Mary Alice's Birthday Week

Goodness! I have so much to post about! We have had many things going on here during the last week. I have been unbelievably tired every night and just couldn't muster up the energy to post about the goings on here. I'm going to try and cover all of the fun things that we've been doing...

First of all, I need to say a big huge THANK YOU to my friend, Traci, for the wonderful blog design that she did for me. I am so grateful to have gotten rid of that yucky pinkness that used to be my blog. I think that Traci did an excellent job. When I clicked over on her site, I noticed that she was doing a free blog makeover contest. You might click over to her website and leave a comment if you are interested.

Secondly, a big THANK YOU to my sis,Taylor, for taking some awesome pics of the kids. The pictures that Traci used in my header were taken by Taylor. She took so many great pictures of our kids. It was hard to choose just a few.

This week was Mary Alice's birthday week. She turned SEVEN! That is so hard for me to believe! She is a precious gift from God. She is a sweet little ray of sunshine that brings so much joy to our lives. Josh and I are so proud of our Mary Alice girl and pray daily for the woman that she will become.

A few things about our Mary Alice girl right now...

Josh bought Mary Alice a Bible a few weeks ago. Our girl is so enthusiastic about reading. We actually have to tell her, "Why don't you play every once and a while?" We go to the library about once a week. Within a couple of days, she has usually torn through all of her books. She will then proceed to read many of them again. So... Josh talked with her about the importance of reading the most important book, the Bible, and bought a Bible for her that she would enjoy reading. I have been so excited about how much she has enjoyed reading her Bible over the past few weeks. Mary Alice really loves routines, schedules and structure. So, each morning, like clockwork, she gets up at 7:00, does her chores, and sits on the couch to read her Bible. After the first week of her doing this, she started a little tradition. Mary Alice now comes into my bedroom and wakes me up and we sit on the couch and read our Bibles together. Sadly, I need this extra bit of motivation to read my Bible.

Mary Alice is still very excited about learning. I hope this doesn't change any time soon. She can't wait for school to start this year. We are starting our school year on Monday. She will be in first grade.

Mary Alice is a pleaser and is very helpful. She usually just wants to make everyone happy and doesn't really like conflict. She and Major get along very well, most of the time. She tries very hard to be a friend to him. She plays lots of his boy games with him, even when it isn't really what she wants to do. Lots of times they compromise, though. A few weeks ago, I walked in and found them playing an unusual game. They were playing "Princess Ball" with Major's cars. They had the cars paired up into couples and were having them go to a ball together. Weird. They are funnies.

Mary Alice is a cuddler. I always love it when a time comes where we can both take a nap together. She is so cozy and loves to snuggle.

Late at night, when I tuck her into bed, she usually asks if I can stay and talk awhile. Sometimes, I will stay and chat with her for several minutes. I've found that this is the best time to talk with Mary Alice. She will tell me lots of things at the end of the day that she wouldn't have mentioned otherwise. She talks about her hopes and dreams and thoughts about life and people. It is a wonderful teaching opportunity and a great chance to hang out with the girl.

She is SO sweet! I know I've bragged on this before, but she constantly asks me to do things like rub my legs with lotion, give me a pedicure or manicure, or rub my shoulders. I definitely don't argue with her when she asks to do these things. I think it important for kids to make their own choices about some things. I always let her do this when she asks. :)

She loves music. I love to listen to her sweet voice singing out in church. Often times, she will try to sing alto or high tenor. That is really funny. Sometimes she is a fan of vibrato. That drives me crazy. I've never liked vibrato. It is very sweet, though.

She is growing up way too quickly. I hate to see her getting older, but at least she's told me that when she is older, she is going to find the house closest to mine that is for sale and live there. I think that is a pretty good idea. :)

We are so blessed by our Mary Alice girl. I can't imagine life without her!


I will continue on about her birthday...

On Mary Alice's actual birthday, we started the day with something I saw on The Gilmore Girls. (I watched all seven seasons while I was on bed rest and couldn't wait to try out this little tradition.) The mom on that show goes into her daughter's bedroom early in the morning, jumps into bed with her, and proceeds to vividly recount the events leading up to and the day of the daughter's birth. We always tell her the birthday story, but it was so much more fun to tell it while snuggling underneath her covers first thing in the morning. So... early on the morning of the 15th, I jumped into bed with Mary Alice and told her a detailed story of how she came to be a part of our family. She absolutely LOVED this. Major came and climbed into the bed too, so he got to participate in the fun. She immediately went downstairs, jumped into bed with her dad, and told him the story in it's entirety. Next, the kids went in for a birthday breakfast of.....Barbie cereal. Sweet cereals are not something that I typically buy for our family. On their birthdays,though, the kids always get to pick out whatever cereal they would like. Mary Alice picked out Barbie cereal. Major said that he would help her eat it "even if it was girly". Thanks Maje.




