Tiny's Eighth Birthday

Big Tines turned eight! Her birthday was on a Tuesday, so we celebrated the Saturday before. She even opened her family presents that Saturday morning. I got her an old-fashioned quill pen that was a really good idea but was defective and got ink EVERYWHERE. I'm mad I didn't return it. She tried to use it a bit for a year or so until we finally threw it away. 

Always books for Tiny. 

It was her golden birthday (turning eight on the eighth), so I got special gold balloons for her birthday chair. These pictures were taken a few days later when we enjoyed a german pancake for breakfast.

I also got cute gold plates, cups, and napkins for the party. Sweet Bear made special "Happy Golden Birthday" balloons to put up by our birthday banner.  

Tiny helped me make her cake - chocolate, with cream cheese frosting.

Rainbow platter. So proud. (Picture flipped.)

We had Kaia and Maya from school, Gustafsons and Bunnells from church/neighborhood, Cikaneks, and a couple of friends from Let's Play Music/rec soccer (Kate Packard and Clementine Colby). It was the traditional playbook - water balloons, pizza, cake, piñata, presents. After the water balloon fight, though, Cikaneks said everyeone was already wet so should just jump in their pool. Maya didn't have a swimsuit and was very embarrassed about swimming in a t-shirt but didn't want to borrow a suit, and I felt really bad about that. 

Tiny loves to beat on piñatas.

Another birthday in the books for our sweetest Tiny!

Futsal, Fair, 4th (Beginning of July 2024)

The girls did a week-long futsal camp (indoor soccer), the big draw being an appearance one day by Amirah Ali from the San Diego Wave.   

I tried to be fun by taking Jim on a date to a show at the La Jolla Playhouse at UCSD. We absolutely HATED it. We already know the story of Johnny Cash and June Carter, having watched Walk the Line, and we would have been better off just rewatching the movie. 

Just photographic evidence of Tiny's sleeping on the window seat.  

We went to the fair with Cikaneks on July 3. It's so much more fun going with Cikaneks than alone. 

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We caught a fun acrobat show. One of the Littles took about 50 pictures, which I then had to delete. 

We passed a fireworks show on the way home. 

Tiny wrote a letter to her future self and attempted to use a bit of cursive. 

Berry came up with a new inchworm-style method of propulsion. 

Scott Cikanek was involved in the procurement and setting off of a bunch of fireworks at the end of the cul de sac on the 4th of July. It was quite the party. Wrenzy borrowed my phone to take the following notes:

    - Diamond Cutter (Fountain)
    - Glittering Fountain (Fountain)
    - Modella (Shoots up and explodes)
    - Blazer Box (Fountain)
    - Rain Dance (Fountain)
    - Roman Candle (Shoots up a bunch of purple-blue balls that explode)
    - Pyro Fan (Fountain)
    - Grand Blossom (You throw it up and it sizzles and spins around)
    - Warrior and Resolution lit together (Fountain)
    - Lil Red Devil (Fountain)

No one has ever made more lists than Wrenzy.

Jim made a poor impulse buy of a bunch of $1 mini pies. Surprisingly, they were not good.