Sylvia's 7th Birthday party

  Since we had cousins visiting for the first time in 6 years, we decided to have Sylvia's birthday party a few days early.  It was great fun.    First we went swimming at the high school pool.  (Sylvia has been wanting to have a mermaid themed party all year... thus the pool part was very important to her plans.)

After swimming, we came back to our house for pizza.  These three girls ate as much as the teenage boys did.

And here are the boys, thrilled to be at a mermaid birthday party.  They are secretly wishing for more pizza.

Eli realized that eating the plates tends to take the edge off hunger when the pizza is gone.  Smart boy.

Spencer enjoyed the balloons.  Daniel got his exercise chasing after Spencer, who was chasing after his balloon, which was heading out towards the street.  Good thing Daniel still has some speed from his younger days, Spencer keeps him moving!

We moved inside for some challenging party games, such as Pin the Tiara on the Mermaid.  Here is Ben, one of the boy's buddies showing his skills.

Unfortunately Daniel is not as talented at this party game as the kids.  He almost pinned a tiara on Ben - Asher's friend. :)    Luckily it ended up landing on Syliva's doll instead.  I still think the look on Ben's face was priceless.

Here we have the birthday revelers, attacking each other with the party favors.

Sylvia's Arial-the-Mermaid cake did not turn out quite as dashing as I had hoped.  I now know I should never attempt recreating Disney faces with frosting.  Luckily, seven year olds are very understanding.  It had candles, and tasted good... so it was a hit as far as cakes go.

Our cute little bunch of birthday cake munchers.

  After the party, everybody had a good time blasting through several packages of Snaps (fireworks) that Kaydee picked up at the store.   Kaydee is a secret pyromaniac.  Who would've known?

 After the party, Sylvia got to have Addie sleep over. (She had been staying at the motel with her family until now.) It was a first sleepover experience for them both.    We started out by decorating cute tiaras, to match the jewlery they had gotten at the party.

That moved into watching the movie The Little Mermaid, and painting nails.   Not only did Asher know all the songs, so he could sing along.. but he allowed his toenails to be painted purple.  This made him a big hit with the girls.

Addie and Sylvia each had their nails done in their favorite colors (purple and pink), with an exrtra layer of sparkle polish.   (Asher drew the line at the sparkles.)

  After a bedtime story, and plenty of giggling,  the girls fell asleep in sleeping bags on my bedroom floor.  They were so sweet together.  Sylvia thought it was her best birthday ever.   I am so glad we could have family come visit us!