Happy 7th Birthday Lily!

The birthday week started out with a trip to Legoland.  It is the perfect amusement park for children of this age.  It was the last day at the beach house and the girls had helped me clean the whole house so I surprised them with Legoland.

I love this fountain.  You jump on the spot in front of the instrument and that instrument plays while making a fountain.  When everyone is jumping you make a song together.  It is really fun just to watch people doing it.  You cannot help but go over and jump yourself.  So I am sure that someone caught me in their picture because I could not resist.  Look how high Lily is.  She is so athletic.

Our experience with the cars here was a lot better than our experience in China.   She was able to stay on the road!

Emma and Meilynn rode the smaller cars.

The girls love the jousting horses.  Especially because you get to go by yourself.

Lily thought it was fun.

Emma is an old pro.

Meilynn looks like she is barely hanging on.

The Lego figures are everywhere.

Lily trying her first taco.  At first she waved her hand, like take it away.  But after she heard her sisters, she decided to try it and found that she actually liked it.  Of course I made them with no spice at all just for her.

The highlight of the week was getting a present from her best friend and orphanage sister.  When we were in China we went back to the orphanage and brought her friend a present and visited with her.  We were so happy that Lyla came home just a week after Lily.  We have been able to remain in contact and the girls even tried talking on the phone to each other.  We are not sure if they really understood who they were talking to and where they were.  But we are working on a surprise that I cannot wait to share.

The tradition in our family is that the person who is having a birthday gets to lick the beaters.  Lily loved this idea and I have never seen the beaters come back as clean as they did with her.

I got this brilliant idea to make a cake using three different mixes.  But somehow I didn't even think about how exactly I might do that.  Emma detests chocolate so I have to always make cupcakes if I make chocolate.  I remembered that I had a huge pan from when I made Emma the "castle" cake so I thought I would just use that pan and then put Cinderella stuff on top.  I had this really bad cough and did not feel well and it was late by the time I got to the cake.  My sister was over helping me with the girls since I was not feeling well and Mike was out of town for a funeral.  So I start making the three cake mixes and then I realize that I had not thought this thing through at all.  At first I thought three people could pour their mix in at the same time since the mixes are thick, but then I realized that I did not have three adults to do this and that when I thought about it, it probably would not work.  So then I think I need some sort of divider.  I try everything in the kitchen and nothing fits.  Finally I come up with the idea of file folders.  So my sister holds two file folders while I quickly put the mix in.  It really worked and everyone was happy with the three choices; yellow, funfetti, and chocolate!

Lily on her birthday

I loved Meilynn's twirling pictures so much that I had Lily do it too!

I love these

Sweet Lily

Happy to be 7

It was 97 degrees and the sun was bright!

Emma looking at a flower

Sick Mommy with Lily (you can see a sad Emma in the background)  she has handled the two birthdays before hers as best as a 4 year old can, but sharing Mommy is not her favorite thing.

The Cinderella Cake

It did not take her long to figure out about birthdays

A little shy as we all sing to her

but oh so pleased

Loving it

blowing out the candels

She loves the cake!

Cinderella dress up

My sister helping her  with the unwrapping.  At one point she pushed her hand away.

Later with Daddy

We had a great day.  We had a bar-b-que and swimming.  I have a lot of video and I will try to put a little of it on.