Chloe's Birthday

Chloe's 8th birthday was an emotional one for me.  A person told me, "Oh now she is not going to be your sweet, perfect child anymore."  Um... thank you?  I disagree.  Chloe turned 8. And she is still very much a sweet child.  Perfect? No. But I am pretty sure she wasn't perfect before she turned 8 either.  Close to it. But perfection is impossible.  Chloe, my party planner, event specialist extraordinaire, had a Monday birthday, and in Chloe fashion, refused to celebrate it on the weekend because birthdays just aren't the same if it is not actually your birthday.  And I totally concur.  I tried to make all her birthday plans come true, because for the most part, they were reasonable.  

She wanted to have a birthday party on her birthday.  We settled on an after school swimming party.  She invited a few friends to come over.  We had a treasure hunt, which elicited hurt feelings, frustration, and a few passive aggressive girl fights.  Then the girls went swimming and after they frosted cupcakes.  The cupcakes were a little sad, being that I had put my Dad in charge of getting them out of the oven, but when I came home, I found him trying to pick up the fallen cupcakes off the oven floor.  Oh well. Nothing a little frosting can't cover up!

 Fernanda and Adam gave her this cute dress.  At the end of the night, she showed herself to her room without even saying goodnight, and promptly crashed.  The sign of a good day.

 She wore the birthday girl ribbon to school and was particular about her hair and outfit, of course,

So after the party was over, we went out to eat at the Olive Garden, which is where she said she wanted to go.  Fernanda, Adam and Chelsey joined us, and my Dad for a little bit before he had to leave.  Dinner was fine until Chelsey started yelling like a banshee because I made a joke she didn't like.  Unfortunately Don was in Vegas so he couldn't be there.  He had a work conference.

Other birthday highlights: I brought pink sugar cookies to her class (her request) .
Her birthday gift from Don and I was an American Doll (a knock off, because those dolls are like a month of college tuition).  The doll has red hair and pink gloves.
Sugar our Elf came to visit to wish Chloe a Happy Birthday. She was waiting on the couch for Chloe when she came home from school.  Macie spilled the beans the moment she got in the car when I was picking Chloe up from school. The girls were beyond ecstatic.  Chloe left her a note that night that said she was welcome to eat a cupcake or a cookie.  She ate both, a fact that Chloe finds hilarious.  Chloe said she had made a wish that Sugar would come to visit, and she was over the moon that her wish came true.  I didn't know about that wish. Good thing Sugar was in tune.

The great thing about chloe is she tells me exactly what she wants to do for her parties.  It makes it very simple because I don't think I have to do some sort of Pinterest worthy party.  She even likes to put up all the decorations.  She made a list of things she needed to decorate: streamers and balloons.
I just try to follow her simple party requests and she is happy.  Hopefully this is always the case. I will have to put my foot down if her visions start to become too elaborate.  But crappy cupcakes and Frozen napkins? I can do that,