It's Great to be Eight!

Today was Alyssa's birthday. It started out much too early for how late yesterday ended, but I can't really complain. I turned eight once, too.

The day started with a heap of presents and cinnamon bread muffins around a birthday votive. (Isn't that what they use at your house?) She got some pretty good stuff, too - a GameBoy with a couple of kid games, some Pla-Doh, track for her wooden train, and of course, Spider-Man pajamas.

She also got two puzzles, and she did them both by herself today. 25 piece puzzles are too simple for her, but she's not quite able to do 100s by herself. I worked very hard to find her one 35 and one 50 piece puzzle.

She really wanted to go to the park, so when she got back from speech therapy at school, we went to the nearby Bearcat park. This is where we're going to have her big friend birthday party. Someday - hopefully in a couple of weeks. I've REALLY got to get it together!

Then for dinner we ended up at the Cracker Barrel. The one closest to our house still has a smoking section (!) but there's another not too much farther in the other direction with clean air, so that's where we went.

All the way back, Alyssa played the Dora game on her GameBoy. "She didn't even let me play," complained Anna.

Good.

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