Year of the Snake

My blog posts are slow these days.  So slow.  S turned 12 over a month ago.  We had to squeeze this party in in between a whole lot of other scheduled stuff.  Which is why we decided to just go with Chinese New Year.  For some reason, I'm not finding as much time as I used to for these parties.  So opening a box and popping out an instant party was a great stress-relief.  K had the same theme when she turned 12.  Maybe I'll stick with this for every 12th birthday.  It's a perfect fit since the Chinese zodiac runs in a 12 year cycle.  And 12-year-olds always have fun reading their own zodiacs and laughing about how it describes them.

This girl was born in the year of the snake.  This is what our trusty place mats say about her.  "Rich in wisdom and charm, you are romantic, deep thinking and your intuition guides you.  Avoid procrastination and your stingy attitude towards money.  Keep your sense of humor.  The snake would be content as a teacher, philosopher, writer, psychiatrist or fortune teller."

 

Yeah, maybe fortune telling should be her calling in life.  Thanks for that stellar advice.

Simple cakes are always nice to do.  I made some drop flowers a week before the party, so decorating was a breeze.

I pressed paper towels lightly against the frosting once it was no longer sticky, but not crusted over.  Easy way to add some texture to the base layer.  The branches were made using a regular star tip.  Then all I had to do was add flowers and pipe on little blossom buds.

I just don't understand why S didn't want a snake cake.  I totally could have made one of those.

K took advantage of the extra cake and frosting and made a beautiful cake of her own.

Complete with French birthday wishes.  I think she really, really likes her French class. 

The girls made some fancy fortune cookies above right. 

We had chopstick practice.  Those m&ms were mighty tricky, but somehow they managed eat them with chopsticks.  Gummy bears were easy pickings.

The book below about the great race is a good story that explains how the zodiac order came about.  And why there is no cat in the Chinese zodiac.  I'm sure you've all been wondering about that.



This reading was Shaggy's only cameo during this party. 

He dodged all the party set up because he was off running a 10k to qualify for the Marine Corp marathon.  Which explains why he was falling asleep at the counter during the party.

But, fortunately, these particular party participants were pretty self-sufficient. 

S taught them how to make origami flowers.

And then they played dragon tag.  This whole thing sounds awfully familiar doesn't it?  See K's 12th party here.

It got so rambunctious that we had to go outside.



But then they got cold, so we came back inside for a group photo.

Such great kids.

And these girls are S's best buds from school.  They share some classes.  She's in band with one and rides the bus with the other.  I'm so happy that she stumbled into friendships with them.  They seem to have plenty of fun together.  S came home the other night from an evening at one of their houses with leaves in her hair.  When we asked about them, she just laughed merrily and mentioned something about rolling down a grassy hill.  Yep, those are the kind of memories I want her making.

The gifts her friends gave her were so thoughtful and so perfect for her.

Now to follow through with my new birthday blog tradition.  Which I just realized that I didn't do for Shaggy's post.  Hmmm, maybe I'll have to go back and edit that.  Or just do it next year.  That's probably more likely.

 

Here are just a few of the things I love about my sweet S.

 

1)  The way she can whisk B off to play and make her forget all about the tantrum she was about to throw.

2)  How she squeals when she finds something particularly funny.

3)  Her generous nature.

4)  How well she keeps up with her school work without any prompting from me.

5)  How she still loves to play with little figures.

6)  Her newfound talent at knitting.

7)  How she always seems to know exactly what sweets we have in the house.

8)  Her irrepressible excitement over any upcoming social events.

9)  The way she says, "Daddeeeeee!" when he cracks a joke that she can take mock offense at.

10)  Her infatuation with caramel.

11)  Those baby blues.

12)  The fact that she no longer throws head banging tantrums like she did when she was a toddler.



Seriously, I'm so glad those are over.  I think we're going to have lots of fun with this girl.  And learn to love her all the more as she grows.

 

Happy birthday, baby.

Portraits in the Snow

One day in March, we woke up to a back yard that looked like this. Seriously, March.  Late March.  So, I figured that it was high time to take some portraits in the snow.  Sure, I have oodles of pictures in the snow.  But portraits are a different animal.  They require forethought and coordination.  And cooperation, which is always the hardest to come by.  I spent 20 minutes digging through closets to consider my options.  I may be biased, but I thought the look came together nicely.

 

S has a grumpy face above because she ignored my encouragement towards snow boots and wore her mary janes without socks.  She had a serious case of cold feet.  Surprise.  Surprise.

 

So we wandered and played for a few minutes while she went inside to take another pass at heeding her mother's advice. 

The kids chose a different location.  And J couldn't resist pulling on the tree branches near him which gave K a spine chilling surprise.

And then B heard the tic tacs that were rattling around in S's jacket pocket.

Since she had busted S's attempt at stealthy candy sneaking fair and square, I encouraged her to share.

Everybody was pretty happy about that.  You can see their little lips closed around those tangy orange candies.

And somewhere in the midst of all of that, I managed to get this shot.  My favorite one.

 

And since we were outside anyway, with clean faces and cute jackets to boot, I took a few individual shots. 

B is the hardest to catch, as usual.  The snow was irresistible to her little mittened hands.



R is almost always a piece of cake.  I think she's my most willing photo subject.

And J just loves being out in the elements.

S has been less than enthusiastic about being in pictures lately.  Which is ironic since her photo is the only single portrait that I edited.  And because she got a camera for her birthday.  Which took her a month to get around to charging.  But now she's turning into quite a shutterbug.  It will be interesting to watch that develop.  At the moment, she's roping her little sisters into making a movie.

K mostly loves to take fun/unique pictures.  But she's a trooper and goes along with my spontaneous photo shoots.  And my not-so-spontaneous ones.  With only a little grumbling.

 

We didn't stay out long.  Their jackets weren't all that warm.  Hot chocolate was beckoning . . .

 

But R was not ready to leave our winter wonderland to head indoors.  She wanted to have a snowball fight.  Which went something like this.

She was a little worried that she'd get in trouble for hitting my camera.

 

But I just pelted her with snow instead.

And she returned the favor.

I love how much joy this girl finds in life (in between all her meltdowns).

Snow Buddies

Just one example of why it's so great to have a sister around when you need one . . .