked back to the toy section where he picked out a
Lego set for Sarah after carefully considering options on every aisle.
Then as we were heading back towards the front of the
store, he realized it was decision time. He didn't have enough money for Sarah's
present and both of his little toys, so he very thoughtfully weighed the
pros and cons between his choices: a little figurine and a battery-powered fan with
candy in it (this one moves and this one doesn't, this one has candy and
that one doesn't...). He made his decision and we went to the
check-out counter.
I paid for the things I was buying, then as the
cashier started ringing up Nathan's purchase he made a last-minute
substitution. He put back
both toys he wanted and instead picked out a baby unicorn
stuffed animal to give to Sarah in addition to her Lego! I almost
started crying I was so impressed with his generosity and
thoughtfulness! And the cashier was also very impressed with how well Nathan handled his money.
End long side note, but it was just too good of a memory not to record! But back to Sarah...
She got an adorable cowboy hat and stick horse from Uncle David and Aunt Bridget...
... though Andrew seemed to think that every present was actually for him.
In fact the vintage Pooh bear that Grandmother gave Sarah ended up in Andrew's bed for a few days before Sarah snagged it back for herself. I
didn't do as well with present pictures this time around, so also not
shown are Sarah's Anna dress and cape from Nana and Granddad, along with
a handmade Anna dress and cape for her doll also from Nana.
Then it was time for dinner and cake! And for the first time ever, we comfortably fit the family around one table and had our inaugural dinner in the dining room (we bought a huge extendable table off Craigslist, but this was the first time we put it to use). Then it was time for cake, singing and candles round two. The perfect ending to her two day celebration.
Happy, happy birthday my sweet Sarah!!
