Our Serbian Story: Finally...A Party of Her Own

Poor Virginia. She had the misfortune of being born three years and one week, exactly, after her older brother, Graham. Because her Mother is clever (and perhaps a little lazy), the poor thing has had to share a birthday party with Graham every year of her life -- until this year, that is. I figured that I would keep trying to get away with combining their birthday parties until she started to complain about it, and lo and behold, this was the year that she wised up and decided that she deserved her own party. Actually, truth be told, she initially said that she wanted her own party, but then changed her mind, apparently having decided that it was pretty cool to have her friends AND Graham's friends come to her birthday party. However, when I discovered that the place I had in mind for their party was closed for renovations, I went to "Plan B," which was to have separate parties for both of them. Plan B worked out really well, although I'm exhausted from having now thrown two birthday parties over the past seven days.

As I shared last week, Graham's party was last Sunday, and seemed to be enjoyed by all. Virginia's party was today. We had about 15 of her little school friends over, and had planned to have pizza, cake and watch one of Virginia's favorite movies, Camp Rock. This morning, however, Virginia changed her mind about what she wanted to do at the party, and so instead of watching a movie, we played games. The old-fashioned kind of birthday party games that people my age played at their birthday parties in the 1970s. Pin the tail on the donkey, freeze, hot potato. It was great. It really was. The pizza and cake were good too (oh, as for the cake -- Betty Crocker out of the box -- the kids couldn't get enough of it!!). Virginia got lots of new fun toys and some clothes, and despite my week-long lamentations over my baby turning seven, we all managed to have a great time celebrating her birthday.

Here are some pics from the day: