It's Great to Be 8!

Wow. The big girls are 8. It seems like at age 8 everything changes (again). My own memories are so much clearer from the time I was 8. And now my big girls are that age already. They seem to be able to distinguish fantasy from reality. They can remember things more clearly. They can reason to a much greater ability. They have grown up teeth. They are dressing like little pre-teens already.

So how did they celebrate the big day?

We started off surprising the morning of their birthday by taking them to Denny's for a little family breakfast.

They were so excited. One, they want a surprise party but how do you surprise them when they want to plan their own birthday party? And two, they always ask me when we can eat at Denny's. So there you have it. They also opened quite a few gifts there.

Then that afternoon was their party at the one and only Chuck E Cheese. After their little sisters had their party there in January they were set on doing it too.

Two cakes of course! One kitties...

and one puppies...

Kaitlyn can be, um, a bit "expressive" at times...

A little scary I admit. Okay, a LOT scary! She thinks it's funny. Can you say spastic?

Then Mackenzie hopped up over to the dance machine and started some cute little shakey shakey dance move. Our little family friend who is younger of course followed suit. One thing amazed me - Chuck E invited all the kids to come dance with him after the birthday song, and would you believe that only my kids (all 4) plus a few younger ones would go? None of Kaitlyn and Mackenzie's friends would do it. How sad! Are they already that old that kids are too cool to have fun?

Present time...as if they need more stuff. But presents are part of birthdays, right?

And the grand finale....the Ticket Blaster machine! That is THE reason they wanted to come here. They were so jealous of their little sisters doing it. They did pretty good - we also learned that wearing the birthday crown inside the machine also helps collect more tickets!

And so do the goggles!

They had a terrific party with only one small glitch. They both set their bags down with all their tickets inside and you can guess, they turned around and those bags were gone in no time. So sad. They were heart-broken and I didn't feel like that was the day to learn a valuable lesson about bad people and keeping up with your stuff. Luckily, the girls at the ticket counter said (and sadly) that some adult had turned in one of the bags and said it was her friend's (?). It had the magic tickets from the ticket blaster and was about 400 tickets. They thought it was weird and though they redeemed her tickets, they added 400 each onto Kaitlyn and Mackenzie's other tickets. Glad they did the right thing but so sad that there are so many dishonest people in the world. I can't imagine taking from children and setting such a bad example for your own children. Wow.

But, all's well that ends well. And...I think the learned the lesson in spite of getting the tickets anyway. Happy Birthday to the big girls!!