Happy Birthday Sarah!

Today was Sarah's 7th birthday! I can't believe she's been with us for 7 whole years now! She is an awesome girl. We love her so much and are so glad to have her in our family. Sarah opened her presents after lunch. She was so excited about every single one. She got some birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa Brown, as well as from her Great Grandpa Curtis and Grandma Mary Lee. Grandma Curtis sent her an American Girl Magazine subscription. Grandma ordered it several weeks ago and with excellent timing, Sarah's first issue arrived a couple of days before her b'day! She got a couple of CDs and a bike from Mom and Dad. Chloe gave her a microphone. Kyle gave her a new CD player - that's purple. And Big Grandpa and Grandma Suzie sent her a Just Like Me doll from American Girl. Sarah has named her Marina. She has spent a happy day enjoying all of her gifts. We even went to the park tonight so that she could try out her new wheels.

I had a couple of goofs. Usually we let the girls pick out paper plates, cups, etc. for their b'day dinner. Well, somehow I forgot to take Sarah to do that. Fortunately we were able to substitute pink bunny milk (now renamed princess milk) in a wine glass to make her meal more special. I also forgot to buy new candles for her! I thought we'd just reuse the ones from Chloe's b'day because they were fun shapes and hardly used at all. Well, until it was time to put them on the cake it didn't occur to me that there were only 5 candles and we needed 7! We made due by lighting and blowing out 5 candles, then relighting and blowing out 2 more. I'm lucky Sarah was so easy going about it all!!!

Yesterday Sarah chose to go to the Wild Animal Park for her birthday activity. We had a great time there. It was overcast and looked like it might rain any minute, but it never did. Being a little cool and overcast actually makes for a better time there because the animals are more active. We were able to see the elephants, rhinos and lions all really close up! We also went into Lorakeet Landing where the girls fed the birds some nectar. They also had fun going to the Petting Kraal and riding the new carousel that is at the park. I was going to put a bunch of pics on here but just loading up one of Sarah is taking forever. Pretty soon I'll be joining up with Snapfish or something so that I can send out slide shows of our photos. Then you'll be able to view all of the fun!

Everyone was so nice to call Sarah today and wish her a happy birthday. She really loves to talk on the phone and was glad to tell everyone what she got. I also know that Brent and Ash got her a special princess pillowcase (it will probably arrive tomorrow). Since Sarah is in bed right now and not reading over my shoulder I feel safe in breaking the surprise.

We are getting excited to be going to Utah in 2 weeks for Dave and Kelly's wedding. We even bought Brad a new suit this past week so that he'll be looking fine. We are so glad to get to spend some time hanging out with everyone.