Snowy Celebration

Amazingly enough--the first real snow of the winter came with the actual beginning of winter; even more amazing, Caelan received the beauty of snow on her birthday! "It's God's present to me," she said. The light, fluffy flakes were the icing on the cake to a low-key, but special 24 hours.

It began when the girls' friend E came to spend the night (this has become a tradition :) There was plenty of giggling, baking, singing, giggling, drawing, play-writing, more giggling, a Christmas special, and a board game or two (Bible Trivia).

The girls didn't stay up too late, maybe 11:15 PM. I was reading a book, waiting for them to zonk out . . . I was lights out at 11:30 :)

When morning arrived, Graysen and Gabby volunteered their gifts to be on the table for first-things-first opening. Buck had to scoot to work, so we didn't make a big breakfast. Caelan opened her first gifts in the living room, and was very happy with them! In fact, as we slowly opened gifts in rounds throughout the day, she said, "I got things that fit all my likes and interests! My gifts are all great!" High-five to the siblings and grandparents involved in making that statement happen :)

Graysen gave Caelan a cute Knit Your Own Zoo animal book, and Gabby gave her a music c.d. she's been wanting. We took a break from gifts and the kids went to hang out in the girls' room. I discovered they spent this time drawing imaginary families. Someone would draw the face shape, someone else would add eyebrows, someone else--noses, etc. etc. They built quite a couple of flip books full of profiles--including names and ages--for each family. (Gabby's favorite book might be the baby name book I bought when I was expecting Caelan; much like a baby name book was in my top five at her age--so many characters to name in the stories that need to be written!)




About midmorning, the bear lady from church arrived to give the girls gifts for working on the memory bears. Each opened a sweet little arrow necklace and the boys opened the cans of cookies and freshly baked goodies she included :) Angie was very sweet and even covered the cost of materials beyond the shirts that her family provided. To her, our girls are her "Christmas angels," and she said as much in a kind thank you note.



I made enchiladas for lunch, because Caelan has been wanting them and I haven't made them in a long time. We changed up our usual traditions a bit--no decorations, no morning birthday song (okay, Buck and I whispered a duet, but not on camera), no room filled with balloons, and we opened gifts after lunch instead of afternoon snack time (which is normally when we eat the cake). We had our reasons :) Caelan was very excited to find Brennen gifted her with a chord book to Disney songs--she can now try something new on piano and guitar. Happy girl! She also liked what Gabby gave her (I'll let the pictures speak for themselves ;) . . .



And in the final photo, we are watching the recently opened Beauty and the Beast :) When the movie concluded, it was snack time. Caelan wanted a brownie with a cream cheese layer--but we had a snafu with the cream cheese (only bought half the needed amount) and then kind of forgot about the baking dessert while we were watching a Christmas special on TV the night before (a bit crispy on the edges). However, I jazzed it up a bit with powdered sugar and some chocolate syrup, and what remained tasted very nice :) Oh, you can see her arrow necklace in this pic!


For supper, we ordered taco pizza at the birthday girl's request. Buck finished work early enough to beat the pizza guy to our house! Since he's mostly eliminated pizza from his diet, he was cool with eating delivery (we rarely get pizza :)

I also decided to save her gift from us until Buck was here, so after dinner she got to open more gifts! Buck felt Caelan needed a little less bulky purse to carry. Gabby helped me choose one online, and then . . . Buck agreed that I could order Caelan just a little bit of make-up. She's never asked for it, but I figured she'd be somewhat interested. When she opened the packages, she said, "We were JUST talking about this with E!" Burt's Bees recently came out with a natural line of make-up, so she now has a blush and a mascara :)








To finish off the day, Buck played a board game with all interested. So it turns out for her birthday, Caelan got snow, friendship, a fairytale, family, music, make-up, knitting, clothing, and fun surprises. Hooray for birthdays and birthday girls :)