Elsa turns 6!

Elsa had been anticipating her big day for a long time. A few days before her birthday she mentioned that she couldn't wait to see all the decorations. Hmmm. So I made a last minute trip to the party store for balloons and Ben and I stayed up late hanging some decorations. We didn't do a big friend party this year so the decorations made things a little more festive.

Elsa had a great year in Kindergarten. Her reading has improved so much over the last year and she is so determined to read difficult books and as many books as possible. She loves to read to Oliver. Elsa is my number one helper. I have to try not to take advantage of her because she is always willing to do whatever I ask her. She loves to help clean up and won't stop until a job is completely done. She frequently asks what she can do to help me. (In fact, just now she brought me a list of chores she wrote out and asked if she could start cleaning her bathroom.) Elsa is the world's slowest eater, and she eats hardly anything. Breakfast is her favorite meal of the day. She asks almost daily if we can get a dog. She is quick to make a friend, almost always cheerful and definitely the most affectionate, always giving hugs and telling us she loves us. She still loves nutella. And still calls it tunella. I hope that never changes.

woodland fairy party! (a fairy treasure hunt)

 

Amelia wanted to have some kind of fairy party for her seventh birthday. If you've followed this blog much, you know that we spend a lot of time at Huntley Meadows. The girls love to find fairy houses in the tree trunks there and hide things in them. For a few years now I have envisioned a treasure hunt there and Amelia's party was finally the perfect opportunity. The planning and prep ended up being really simple. As much fun as it was to plan Elsa's camping birthday party, it was pretty time-consuming. For this party I was limited by the location...couldn't really go overboard with decorations since we would be hiking a mile on a public trail into the woods. I was excited to reuse some of the materials from Elsa's party—the burlap, the birthday banner, and a cake stand. 

I made another screen and Amelia helped me print backpacks for the party goers to carry and use to collect their treasures.

A few of the treasures:

I had fun going to Huntley Meadows early on the morning of the party and hiding all of the treasures which I had wrapped in burlap. We had 10 treasures to find. Ben and I had fun staying up late the night before writing the clues (be assured they rhymed and were pretty awesome). We had walked the trail a few weeks before and decided on places to hide the treasures and drawn up a map. Amazingly, I was able to locate all of the spots again. I used little gnome and mushroom picks to mark the spot of the treasures to make them a bit easier to find.
 

The last clue led them to the birthday banner, a nice log to sit on, and mushroom cupcakes.

 

It ended up being a rainy day. We were disappointed at first, but it didn't rain much while we were hiking and the trees protected us from getting wet. The forest looked incredibly green and beautiful and the rain kept most people away so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. And it sure beat the 100 degree weather we experienced a few days later.

 

The kids spotted a frog here:

Oliver desperately wanted to get his hands on some of that red frosting:

The girls were troopers with all of the walking. On the way back we walked along the boardwalk and found lots of animals.

Amelia with her good friend from school, Rhiana, who just moved to India for a few years.

The prospect of opening up presents back at the car also helped motivate the girls to make the long walk back.