Harriet's 8th Birthday: April 26, 2014

Harriet woke up early on her 8th birthday.  She was so excited to turn 8, she didn't want to miss any of the day.  She went straight downstairs in a t-shirt with her blankie wrapped around her to open her remaining family presents.

She was super excited to get to open presents from Grace and from aunts.  Grace was a really good sister.  Despite her distaste for the Frozen movie, especially the music, she bought the soundtrack for Harriet with her own money, fully knowing she would have to listen to it a lot.  What a good sister!
Harriet was so thrilled and I think, pretty touched, that Grace did that.

 The Aunts sent some great stuff too - singing Anna doll (which has slept with Harriet every night since), new swim wear (she wanted a bikini - Aunt Em obliged.  it is so super cute!), and gift cards.

Hattie fell in love with the "minions" from the Despicable Me movies.  She really wanted to have her party themed around them.  I wasn't quite sure what we'd do that was minion-esque, but we gave it a whirl.  She was very excited to get to have her 8th birthday party ON her 8th birthday.  Grace got to do that too.  Whew, glad it worked out!

Again, she has been planning her EIGHTH birthday for so long... I was so worried it wouldn't go as she had envisioned it.  I think the party part turned out well, but she was super disappointed in a couple of friends who came and were not on their best behavior and, frankly, weren't very kind to Harriet.  Nothing will ruin a birthday quicker than being stinkers and ignoring the birthday girl.  I felt so bad for her.  She was so upset after her party.  She learned the hard way, that just because you invite someone over, and it's your birthday, they won't necessarily be good.  (As a side note, why do girls have so much drama? It's really hard for me to face sometimes.  I love the boys Grace has chosen for friends over the years. I can't believe how hard these girls are!  Even as an adult, I sometimes just feel like ditching most of my girl-friends and just hanging out with David's guy friends.  It's a much easier relationship.)

Well, on that note, she invited her "best friends" from school and the neighborhood over.  The party itself was pretty simple.

 We bought some Despicable Me wall decals and put them all over the house.

The greeting as you came to the door.

The cake as I finished it the night before.

Birthday morning.

The girls made rubber band bracelets, played "pin the pocket on the minion" and beat a poor minion to death in a mean round of piñata.  We had pizza and cake.  We opened presents.  Harriet got some very girly things - a bunch of make up, some barbie stuff, minion things, Hello Kitty, and art supplies - all her favorites.  

 Girls making rubber band bracelets.  Grace, Gillian, and Gracie

Gracie and Harriet

Julia and Adriana

Savannah on the end, and Joani joined us in the middle there.

I don't have any pictures of the "pin the pocket on the minion" game.  That was the first of Harriet's frustrations.  Some of the girls were cheating and kind of ruined the game.  

Harriet wanted, what else, but a minion cake.  He was pretty easy to make.  She had been to her friend, Gracie's, birthday a few weeks before and she had this really cool "8" sparkler candle for her cake.  The only thing is - when your candle is a sparkler, you don't really get to blow it out!  Poor girl, was scared to death of her cake and I didn't get the "blow out the candle" pic.  Still it was a pretty cool candle. 

After the party and girl drama, we finally got Harriet happy again and took her out to dinner.  She chose Gardunos where she could get her favorite meal:  chicken strips, refried beans, and Mexican rice.  They have an older couple who play guitar and sing at your table there.  We paid them to sing a beautiful Happy Birthday song to Harriet.  It made her so happy.  (yessss...)

Then, for dessert, we headed to Baskin Robbins.  When we came out of the restaurant, this crazy terrible storm was blowing through.  It was freezing cold, raining, wind blowing.  I thought - this couldn't be worse weather for a birthday.  Yuck! We warmed up in the car enough to still want ice cream, and thankfully, the folks at Baskin Robbins were smart enough to have the heat on.  So, we sat inside in the toasty heat and ate our ice cream as the storm blew through.  The storm was pretty worth it.  At the end, there was this STUNNING double rainbow.  We were too close to see the whole thing, but others who were at home in our neighborhood on the mesa said that you could see both rainbows stretching over the valley.  The colors were so intense, we could even see the purple (you can never see the purple!)  

I was so grateful for the sweet ending to the day, after it had been so rough in the middle.  I wanted Harriet to have her perfect 8th birthday that she had planned and hoped for.  I hope someday she realizes that "perfect" sometimes means that the middle is really messy and then things are fixed in the end, and that it's not necessarily perfect as you go. 

Happy 8th Birthday, Sweet Harriet!