At her request, Mary Alice and I went around town getting things ready for her birthday party on Tuesday. Josh had plans of his own for the evening. He had made reservations at the American Girl Bistro in Dallas. Josh took the girl on a special date to eat there. I wish I had been there to see her sweet face. Josh said that she was absolutely thrilled. Josh gave her a special birthday present that he had picked out for her, a charm for her charm bracelet that says, "Daddy's Girl". She loved it! They walked around the store and looked at all of the neat American Girl things that were for sale.







The day ended with a Bible story and with Mary Alice asking me to retell the birthday story to her. Of course, I did.


The next few days were filled with party preparations. Mary Alice decided that she really wanted to make these Funny Fondant People to go on top of her birthday cake. This was a very fun project and a little time consuming, but super easy. We had so much fun with this, and laughed A LOT!! Thanks to Alisha for sharing her wonderful fondant recipe with me. It was awesome! Here we are making our fondant people. Please excuse the ugly girl in the gray t-shirt. She is pregnant and sleep deprived.



The work with fondant didn't go quite as planned. Some of the faces were a little smashed and the some of the eyes had problems, but all in all, I thought they were pretty funny for a child's birthday cake topper. The sad thing was, we got carried away when we were making them and made them a little too large for Mary Alice's cake. Since the heads kept falling off anyway, we only used the heads on top of her cake. It turned out pretty cute. We served up the bodies to each girl with her slice of cake. This was a HUGE hit. The girls loved eating these miniature versions of themselves and laughed themselves silly making jokes about their mini selves. I was surprised at how much fun they had with these silly characters. Mary Alice and I had just as much fun making them. Major even got to help make his own fondant character. (His version of himself was "Super Maje" and is wearing a baseball cap and flying over the top of the party guests.)


(Left to right: Ellie, Rachel, Torie, Amilia, Mary Alice, Abby, Janae, and Jillian)
(Flying high above all of the party guests: "Super Maje")






This is Major on the day of the party. He pulled our ice chest over to the computer and was leading singing along with a CD of hymns that our kids made a couple of years ago. He does this during every song service each week at church. So cute!

This year, for her seventh birthday, Mary Alice wanted to have a sleepover. We are so not ready to have a sleepover here at the Smith house, so we settled on a pajama party. All of Mary Alice's sweet friends came in their pj's for a few hours of girly fun. This was great because when 10:00 rolled around, the girls were escorted home by their parents. This seemed the perfect amount of time for a herd of 6-8 year olds to be around each other. Mary Alice got to experience all of the fun of a sleepover, without all of the drama! Yay!


An hour before the party.... Mary Alice tries out some of the cucumbers.


Posing in her jammies... The excitement is building...



I was sad that this pic was blurry. They looked so cute!


Here are a bunch of girls looking out the front door as the last girl arrives.


This girl is VERY excited about telling Mary Alice about her present.


Mary Alice's friend, Ellie, smiles as "Fifi" gives her a chocolate pudding facial. All of the girls loved Fifi and especially loved her adorable French accent. Thanks Aunt Hannah for adding that extra special touch!



Some of the girls crept into Mary Alice's room and had a pillow fight. They were such sillies!



Here are some of the girls painting pillowcases. Thanks to Mom for helping the girls with this station. The pillowcases looked so cute!



Here are some girls peeking in at "Pedicure Palace" and "Facials by Fifi". I think this was when some of the party guests took over the facial station and covered poor Fifi with her own chocolate pudding facial. Hannah was such a good sport!


Here is the girl with her buddies Abby and Amilia. They were just having fun being silly.


Here is Aunt Taylor. She was stationed at "Pedicure Palace". She did her infamous nail lady accent and wowed the girls by painting their toes and adding flower designs and jewels. Thanks Taylor!


My station... We made body glitter. I just liked it because I could sit down.



Three crazy girls! This pretty much sums up the mood of the party. This is how they were returned to their parents at 10:00.



A headless "Super Maje".....This just makes me laugh. :)

The party ended with all of the girls upstairs watching Cinderella. Those girls were HUNGRY and ate 5 bags of popcorn in about half an hour!!

Happy seventh birthday Mary Alice!!! We love you!