Went to a Garden Party

Today we had a garden party to celebrate Alyssa's birthday. The kids painted flower pots, played hot potato and "Flower, Flower, Weed," had dirt cake, and planted flowers in their beautifully painted pots. We had the party in Alyssa's flower garden, which has marigolds and huge sunflowers that she and Grandma Jacks planted at the beginning of the summer, but sadly, all of the pictures I took were facing the desolate, barren part of the garden area. The kids all got along well, and we had a fabulous time!

Alyssa's birthday was Sunday, but it's stretched for three days, because we had cake for Family Home Evening with the cousins yesterday, and her official birthday party today. We've learned that she is quite the diva on her birthday, but we also taught her about being a good hostess today. We were trying to teach the kids to wait until everyone had their cake before eating, and some of them said that Alyssa needed to take the first bite since she was the birthday girl, but we explained to them that it was because she was the hostess. She had to make sure that each of her guests had a plate of food, and she would take a bite to signal to everyone that it was then okay to eat. Alyssa kept looking around as we served the kids, and all of the others had their eyes glued to Alyssa to watch for the first bite. It was so fun to watch!


Alyssa's birthday always seems to fall at a time when we're really busy and I'm not posting on the blog very often. I haven't been very good at doing special birthday posts for her, but I will say that we love her so, so very much. She is such a sweet little girl who always makes our lives exciting. I'm so proud of her for all of the progress she's made in the last year with sitting still and learning to read and helping so much around the house. I have loved watching her grow from being a tiny, busy baby into the beautiful busy girl that she is now.