Emma Turns 7

On Saturday, Matt and I drove down to my older sister's house in Taunton for my goddaughter's birthday party. Emma is Julie's youngest and loves turtles and anything artistic. This year, she insisted that she would decorate the cake herself.

It's a turtle. Obviously it's a Rivet turtle; Look at its huge head! Actually, I'm pretty impressed with it, especially because Julie said Emma decided she needed to use 2 techniques - she piped some frosting and she then used watered down paste colors to "paint" on the water and the lines on the turtle's shell. You can't tell in the picture, but she also "needed" to have 2 different greens for the head and the shell.

Julie and John's house is small. It's a ranch, and I would be surprised if they had 900 square feet. But somehow they make it work when they have parties. The whole place is filled up with people, but it makes it easy to jump in and out of conversations and catch up with everyone. At my folks' house, it's easy for me and my sister's to congregate in Chris' kitchen, and the guys hang out in the living room to watch the game, and mom and the aunts are in mom's kitchen, and the kids are upstairs. But at Julie's, you don't go to a party at their house and find yourself not spending time with everyone there. Julie and John are also very welcoming, and they always allow the birthday child to invite a few friends to the family party, and they usually wind up bringing their siblings... Julie always tells the parents that with all the cousins, there's bound to be a kid the sibling's age, too.

A few more pictures of the fun...

And the birthday girl herself. We bought her a ton of "real" art supplies: pastels, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, drawing pencils of various degrees of hardness, and kneeded erasers and smudgers, along with a few sketchpads and pads of watercolor paper. I always get a little thrill when the kid wants to play with my present before the end of the party. These were out of the package as soon as the wrapping paper was off. Win.