Maddie's 6th Birthday!

My Maddie Jane turned 6 years old last week. Happy Birthday to my big girl, who of course, is growing too fast.

On her birthday, we went to the Wacky Warehouse for some ball-pit fun, followed by dinner at the adjoining pub. We then went home for cake and presents. Our present to her this year was a doll house. I won this dollhouse at the local auction house a month or two ago. (I promise to blog about the auction house soon, because now I am hooked!) I won it for only 20 pounds which is less than $40! I was so excited! It looks like it was hand-made with love. I hope that Maddie and I can have some good mommy-daughter bonding time as we play with it, fill it, and maybe even give it a make-over!

Anyway, last Saturday we had her birthday party here at the house. We invited 6 of her friends, and we kept it to only girls this year. Maddie wanted to have a pony party, so we thought we would keep it girlie.

Can I just tell you... inviting only the girls was the best idea we have had in a long time! No offense to the boys at Maddie's school, BUT this party was so calm and enjoyable. We started off with a fun-foam craft. The girls sat and worked on their crafts for about a half-hour! (When I tried doing a craft with boys at previous parties, they only had the patience to last about 5 minutes!) After the craft, the girls had fun playing dress-up and then we ate lunch. Again, the girls sat and talked and talked and ate.... it took them a half-hour just to eat their lunch! (With the boys here, they would have eaten in about 10 minutes so they could then run around the house some more!) We played some fun games like Pass the Parcel, Pin the Tail on the Pony (Tim and Maddie decorated the game themselves), and Horse, Horse, Pony (like Duck, Duck, Goose). We then had cake and ice-cream. Here is the pony cake that I made for the party. It took me way too long, but I like the challenge!

We wrapped the party up with the girls watching Barbie & the Three Musketeers, as requested by the birthday girl.

Previous parties that we've had here at the house seemed to last forever, but this party felt like a breeze! Maddie said it was her best birthday party ever (which is exactly what she said last year, and will probably say again next year). I'm just glad she had fun.

I had to include this picture of Collin. He was able to grab the Cheetos off the counter and was helping himself after the party was over. I guess it was a fun day for us all.

Stonehenge and Avebury

We finished up our trip down south by driving to see Stonehenge. Friends of our from here had warned us that it wasn't quite as impressive as they had hoped because it just sits there on the side of the highway. But, we didn't feel that way at all. As we approached and spotted Stonehenge, we both became very excited. Now passing that enthusiasm onto the kids wasn't quite as easy.....

When we arrived, we were all supplied with headphones to listen to some background information about Stonehenge. Unfortunately, the cold, rainy weather was quite a distraction. We certainly didn't feel like lingering. But we did learn and observe a few new things like: Did you know that there were three construction periods to build the stone portion of Stonehenge? We were also able to observe the "tongue & groove" method that was used to hold the top stones in place (you can see an example in this picture on top of the tallest stone). I had previously learned that these stones were brought here from hundreds of miles away, but it was quite another thing to see the stones and consider that fact. We also learned that the circle serves as a calendar of sorts.We were also able to observe other stones outside the circle that had significance (like the slaughter stone), and the mounds that were scattered throughout the surrounding area (they looked like man-made hills). Driving away, we spotted a house that had a mound in the front yard and one in the back! I wish I had taken a picture.... ah, the mystery!

After our time at Stonehenge, we drove about 45 minutes north to another stone circle that predates Stonehenge by 500 years, called Avebury. (When we got there and told the kids what we were doing, Tim whined, "Another stone circle??!!" What a very terrible life he has!)

Here the stones are not roped off, so the kids could get an up close look. This stone circle is much larger than Stonehenge, and actually surrounds the whole village. In fact, it is the only stone circle in the world that has a pub within it! Here are a few up-close pictures, and I found this picture on-line. The aerial perspective shows how large this circle really is. We had a great trip. There was a lot of driving and a lot of whining and a lot of money spent, but it's always worth it. My kids have seen Stonehenge. I really have to pinch myself sometimes!