Happy 13th Birthday Rachel

Morning present opening with her siblings.
Nana and Brendon and I got her Bang. She learnt a bit about this card game at church camp and so hopefully she can get a bit more practice before the next camp.

I loved seeing how interested Asher was in it all.

Then Rachel iced and arranged her cake. She had baked it yesterday and knew there would be enough time to finish it this morning before church.
When she got the borrowed horses from our neighbour yesterday she was surprised at how big there were compared to the cake. So although she had an idea of designing it that she had been thinking about for a while, she had to make some adjustments. She was happy with the new plan she came up with though - so she got extra lessons in dealing with life through that. Things just don't always turn out the way we had planned.

She did a great job.

The party started as soon as we got home from church.
Brendon had unexpected issues at work over the weekend and had to work today - so he met us at church and so we had extra space to pick the girls up on the way home.

Ruth had created a "game" where they had to shuffle words to make a sentence. She made it a bit more tricky by not using the capital on the first word in the sentence. :-) I really appreciated hearing one of the girls say "thanks Ruth" for organizing it.

Then it was time for some Dutch Blitz. It's nice that the older girls are all happy to let the younger two be a part of their games. Hezekiah and Asher were having their naps.
Then it was afternoon tea time - and cake time.

Although we had not planned to have parties this year - at the last minute (things getting finalized on Saturday) I said Rachel could made some plans and I was so glad she could celebrate this special day with friends.

We only just managed to find 13 matching candles. Rachel was wondering at what age you stop having candles. We will just have to make sure we stock up our supply before her next birthday so she can have a choice.
Rachel also made a cheesecake yesterday. It looked really pretty.

They tried a bit of Bang after the food was finished but Rachel will have to go through the rules a bit more before playing it with a bigger group.
Then they all headed outside and spent ages out there. I didn't get more photos (and this one was such a bad quality one) - but it's a nice reminder of the fun they had.
Briar came with a bag of dress up clothes and it was fun to see them all dressed up.
The girls all had a lovely long visit and it was a really special day.