It was a great celebration! We had family, we had friends, we had fabulous weather and divine food (just look at Grandma Diane's cake creation!!!) - I would be hard pressed to want for more and I think that the birthday girl would agree :) Our crowd consisted of many who have joined us for Olivia's birthdays from the get-go, along with a few new faces. I was struck this year by the change in the dynamic. For the first time, the kids (including Elliott) were almost completely self-entertaining. Behold the power of friends - I've heard that it only gets stronger as they get older. I'm not sure about that though, I should ask Jackie, or maybe have Chris ask Brian... We've been so blessed to have good friends in our lives :)

Olivia brought home her first spelling pre-test of the year. I am such a nerd - but I love to work on her spelling with her. I just can't wait until she starts vocabulary words!!!! Poor kiddo!!! We also started working on her information sheet for "star of the week" - which she will be at the end of September. I'm impressed with her handwriting. She was taking her time and did a very nice job - usually she's in a hurry and tends to be a little sloppy. It was good to see that she can be neat when she tries. I was pleasantly surprised at her answer to one of the questions - Which one person would you want with you if you were stranded on a desert island? Can you believe that she chose mom??? Oh yeah, I'll wear that feather in my cap :) Come to think of it, I may want to laminate that...

Elliott had a better morning today. It was raining - so I think the distraction of being able to carry her umbrella made our morning transition go better. The first thing she starts talking about when we get in the car after daycare is having a tootsie (roll) when we get home. Today instead of a tootsie, she grabbed a piece of gum. And I'm not talking about a little gum ball. It had to be a big wad of Hubba Bubba. She thought it was great and had half of it in her mouth before we realized what she was doing. She was quite hesitant to give up the other half and quite insistent that she was big enough to have bubble gum. Well, I did finally win the battle and pry the other half-a-wad from her hand. I think the other half a wad was gone in less than a minute. She was very adamant that she did not swallow it. When I asked her where it went, she pointed with a big smile and proclaimed that it was in her tummy! She's a hoot. Or she's hooting - there's quite a bit of both...

I had pictures of my sweet baby nephew Matthew this afternoon - poor little guy had his first set of stitches. Man, I can still recall how badly my one and only (north of the border) set of stitches hurt. Well, not so much the stitches as the needle and numbing agent they jam into your gaping cut. Poor Matthew - he does have Bill's genes, and I can't remember how many sets of stitches Bill had growing up. The pictures - while showing the second eyebrow of stitches - also had the most wonderful smiles. Maybe the baby of the family was a little bit proud to be the first one to get stitches... NOT that we're wishing for any more!!!!

I must say that it was the perfect sleeping weather last night, and I'm quite hopeful that it will be tonight as well. I love the cool crisp nights of autumn, I just wish they didn't move quite so quickly into the dark cold lingering evenings of winter.