Gabi's Festive Celebration

Since today was a public holiday, we had a number of friends over to celebrate Gabi's birthday. Gabi was very excited about having so many friends over, and ran around giving many people big hugs. In addition to parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, our neighbors, Nani & Nina came, our friends the Bates (& their 3 kids), the Psillides (& their 2 kids), the McQueens, and Mr. Fisher (their kids were too tired to make it, but he was kind enough to stop by).

Gabi was also very excited to wear her new dress from her Aunt Carrie.

We had some veggie snacks, crackers & cheese, and Gabi enjoyed showing her horsey collection to Ruby, who is nearly Gabi's age. We also had an amazing cake before the real fun, the games began.

Doug was in charge of the games, but thanks to our (amazing) neighbor, Nani, many ideas were already supplied. Nani used to run a business organizing kid games, so she had some burlap bages for sack races, and we also borrowed tables and chairs to set outside for the kids to eat. Reeve and Nina especially enjoyed the sack races, though mommy and then Rania also got into the act.

(I'm still trying to figure out what is happening in the background of the picture with Rania in the sack -- it appears as though Nina is jumping to supersonic levels.) We also played balloon volleyball (adults vs. kids), hot potato (complete with Tracy's singing since we didn't have music), and a game where blindfolded kids tried to scoop cotton balls out of bowls.

But certainly a highlight of the event was the incredible cake which Tracy made. Somehow Gabi's wishes for a horsey cake came true with an amazing likeness that looked even better than the model picture that was found on the internet.

With the week flying through, it seems like a blur that things are going so quickly since Tracy and Reeve are off on Friday evening. Wow. Tracy is finishing up finals this week, and the middle school is in the middle of our second trimester. Throw in a few holiday celebrations and school work, and things are plenty busy, so we were grateful for this mid-week break and hopefully a memorable celebration for Gabriella.