Seventeen

Maddie had a big birthday today.  Yes, she's finally turning... 

It was a pretty nice day today.  She had a few friends over, and the entire theme of the afternoon was board games.  And I love that idea.  One of the greatest things you can do with friends is a simple thing:  gather around a board game or have a card game ready, and just spend some time playing.  

You can see here that Maddie had her Polaroid camera ready to take a few pictures from her birthday gathering.  She's got an app on her phone that allows her to collect those photos taken and make digital copies:

And of course there was time for a selfie with her phone as well.  The girls were playing games her for about four or five hours this afternoon, and it was super nice.

There were all the traditional moments of a birthday party, including pizza and decorations and birthday presents.  There were also cards made and signed by her friends, some of them handmade and very nice.

We had gotten Maddie a few things, including an Funko Pop Alligator Loki, and new Mad-libs because she's been having so much fun with those lately.  

We also got her the same exact box of pastels that we saw the chalk artist use last week when we were speaking with her.  She brought out the box to show us, and we were able to find it online easily, get the same exact one, and wrap that up for her birthday.  

Maddie was really enjoying seeing this lady's work, visiting about three times over the course of the week just to come up and see her.  

But here's the neat thing we got for her, the "main event" sort of thing:

It was an iPad.  We're going to put this art program on there and she'll be able to do some creative work once we get that pen.  We'll get that soon.  But she was pretty excited to get a new iPad.  She'll have fun with that.

It was a really nice time!  The girls were playing games, eating, sharing, opening presents, and just enjoying the summer afternoon together.  After all the noise of last week, and all the activity next week, it's just good to sit back and relax and have a quiet afternoon together!

As always, Mom did so well with decorations and preparations.  She had a card-theme going, with cupcakes she made, table cloth and the wall hangings.  Maddie blew up the balloons too, which are still hanging up there now. 

It was a good day today.  One of her friends stayed even later, and that's okay.  Maddie had a good day today, a really nice one.  She's officially seventeen!