It’s Great to be Eight!

Today was Emerson’s much-anticipated donut-themed birthday party! She picked the idea for a donut party like three months ago, and she has been very eagerly counting down the days until her celebration!

We lucked out with absolutely gorgeous Florida summer weather today, with super bright sun and no clouds and just the perfect pool party day. And how adorable is this birthday cutie in her new donut bikini I got her for her birthday!? It has a regular white bikini bottom under the skirt, but the skirt is so cute too!

We had a mix of friends from school and summer camp, plus our triplets, and it was a great little girl group! They all played great together, especially since the triplets also know some of Emmie’s camp friends, since they all go to East Hill together this summer.

And of course for a donut themed birthday party, we wouldn’t just do a regular cake… We ordered four dozen donuts from Donut Kingdom and fashioned them into a donut pyramid cake tower! Honestly, it turned out awesome and was a huge hit! There were oohs & ahhs from the whole crowd, and all the girls were racing to line up to get a donut.

Everyone swam again for a while after donuts & ice cream, and then all the friends slowly started trickling out at the end of the party. We had all the family stay behind though, and we had a little pizza party for family dinner, and let Emmie open her gifts.

Every year we just put a note on the invite to bring a homemade card and a $5 bill instead of a ton of gifts. It cuts down on the amount of clutter in the house, relieves some pressure from guests to buy a gift, and also let’s Emerson learn how to save, tithe & spend her own money. It’s always fun to see the cards her friends make her, but this note was my favorite she’s ever gotten.

 

A few months back, the triplets got small Stanley’s for their birthday, and Emerson has been just dying for one of her own since then as well. And lucky for her, she finally got one for her birthday today! I don’t even have a real Stanley, but my sweet little 8-year-old does 🙂 (Honestly though, I have a multiple {cheap} stainless steel bottles and cups, and those are all just fine for me.)

And for the third year in a row, my sweet friend Jeanne from my office made her a homemade crochet stuffed animal for me to gift to her. The first year was a strawberry, last year was a donut (ironically), and this year was a cute little pastel cow. It’s such a special gift, and she cherishes these sweet little stuffies!

Coincidentally, my sister and I both got coordinating gifts, as I got her the Wicked shirt, and she got her the little Elphaba Golden Book. (I actually collect these Golden Books, both the old, vintage ones, and the new ones as well.) She she thought that was really great of course. And since she checked the back and commented about there also being another version for “I am Glinda,” I just went ahead and ordered her that from Amazon real quick tonight too, since it was only $5 🙂

After pizza and presents, I gave the girls a bath, and they put on fresh jammies and we had some time to hang out just our little fam with the grandparents after everyone else had left. Addie brought the rest of her dinner plate into the living room and finished up her pizza and salad, while we watched some tv, and Emmie was cuddled up on the couch eating a snack for herself as well.

And wouldn’t you know it, but both of these little girlies fell asleep in the car, only like 3 minutes after we left Grammy & Papa’s house. Emerson hasn’t put this cute little cow down since she got it, except for the few minutes she was in the bath, she just loves her so much already! And Addison was clutching tight to a tube of chapstick she’s currently obsessed with.

They were both so sleepy, and were more than ready for bedtime once we got home. I threw in a load of all the towels and bathing suits into the washer when we got home, we managed to get all the things unloaded from the cars, and then the girls went down for bed and were asleep immediately. Jeff and Ryan have been hanging out while I’ve been blogging, and once I finish up the last few minutes in this episode of “The Bear” that I’m watching (obviously from the newest season), I’ll be just about ready to head to bed myself…