The Birthday Girl

Thursday morning Elinor and I went on a twelve year-old birthday date to get her ears pierced. 

 Elinor can be known to overreact at times, so I was pleasantly surprised that she was quite relaxed and didn't display a case of nerves.  I think I was more nervous than she was.

So pretty.  In our family we've set twelve years old as the age to get ears pierced.  I know most girls get ears pierced earlier than that, but one of the advantages I've found of waiting till they are a bit older is that the girls can totally take care of cleaning their ears and taking care of their earrings themselves. 

Of course Peter joined us on our outing. 
This is a question for the extended Fox family-- Does anyone besides me see a resemblance between Elinor and McKenna?  I think they are both so beautiful and their facial features are similar. 

Daddy joined us for lunch at Chick-Fil-A.  I know-- we're so fancy.  Speaking of resemblances, can you tell that Peter is Abe's son?

That evening we had a very informal birthday party for Els.  Our good friends McKinley and Anders joined us while their mom was involved with Clark's robotics team downtown.  The little kids were all being monkeys in this picture. 
Elinor requested baked potato soup for her birthday dinner.  It is a rather a time-consuming soup to make and I made her a really tasty batch.  I hope that makes up for the fact that when it came time to bake her a cake I realized I had no cake mix.  And not wanting to make a cake from scratch, I called a neighbor and bummed a cake mix off her.  Then I wanted to frost it pretty, but when I tried to get it out of the glass pan the cake totally broke.  It was pretty much the ugliest, most pathetic birthday cake ever. 

Oh well. 

Time for presents.  She got her ears pierced and I took her to buy make-up as our gifts to her.  I had no idea what was in the other bags the other kids had prepared earlier in the day.

George gave her his alligator.

Cannon gave her his stuffed owl.

Faith made a very nice card for her.

McKinley gave her a cute bag.  I know they don't look like they are the same age, but they are.  Mac is a very good friend of Elinor's.

Elinor went to Young Women's for the first time today and she was so excited.  She has wonderful leaders and we look forward to watching her continue to grow and develop into a beautiful young woman.  Happy birthday, Elinor!  We love you!