The Hunter Family: It's Great to be Eight!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

It's Great to be Eight!

It’s Great to Be Eight!

My precious Daffodil is Eight years old! It’s so hard to believe it has been eight years since our little blueberry came shooting into our lives. She is honestly the most amazing, determined, intelligent, insightful and wonderful girl. I wish you all could know her personally. What a joy to be her mother. One of Daphne’s most notable strengths is her strong will, her ability to lead. She is a natural leader and we see that every day. Being a big sister comes naturally, especially the bossy parts. But what has thrilled me beyond understanding is how this past year has brought such growth in her as a big sister. She has learned not just to direct Victoria, but to teach her. Not just to command her, but to persuade her. She has learned to not just play, but to nurture, and perhaps thesweetest sigh tof all has been to see Daphne find joy in Tori’s accomplishments, to encourage and praise her sister and find genuine happiness in her successes. What a sister you are, my sweet Daphne! We are so very, very happy you are part of our family.

We have begun a system of allowing our children to have a “Friend Party” every other year. Many reasons for this decision: Firstly, friend parties are expensive. Secondly, My kids have too much stuff. I realize that I could have a party and ask people to not bring gifts, but I feel like that would be even less fair and difficult to explain to my children. Thirdly, I feel that we do a pretty great job of making our kids birthdays really special, and it just isn’t necessary. At first this seemed like a great idea, and in most ways it still is. It should have occurred to me, however, that they are all three having their Friend Party on the same year. Which mostly just makes every other year really expensive. And yes, I realize that I am breaking the unspoken rule of mentioning the cost of your child’s birthday party. I do realize that there is some surreal blog world where we are supposed to throw perfectly themed parties with perfect cake and clothes and perfectly behaved children and never mention the hundreds of dollars it costs. I suppose on some level, we think, “Well, it’s her birthday, she shouldn’t worry about the cost.” But, as many of you know, Matt and I are cheapskates. We try to be the nicest and most generous cheapskates possible, but we are not big on unnecessary expense. And birthday parties are full of a lot of that. But, can I make my child feel special on his/her birthday without inviting sixteen 7 year olds over and have matching napkins and matching toenails and matching cake and matching forks? Yes, yes I can. And we feel that by allowing our children to understand that you can celebrate your birthday without splurging, maybe we are teaching them a valuable lesson. Maybe we are teaching them that they are only important every other year, who knows? We’ll see how long this system lasts!

So… wow, that was a really long segway into this discussion. All that said, Daphne chose to have a special outing instead of a friend party. We let her choose one friend to invite, and we all went to Cherry Hill for the day! It was So. Much. Fun. This coming from a woman who hates water parks and frankly is terrified to put my head under the water. Our children could not stop smiling. Tori kept running around saying, “This is the best. Day. Ever!” Daphne and her BFF Allison could not stop giggling and laughing. They were having so much fun.

But of course, this outing took place during the two days that I had a new phone that I hated, and when we exchanged it for another one I forgot that all my pictures from Cherry Hill were on the stupid phone.

But- We did celebrate Daphne's Birthday with Matt's family AND my family! (Stay tuned for the pics with my family on my Texas post). Here are a few pictures of her family birthday celebration: