Happy Birthday Sweet Mint!

Our big girl is seven years old!  She is growing so fast, so sweetly.  We could not love this precious girl any more!!

On the evening of the real day, we facetimed with Grandma and Grandpa to open the feast-of-gifts box they sent.  

This birthday was a Taobao first for our family....  with the grandparents giving a gift that we bought for them from China's (for me, very-hard-to-use!) online mall, Taobao.  
This super fantastic doll house was their gift, but purchased here.  It's much bigger and better than we expected it to be!  What a sweet surprise!

The next day was the big birthday bash!  

(PS- this is all in our new school room!  We feel like the most blessed homeschoolers in the world!)

There was a super precious kid-crew in attendance: three sweet local friends that we are so happy for Marian to get to play with, two big boys that Marian is totally impressed with- how gracious they were to come!- and the whole beautiful family that we worship with on Sundays, as well.  All such treasured friends!

This dear friend was our kids' summer school teacher (she's back to uni. classes herself this fall.)  Every day she came, she showed pics of the cakes she was learning to bake at her other part-time job.  Marian started immediately planning for her cake for when her big day.   It was a long-awaited treat-gift to enjoy!

And I'm glad she was out the door before anyone else noticed the goofy thing going on around the sides of this beautiful little cake....

With a cake like this, how can we not call you our Breath Mint Girl?
Or Sweety Mint? Or our Adorable Asthma Advocate?

We had lots of fun, and I hope so much, dear Marian, that you enjoyed your friend-filled celebration!  We praise the Lord for you, our bright and cheerful, helpful, growing, beautiful  daughter!