Double the Parties, Double the Fun

On Saturday, Elsa and I went to a birthday party for our friend, Lily. She turned three, and celebrated it with a princess/prince party at Greene's Fine Foods in Downtown Decatur. All the little girls were to don their tutus, and boys were to wear their capes -- tiaras and crowns were provided, though I could only get Elsa to wear hers for minutes (maybe seconds) at a time, so I never got a picture of her in it. Sugar ran rampant throughout the celebration, beginning with the kids making their own chocolate lollipops, then decorating chocolate-covered Oreos, dipping pretzel sticks in a vat of chocolate, and finishing things off with birthday cake. We left before the cake was served because Elsa was overdue for a nap and was doing a good job of letting the other guests know about it. She did, however, enjoy nearly two whole chocolate-covered Oreos... and quite a few sprinkles.

The party was a lot of fun, and Lily was as cute as could be in her princess attire. Here she is, a bit sad because she wanted to sing "Happy birthday to me..." by herself rather than have everyone sing to her. So we let her have the stage after we sang -- darling.

Elsa was so tired on the way home, she was putting the stickers from her goody bag on her face and singing the "Happy Birthday" song. I tried to get some video, but missed the golden opportunity.

After a nap squeezed in between the excitement, we (Jarrett included) headed to Ms. Gabriela's house for her annual Harvest Festival. When we arrived, many tables and chairs were set up in the backyard, and families were set to work preparing the ingredients for our dinner. Children were shredding cheese and peeling/coring apples; parents were chopping vegetables and helping the kids. Instruments were played, harvest songs were sung, and children were running around and playing like the day was never going to end. As the meal was nearing time to serve, we all gathered in a large circle around the beautiful harvest loaf of bread (of which I also failed to capture a picture) and joined hands in a chain as we sang a song ("A harvest round we are weaving, we weave a harvest round..."), and then we sang a song of thanks before enjoying the feast. The meal included soup, stew, fritatta, grilled corn-on-the-cob, fruit, salads, and several desserts. Elsa concentrated mostly on the grapes, but she did eat a little soup and some bread as well. It was fun meeting some of the parents and watching the little ones run around and have fun together. All in all, it was worth getting Elsa down to bed over an hour late. But, boy, was she one tired little girl after all the excitement this day held.