The Solstice is coming! The Solstice is coming!

It hardly matters now that my kids go to bed at around six o'clock, but longer days are coming.  Frances and I made a Solstice lantern to celebrate.  If I get organized earlier next year, we'll call it Michaelmas lanterns.

I learned that Frances doesn't really like having gooey fingers, but it turned out well.  Pictures to come!

Working Girls

The Melanie Griffith/Joan Cusack kind.  Not the other kind.

I swear my kids get dressed sometimes.

The Party

Frances requested an Oreo cake.

Doesn't she look like she eats a lot of Oreos?  Sigh.

We invited all the usual suspects, such as Darby and Sophia.  

A couple of the families we invited couldn't come due to sickness and conflict, so the party ended up feeling more like an extended play date and less like a birthday party.  Fine with me.

Chandler didn't mind either.

Isaac was a new and welcome addition.  Persevere, Isaac, persevere.

The Birthday Girl (in outfit #2)!!

The littlest party-goer and my favorite pre-one year old.  Poor thing thinks his name is Peanut.

Starting with lower left hand corner, we've got Darby, Isaac, Cindy, Peanut, Chandler, myself, Frances, Hannah (she's Isaac's little sister and she gets along great with my girls, so we like her), and Theo.

At the last minute, we remembered to open gifts (notice Outfit #3).

Auntie Jocelyn sent make-up, hence the kids' polychromatic eyelids.

Everyone got in on the present opening.

About three hours after it started, everyone cleared out and then this happened...

One tuckered out little five year old.