Seven on the 7th! Happy Birthday Junie!

"Seven on the 7th" is a phrase that Lisa coined as a leadup to Junie's Golden Birthday! This year her party was held on the big day itself at Cool Waters, a water park run by Milwaukee County.  The day started with a full 7 hours of College for Kids at UWM, where Junie took a treat to each of her three classes. Then we picked up the kids, braved horrendous State Fair and Brewers traffic, and headed to the waterpark!

 The party started with ninety minutes of good ole fashioned waterpark fun, as we sent the kids out to enjoy the water on a gorgeous summer day!

Here's a pic of YaYa, the other half of our "Bookends"!

 Some of her friends from school:

Smiley and LuLu mastered the obstacle area:

 Lisa's stepsister's daughter joined in the fun!

Here's Junie and her bestie Temps!

Me and my girl!

 YaYa trying on Grandma's shades:

Ignore the big guy in the picture:  here's me after going down the tube slide with Junie! I went down the slide with three of my four (YaYa declined my offer, probably because I had turned her down earlier when fixing up the party area)

At 6:30 dinner was served

Only Junie was allowed to have pizza, and we put a candle in it and used it as to sing "Happy Birthday" :)

Then, while waiting on desert, Junie opened her gifts (note: my sister, her Godmother, had mailed her a gift and card earlier in the week)

 At one of his classes at UWM Smiley hand sewed a silver pillow and puppet for his sister! Man was she thrilled!

 Here are her other spectacular gifts:

Then it was on to our gifts for her. No, her facial expressions are not for the camera. They were spontaneous.

This one was just from Daddy :)

Then the big gift. Paid for, as was the party, through the hard work of Mama Bear. 

 Yup, she got her very own tablet and headphones. For months she's been moping that "Everyone has electricity [electronics] but me!" - what a great kid quote - so now she has some "electricity" of her own :)

She had one more gift to open (her maternal grandmother's)

And then it was time to tidy up while the kids enjoyed one last hour in the pool!


 Here's the treat the park provided (the stuff inside we put together) before heading home.

Once home, Junie used me as a punching bag: 

And I took her with me on a late night (well, 9:30) run to the grocery store as a special treat. She commented on how she wasn't used to seeing stars in the sky, given her bedtime, which was cute. 

Oh, btw: Lisa made a great dessert for the party, a blue pudding "sea" with a graham cracker crumb "beach" on which a Teddy Graham sat on a blanket made of a sour strip, all beneath the blessed shade of a cocktail umbrella and with a life preserver floating nearby. 

 Unfortunately, the heat of the day and the traffic jam that delayed our arrival at the park caused the project to go wonky, and Lisa threw them all out rather than give them to the guests and have them think she couldn't pull off a great dessert. These pics are the last glimpses of the treat - and please, keep in mind they are far from what they looked like at their peak.

So there you have it. My Junie - aka my Lump, my Ginger, my Bookend, my baby doll angel cakes honey bunches of oats is seven. I can't believe it. I'm actually near the point of shedding tears here, so I'm going to sign off now.

Happy Birthday Baby. May you celebrate a hundred more!