Hannah's 7th Birthday

Hannah turned seven this past Wednesday. She's been looking forward to this for weeks. My sister's daughter JoJo looks forward to turning seven too. She's presently 5. But JoJo plans her birthday parties in advance. Every time I talk to that girl she's planning her birthday. And every time I see her she's making a list of who to invite or what the theme should be. Hannah's never really cared about her birthday like that. On her birthday last year we asked her where she'd like to go for her birthday and she said "Schlotzsky's." We called a a few relatives and 18 people showed up at Schlotzsky's.

This year is different as we aren't so close to relatives. Her birthday fell on a Wednesday which was AWESOME as far as she's concerned because Wednesday is co-op day. Co-op is 5 miles from our apartment. But using the MTA it takes an hour to get there. We ride 2 trains and walk for 11 blocks unless we're lucky enough to catch the bus as we exit the subway station. Cake and cupcakes were out of the question as they wouldn't survive the trip. So we made little candy grab bags for everyone at co-op. We made them 2 weeks ago because she was so excited about it. They sang "Happy Birthday" to her in her drama class and she giddily passed out candy to everyone she saw. She told everyone on the subway that it was her birthday and she finished the day off at her favorite restaurant, No Strollers (Toby's), where Miss Chris gave her a special table near the kitchen and her own ice cream.

Here Hannah is showing off the card her buddy Anthony in Corsicana sent to her along with 5 dollars. The card is a noisy card that says "Happy Birthday." She LOVES it.


Hannah made herself a gift bag. She loves aluminum foil. She also loves tape. She taped bits of foil to the bag and colored the patches with markers. Looks great to me.



I wrapped her gifts in foil. That was like having bonus gifts as far as she's concerned. Pastor Matthew at Trinity Church Dallas sent up a DVD of video taken during this year's VBS. And she got a new game for her DS.



The next day Hannah got a package from Miss Brenda. It had 2 crazy awesome outfits.

Then today we got a couple more cards. The one from Grandma Cheryl had money!!! $7 from her and $7 from Greatmother. We didn't get a picture of that $ yet, but I wanted to get these pics up since I'm being harassed by Stephanie Mac. We will be in Dallas at the end of the month/beginning of next month and Hannah and JoJo will share a proper birthday party with cake and relatives and friends and such. I don't know the details - I'm leaving them in JoJo's capable hands.

Hannah signs "Thank you" for all the gifts.