Dennie's Birthday

I'm 8.

I'm smiling a smile that's minus a few teeth.

I'm suggesting that people call me Dennie lately.

I love to play with my little brothers.

I'm loud when playing.

I can sit very quietly looking at science/animal books.

I can't wait to build a model with dad.

On my last "date" with mom I chose to go to Creative Kidstuff.

I'm memorizing part of I Cor. 13.

I love to talk.

I'm learning, learning to follow.

And I set my antlers on fire at my birthday party.

It started with these invitations...after we decided the theme would be all about hunting and camping.

I also drew up detailed plans for my cake so mom would know

 exactly how to make it. 

Since I had ordered a tent on the cake, mom surprised me one morning with this!

Levi was quite concerned that mom had lost his birthday, but he was content to help out in any way he could that had to do with taste-testing.

I love, love using small kitchen appliances.  And it's really great.  Because lately, mom lets me use the mixer with almost no supervision.  For some reason she won't leave the room, but I can manage it pretty well.

OH!  Mom bought boxed jello.  It's only on special occasions when we need "water" that she'll actually buy the stuff.  So this was the river she cut out.

And this was the chunk of cake we cut out so the river would have a place to lie.

Dad and I set up these tents.  One for dining in the kitchen and one for other stuff in our living room.  I think I could actually put one up myself now.  My brothers and I had a blast playing in those and mom was glad dad didn't mind doing it.  She said it just looked exhausting!Mom thought our guests might need some directions, so she made this sign and hung it in preparation!  Later some of us thought it would have been nice to have added some bullet holes!

My brothers practically lived in the tents up until the party.  We were hoping the tents would still be up for everyone to see.

I invited four friends over and we started with some target practice with the nerf guns.  Dad had this nifty idea to use the beanie babies as we couldn't truly go hunting although that would be a dream come true!While we all went to Home Depot's craft project, mom made lunch.  We had fish filets that we had "caught" and hot dogs.  Dad called them "tube steaks."

Grandpa Stacy and Grandma Carol joined us!

These are some close-ups of my cake.  Notice the hunter and his dog, along with the fisherman spearing a fish!

We played a silly game of pin the antlers on the deer.  I think mom realizes this game has too many loopholes for 8 year olds.  She'll use it again for only five year olds and under!! 

When it came time to blow out my candles, I thought it'd be a great idea to tape my deer antlers to my head.  The only problem...they were very flimsy paper antlers, and they immediately fell into the cake and burst into flames.  Fortunately, Grandpa Stacy had the presence of mind to grab them.  Mom just stood there, mouth agape, camera in hand.  She was disappointed that the video wasn't going at the time.

I had fun opening gifts.  This one's going to be especially fun to work on with Dad.