Party Animals

I tend to not look at the calendar too often. Friday night I realized that Penny's birthday was Tuesday, so I was kind of freaking out. I was contemplating the park, but we settled on cake and ice cream at our house. Penny chose who she wanted to come. She had Julius and Monique from church. You can see their mom, Fieona, near Jason's mum in one picture. Penny also wanted Nan's neighbors there, Emilee and Aimee. They look the same size, but Emilee (in the orange shirt) is older and in kindergarten with Malcolm. Then she wanted our neighbors, Tyler (he's in Thomas' class), his younger sister, Jada and their twin brother and sister (the babies aren't in any pictures). Two of Jason's brothers were there-- Ben helped with the kids and you can see Malcolm in his green uniform.
I emptied one of our rooms out and filled it with 98 balloons-- 2 were duds. Ya, my lips hurt, and my fingers are still hurting. But that was a big hit, so I guess it was worth it.
Then we played pin the horn on the unicorn, and I'm pretty sure all the kids cheated. You can see Penny didn't even attempt to sneak it-- she wouldn't even keep the blindfold on! I wasn't planning on Sam participating, but when he saw everyone else lined up, he was right up there too. He's good at fighting for his right to be included.
Yes, I know the cake looks pretty crappy. My mom was always really good to make us all cool cakes. I remember one year she made me a pony cake, and I swear it was bigger than me! Of course we also had a lot of cousins who helped eat it. But I had that in mind when I was preparing for Penny's cake. I was going to make a big cake-- but I didn't have anything big enough to put it on. As it was, I had to scrounge around to find this extra tile (don't worry, I grabbed one from the middle of the box of extras and gave it a good scrub). And the poor butterfly is lopsided and pretty sad. I had something better in mind, but I cut this out right before everyone showed up, and I frosted it while they were there. But Penny loves butterflies. That's how her room is decorated, and she also got that cute necklace from Aunt Cindy. Penny was very insistent that it have lots of sprinkles too. She seemed pretty happy about it-- but we still have a ton left over.
I'm a doofus head and I forgot to open the presents while everyone was here! But I got good pictures to send to everyone. Penny was just thrilled about everything. Can't you just see the sheer excitement in her face? I'm so happy I have my Penny doll.