Happy Birthday, Issa!

Our baby girl is officially eight. She awoke Friday morning to eight glowing balloons hanging in her doorway and Daddy making bacon and beignets:

It was a good way to start a birthday. I had lunch with her at school and took in fruit and juice for the class at the end of the day. Fruit was definitely the best option with the gluten, nut, and chocolate allergies in her class.

When she got home, it was time to rock and roll--her chosen birthday theme:

Issa is at that age where gifts are getting tricky. She really wanted new dance wear, but there is no way I would attempt to guess on size or style. But...we wanted something to wrap. Enter the puzzle:

It was hysterical to watch her unwrap each piece and try to figure it all out:

Once she did, though:

We are taking her out to lunch next Saturday and then to a new dance wear store in Raleigh. There was squealing.

It almost killed me, but Issa also decided she wanted to do her own cake this year:

But I did pull off rock and roll candle. The flames matched the color of the candle:

The funniest thing about her actual birthday was her dinner. What she really wanted was to cook her own meal: egg drop soup, lettuce wraps, and edamame. The wraps came from the freezer section, but she did it all on her own and was quite thrilled. We spent the rest of the evening having a dance party and playing Uno. In case you are wondering, eight is the perfect age to learn how to dance to Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Saturday, we had her friend party. For the first time, we took the party out of our home and to our museum. Best. Idea. Ever. Issa wanted an animal party:

Hedgehog melon:

Chinchilla cupcakes:

I was pretty proud of these guys:

Zebra water:

Happy girl:

The museum was awesome! We arrived to a decorated room complete with paper products and shiny banners. All we had to do was set up the food table. We even had time for a pre-party selfie:

Which Daddy photo bombed:

As soon as all of the girls were there, our educator started:

She was thrilled that we hadn't planned anything else, so she took nearly an hour introducing us to some friends. The first and favorite was the chinchilla:

Then the silkie chicken:

And finally the bearded dragon, but we didn't get a good picture of him. She did a great job teaching and letting the girls just have fun meeting them.

Then, we dissected owl pellets:

I love that these girls had so much fun inspecting skulls and bones:

We found some pretty cool stuff, and Miss Desiree helped us figure out exactly what we had:

I love these sweet girls so much:

Issa had a great day celebrating, and she announced eight is going to be the best year yet!