Magical Birthday

Rory turned seven this past week, and what a magical birthday it was! First off, we watched a Harry Potter, the last movie we'd yet to watch in the series. Before she could do that however, I gave her one of her presents so she could be super cozy for the movie.

She opened the rest of her presents later that afternoon, and got to spend several hours building her new creations.

Before it got too late, it was time for us to pack up and head to the Lantern Festival!

I'd seen friends post pictures of the ones they been to in the past, and asked Rory if she'd like to do that for her birthday. She was totally game. Especially as she got to decorate her own lantern.

All we had to do was wait for the sun to go down. Luckily we had some neighborhood friends to keep us company. One lady from our ward, Becky Shingleton, made Rory an impromptu Oreo "cake" when she heard it was her birthday. She even got to blow out a candle!

Finny made sure to buddy up to Becky as well, as she had a rather large bag of Swedish Fish to share.

As part of your entrance fee, you also get stuff to roast marshmallows, and a little prize for the kids, which involved these glasses.

As soon as the sun was fully down, they started a countdown. It ended up being fairly chaotic. I'd purchased enough lanterns for us all to have one, but they turned out to be a bit tricky to light. The wind was blowing enough that the bic lighters we had kept going out, but luckily they had a ton of tiki torches handy. They made all the difference.

Then it was just figuring out how to get enough hot air built up inside the lantern that it would fly high enough.

Some of our attempts went a bit astray, and Finn's lantern got a hole burned in it too big to salvage, but we managed to get most of them launched.

Then we just got to watch the magic of thousands of lanterns floating off into the sky. It really is quite spectacular.

Getting out of the parking lot afterwards was much less spectacular. We only moved a car length in the space of an hour. Kinda rough on some tired kids. Anticipating this, we'd planned for Rory to have her birthday cake the following day.

Rory has been counting down to her birthday since before summer began, but I think she had a good one. She was very happy with all her presents, and was a good sport about her activities. Rory has grown a lot this past year, and has worked to better control her temper. She can be very sweet, and will often offer to help you with something without being asked. She's smiley and fun, and loves to dance, making up her own steps and routines. We love our little Rory Lynnigans!